According to one or more embodiments of the present disclosure, a method for autonomously adapting a discovery packet (DP) transmission frequency comprises: calculating, by an electronic processor of a device of a plurality of devices in a system, a DP transmission cycle “N”, wherein the calculating further comprises: broadcasting, by the device, its own observed device number in a DP; decoding, by the electronic processor of the device, an observed device number from DPs of each detectable device of the plurality of devices in the system; computing, by the electronic processor of the device, a final observed device number for the system wherein the final observed device number is a maximum (“M”) of its own observed device number and all decoded observed device numbers from DPs of the detectable devices; and based on the computed maximum (“M”), determining, by the electronic processor of the device, the DP transmission cycle “N”.