Typically, hardware devices, such as networking devices, include status indicators that display the status of ports and other elements related to the device.  Each status indicator includes a status light that is carried by a plastic tube or pipe.  Large amounts of plastic are typically involved in the manufacture of port status plastic tubes for networking devices worldwide.  Techniques described herein provide for a universal status light that can be provided for networking devices in which the universal status light provides for merging port status indicators and general status indicators into a single status indicator, which may help to reduce plastic consumption and CO2 emissions

Bullock, Chris

Huang, Chih-Tsung

Huang, Wei-Jen

Vempati, Ajay Ranjith

English

Technical Disclosure Common

Technical Disclosure Commons Defensive Publications Series January 2024 UNIVERSAL STATUS LIGHT Chih-Tsung Huang Chris Bullock Ajay Ranjith Vempati Wei-Jen Huang Follow this and additional works at: https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series Recommended Citation Huang, Chih-Tsung; Bullock, Chris; Vempati, Ajay Ranjith; and Huang, Wei-Jen, "UNIVERSAL STATUS LIGHT", Technical Disclosure Commons, (January 29, 2024) https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/6636 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Technical Disclosure Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Defensive Publications Series by an authorized administrator of Technical Disclosure Commons.  1 6972 UNIVERSAL STATUS LIGHT  AUTHORS:   Chih-Tsung Huang Chris Bullock Ajay Ranjith Vempati Wei-Jen Huang   ABSTRACT Typically, hardware devices, such as networking devices, include status indicators that display the status of ports and other elements related to the device.  Each status indicator includes a status light that is carried by a plastic tube or pipe.  Large amounts of plastic are typically involved in the manufacture of port status plastic tubes for networking devices worldwide.  Techniques described herein provide for a universal status light that can be provided for networking devices in which the universal status light provides for merging port status indicators and general status indicators into a single status indicator, which may help to reduce plastic consumption and CO2 emissions.  DETAILED DESCRIPTION Many organizations have environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals to help the organizations effectively manage their impact on society and the environment.  For example, a company or organization may have an ESG goal to use recycled content for 50% of their products (by weight).  Companies may meet or exceed ESG goals by reducing and removing plastic where possible. Status lights are an integral part of hardware.  Figure 1, below, illustrates an example of a network switch.   Figure 1: Example Network Switch 2Huang et al.: UNIVERSAL STATUS LIGHTPublished by Technical Disclosure Commons, 2024 2 6972  As illustrated in Figure 1, the typical switch has port status and general status indicators.   Port status lights are carried by light pipes.  Figure 2, below, illustrates examples of light transmitted through plastic pipes, with and without support, and an example of a fan light.    Figure 2: Examples of Light Transmitted Through Pipes  As illustrated in Figure 2, different weights correspond to the different types of pipes depending on the material used to make the pipe and whether support is included with the pipe. Although customers cannot see the long plastic tubes that carry the light, customers are able to see the light at the end of the tube.  Figure 3, below, illustrates examples of the plastic required for the lighting and the light that customers see at the end of the tube.   Figure 3: Example Light at the End of the Tube  Assuming typical port light plastic weights 0.37g, Figure 4, below, shows the weight in kilograms (kg) of port light plastics used annually worldwide. 3Defensive Publications Series, Art. 6636 [2024]https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/6636 3 6972  Figure 4: Table Illustrating Annual Weight of Port Status Plastic  Figure 5, below, is a chart illustrating the annual weight of the port light plastics contributed by a company that has a 40% port share of the ports worldwide.   Figure 5: Chart Illustrating Weight of Port Status Plastic for a Company with 40% Share  In fiscal year 2023, the total plastic for a company with a 40% port share is approximately 2440 Megagram (Mg).  Using the worldwide weight for 2023 of 279Mg * 40% / 2440 Mg, it can be determined that by removing port status plastic, the company can remove 4.6% of product plastic. Figure 6, below, illustrates power consumed per year with a power consumption of 30mW per light emitting diode (LED) at a 1% toggle rate.   Figure 6: Chart Illustrating Yearly Power Consumption  The numbers in the chart illustrated in Figure 6 scale linearly.  In other words, if the toggle rate is 10%, the numbers will be 10 times higher.  Figure 7, below, is a chart illustrating the minimal CO2e savings for the company with the 40% port share.  4Huang et al.: UNIVERSAL STATUS LIGHTPublished by Technical Disclosure Commons, 2024 4 6972  Figure 7: Chart Illustrating Minimal CO2e Savings  For 2023, the CO2e produced is equivalent to the Co2e produced by charging 112,830,609,713 smartphones. Techniques described herein provide for a universal status light that merges port status and general status into one universal status.  