Patent ID: 6885287

Claim:
A communication method for an electronic shelf label (ESL) system utilizing frames divided into a plurality of timeslots, the method comprising the steps of: storing an assignment of one of the timeslots of the plurality of timeslots to an ESL in a host computer; transmitting a message to the ESL by the host computer, said message transmitted by one of a plurality of communication base stations (CBSs) on the assigned timeslots of a frame, each of the plurality of CBSs is assigned to one or more independent timeslots; waiting for a response to the message; if no response is received by the host computer, automatically transmitting a find message, said find message transmitted by each of the plurality of CBSs all of the plurality of timeslots of a frame; if a response to the find message is received, logging which CBS or CBSs received the response and logging the timeslot in which the response was received.