Google Inc.

Michael John Mitchell

Daniel Adam Warren

Arun Prakash Raghupathy

Brian Mitchell Silverstein

Gwendolyn Van Der Linden

Nathan Lentz

Ford Rylander

Victor Kai Liu

William Raeming Dong

Alexander Schoenen

Hui-Fang Lai

HungYang Lee

Adrian Shanov

Taw Lim

Lim Taw

Lai Hui-Fang

Lee Hung Yang

A smart-home device may include a main power rail that provides power to components of the smart-home device; an integrator coupled to the main power rail that stores energy on an energy-storage device, where the energy stored on the energy-storage device is representative of an amount an amount of power provided to the smart-home device through the main power rail during an integration cycle of the integrator; and a counter that stores a number of integration cycles performed by the integrator during a time interval, where a total amount of power provided to the smart-home device through the main power rail during the time interval is represented by: (1) the number of integration cycles performed by the integrator during the time interval; and (2) the energy stored on the energy-storage device.

Measuring dissipated electrical power on a power rail

A method of powering a controller using an intermediate device with power from an environmental system may include receiving current from a power wire from the environmental system; passing the current from the power wire to a second command wire from the controller; monitoring the current flowing between the power wire and the second command wire while the current is below a threshold indicative of an amount of current used to power the controller from the environmental system; detecting when the current flowing between the power wire and the second command wire exceeds the threshold indicating that the controller is sending a command to the environmental system to perform the function; and sending a command to environmental system using a first command wire from the environmental system after detecting that the current exceeds the threshold.

Power extender for smart-home controllers using 2-wire communication

A smart-home device may include a housing, a printed circuit board (PCB) inside the housing, an environmental sensor mounted to the PCB inside the housing, and a gasket that encloses the environmental sensor inside the housing to isolate the environmental sensor from an atmosphere inside of the housing while allowing an atmosphere outside of the housing to enter the gasket such that the environmental sensor can measure an aspect of the atmosphere outside of the housing.

Temperature sensor isolation in smart-home devices

A smart-home device may include a temperature sensor, energy-consuming subsystems, and processors programmed to receive a temperature measurement from the temperature sensor for an ambient environment surrounding the temperature sensor; receive inputs from the energy-consuming subsystems that indicate power-consuming activities of the energy-consuming subsystems; providing the inputs from the energy-consuming subsystems to a model that is trained to calculate an effect of the power-consuming activity of the energy-consuming subsystems on the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor; and calculating an estimate of the temperature of the ambient environment by compensating the temperature measurement from the temperature sensor with using the effect of the power-consuming activity of the energy-consuming subsystems.

Compensation for internal power dissipation in ambient room temperature estimation

A smart-home device may include an energy-storage element that stores energy harvested from an environmental system; a power wire connector and a return wire connector; and switching elements configured to operate in a first state where the switching elements create a connection between the power and the return; and a second state where the switching elements interrupt the connection between the power and return. The smart-home device may also include a circuit that controls the switching elements, where the circuit is configured to detect a zero-crossing of a current received through the power wire connector; wait for a first time interval after the zero-crossing is detected; after an expiration of the first time interval, enable active power stealing for a second time interval; and after an expiration of the second time interval, disable active power stealing.

Timing for power-stealing circuits in smart-home devices

A smart-home device may include a plurality of wire connectors configured to receive a plurality of signals from an environmental system; a plurality of diodes configured to receive the plurality of signals from the plurality of wire connectors, wherein at least two of the plurality of diodes have different voltage drops; and a power-stealing circuit that is configured to receive outputs of the plurality of diodes and to steal power through one of the plurality of wire connectors that is determined at least in part by the different voltage drops.

Dynamic input selection for power-stealing smart-home devices

In a method for superimposed conveyance of data and electrical power, a first switch can cycle to convey the electric power and data from a first device. Binary digits of the data from the first device can be represented by transitions, of a voltage at a node of a second device, between a first voltage and a second voltage. A second switch can cycle to convey data from the second device. Binary digits of the data from the second device can be represented by transitions, of a current through a component of the first device, between being less than a threshold and being greater than the threshold. A voltage regulator of the second device can provide, in response to the voltage at the node being within a range of voltages that includes the first voltage and the second voltage, the electrical power to one or more components.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Michael John Mitchell