SMART ACK Concept and Roles

SMART ACK reduces the response time between the transmission of the request from the sensor and the reception of the response by the sensor by providing so called SMART ACK Mailboxes where the updates intended for the sensor might be proactively stored. The sensor might check the content of its Mailbox at any time and immediately retrieve the content without waiting for the User Application.

Within the scope of the SMART ACK specification, the following roles are defined:

• SMART ACK Sensor
  The SMART ACK Sensor is an energy-constrained device that needs to occasionally receive information from another device in the network which is implementing the SMART ACK Controller functionality.
  
  

• SMART ACK Controller
  The SMART ACK Controller is a not energy-constrained device that provides the information for the SMART ACK Sensor and manages the communication with the SMART ACK Sensor.
  
  

• SMART ACK Postmaster
  The SMART ACK Postmaster is a not energy-constrained device which implements the Mailbox from which the SMART ACK Sensor can retrieve the information.
  The SMART ACK Sensor communicates directly with the SMART ACK Postmaster (without a repeater in between these two devices).
  The SMART ACK Postmaster function might be implemented on the same device as the SMART ACK Controller functionality (this is called SMART ACK Direct Mode) or on a repeater (this is called SMART ACK Repeater Mode).

The illustration below shows these roles.

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SMART ACK Roles