This Canon patent is just one of many recently reported by CanonWatch.
Canon seems to be very active lately in filing patents, from the obscure to the downright vague, as the CanonWatch blog has found. A few weeks ago, we got word Canon filed a patent for a 400mm f/5.6 mirror lens. Just before the year ended, there’s news of another freshly filed patent that would be very useful to photographers. It involves better operation and less battery consumption during wireless communication.
For photographers who do a lot of wireless transferring of files from DSLRs to their computers or smartphones, this would sure be a matter of interest and importance. CanonWatch thinks it’s possible for the Canon patent EP20170176556 to soon make it to production, possibly with the EOS 7D Mark III.
Here’s the abstract for the patent as reported by CanonWatch:
“A communication apparatus capable of achieving both of improvement in operability and suppression of battery consumption. A camera as the communication apparatus wirelessly communicates with one of a plurality of external devices including a remote controller and a smartphone. The state of the camera is switched between an operating state and a power-saving state in which power consumption is smaller than in the operating state. In the power-saving state, when a connection request is received from the remote controller as a device for non-continuous connection, a process for establishing a connection with the remote controller is started, and the camera is shifted to the operating state. In the power-saving state, when a connection request is received from the smartphone as a device for continuous connection, a process for establishing a connection with the smartphone is started, and the camera is not shifted to the operating state.”
There you have it – a patent for Canon cameras to switch from an operating state to a power-saving state during wireless connection with a smartphone. Anything that would make a camera’s battery last longer is definitely good in every photographer’s book. Let’s all stay tuned for developments on this useful patent!