Merging the port status light and the general status light into a universal status light can remove significant amounts of plastic from products and devices. Figure 8, below, illustrates a switch in which the port status, general status, fan status, and beacon status are merged into one universal status indicator/light.   Figure 8: Example Universal Status Indicator  When cabling port status is not easily visible, as illustrated below in Figure 9, a universal status light is a practical alternative to displaying a port status.   Figure 9: Example of Cabling Port Status 5Defensive Publications Series, Art. 6636 [2024]https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/6636 5 6972 Many possibilities exist for displaying a status using the universal status light described herein. Figure 10, below, illustrates one example in which all hardware equipment will have one universal status light.   Figure 10: Example Universal Status Light  The universal status light illustrated in Figure 10 may emit any range of rainbow color, emit varying intensities of light, emit a variable blinking rate, and turn off/on for one or more combinations of colors/intensities/blinking rates for one, two, three, or four times.  In addition, the hardware may have an optional identifier (e.g., radio frequency identifier (RFID), quick response (QR) code, serial number, or other code) that can be used in combination with the universal status light. Figure 11, below, illustrates an example of a current switch. 6Huang et al.: UNIVERSAL STATUS LIGHTPublished by Technical Disclosure Commons, 2024 6 6972  Figure 11: Example of Current Switch  The switch illustrated in Figure 11 includes reference number 1, which corresponds to a beacon light, reference number 2, which corresponds to a mode button, reference number 3, which corresponds to status lights, and reference number 7, which corresponds to a port light.  A switch may additionally include a fan light, which is not illustrated in FIG. 11.   The status lights illustrated by reference number 3 may include, for example, a status light, a duplex light, a speed light, a stack light, a Power over Ethernet (PoE) light, a system light, an active light, an XPS light, a standby power (S-PWR) light, a console light, and/or another type of light.  When using a universal status light as described herein, the status lights may be replaced by a single universal status light and each of the lights described in reference number 3 may be mapped into a color of the color wheel (e.g., red, 7Defensive Publications Series, Art. 6636 [2024]https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/6636 7 6972 orange, yellow, chartreuse green, green, spring green, cyan, azure, blue, violet, magenta, rose). In addition, according to techniques described herein, each of the mode/status indicators may have the following characteristics: activity, standby, and error fault.  These characteristics may be mapped into a universal status light of varying intensity, blink rate, number of times turning on/off, and any combination of one, two, or three blinks in a sequence (such as Morse code). According to techniques described herein, hardware that uses the universal status light may have an optional identifier (e.g., RFID, QR code, serial number, other code) that can be used in combination with the universal status light.  Figure 12, below, is a diagram illustrating how the universal status light may be used on conjunction with an identifier.   Figure 12: Example Integration of Universal Status Light and Identifier  According to techniques described herein, an operator may have a tablet or device that uses a camera to capture the identity of the device and the corresponding universal status light, which can trigger an application on the tablet/device to be opened.  A virtual display of the device with the corresponding information may be displayed in the application.  In addition, techniques described herein may incorporate the use of augmented reality.  In particular, the operator's hand gesture can be captured and the application will display the statistics associated with the location with the corresponding status indicated by the universal status light. 8Huang et al.: UNIVERSAL STATUS LIGHTPublished by Technical Disclosure Commons, 2024 8 6972 The application may include login software that connects the physical device automatically with a backend database containing the equipment characteristics, statistics, and information. The application can also be used to authenticate the operator via biometrics (e.g., eye, fingerprint, voice, or combinations thereof) in conjunction with second factor authentication to ensure the operator has rights to access the data. In summary, techniques described herein provide for a universal status light that merges port status and general status into one universal status, which may provide for the ability remove significant amounts of product plastic from networking devices.        9Defensive Publications Series, Art. 6636 [2024]https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/6636

UNIVERSAL STATUS LIGHT

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UNIVERSAL STATUS LIGHT

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