Patent ID: 8175073

Claim:
A method comprising: in response to an event, determining one or more parameters that are selected from a group including a sleep period and a chirp period, the sleep period and the chirp period each being a length of time; based on parameters resolved by determining the one or more parameters, determining a signal to be provided to cause a radio to draw power, for an amount of time that is based on the sleep period, at a first power level that is below a power level which is used to receive at least one data packet and that is greater than or equal to zero; upon determining that an amount of time that is based on the sleep period is expired, providing a signal for causing the radio to draw power at a second power level that is higher than the first power level and enabling the radio to identify an energy on a channel; upon identifying on the channel an energy that is higher than a predefined threshold, providing a signal for causing the radio to draw power at a third power level, the third power level being higher in level than the second power level and enabling the radio to receive a set of data from the channel; upon determining that the set of data received from the channel corresponds to a chirp packet, identifying a third amount of time that is indicated in the chirp packet and providing a signal for causing the radio to draw power, during the third amount of time, at a fourth power level below a power level which is used to receive at least one data packet that is identified by the chirp packet, the fourth power level being greater than or equal to zero, the chirp packet being a packet indicating a time of transmission of the at least one data packet; and upon determining that the third amount of time is expired, providing a signal for causing the radio to draw power at the third power level and enabling the radio to receive the at least one data packet, the radio continuing to draw power at the third power level for a period of time greater than a back-off period following the receipt of the at least one data packet, in order to transmit over the channel one or more data packets without associated chirp packets and to receive one or more data packets without corresponding chirp packets from another device or the same device that sent the at least one data packet, the back-off period being an amount of time during which the radio does not attempt to transmit on the channel.