DE102014102531A1 - Method for operating a household appliance and system with such a household appliance - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for operating a domestic appliance (10), wherein the image of coded information is recorded by means of a mobile telephone (14) comprising a camera and the coded information or user data (20) included therefrom is transmitted to the household appliance (10), wherein the household appliance (10) extracts from the coded information the user data comprised thereof and takes it into an internal memory (22) or takes over the directly received user data (20) into the internal memory (22) and wherein the household appliance (10) stores the user data ( 20) is interpreted as an automatic program (30) and processed as an automatic program (30).

Description

The invention relates to a method for operating a household appliance, for example a household appliance in the form of a washing machine, a dryer, a dishwasher, a baking oven or other cooking appliances, a coffee machine or other beverage maker, etc. The invention relates to a system with such a household appliance and in the system, a home appliance operating in accordance with the method.

Washing machines, ovens and other household appliances of the type mentioned - collectively referred to as household appliances - are known per se. It is also known that such household appliances provide a steadily increasing number of automatic functions in the form of automatically running household appliance programs, which are collectively referred to as automatic programs below. As far as such automatic programs are coded electronically, they are executed by a control device of the respective household appliance. For this purpose, the control device comprises, in a manner known per se, a processing functionality in the form of or in the manner of a microprocessor as well as a memory in which the automatic program is loadable and loaded during operation. Such an automatic program specifies, for example, individual process steps when washing certain functional textiles by means of a washing machine and is retrieved during operation of the washing machine from the memory of the control device and executed stepwise. An automatic program of a baking oven specifies, for example, individual process steps in the automatic cleaning of the oven and is also retrieved during operation of the oven from memory and executed step by step.

The usable memory area for such automatic programs in the memory of the control device of the respective household appliance is necessarily limited. Nevertheless, there is often a desire on the part of a user of a domestic appliance to be able to continuously and flexibly adapt the functionality of the domestic appliance by means of additional and possibly frequently changing automatic programs. The achievable flexibility of the respective domestic appliance thus obtains an apparent limit in the form of the storage capacity of the memory of the respective control device available for reloading automatic programs.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a way for the user of the respective domestic appliance to be able to use a large number of automatic programs largely independently of the storage capacity of the memory of the respective control device.

This object is achieved by a method for operating a household appliance having the features of claim 1. In the method for operating a household appliance, it is provided that the image of coded information is recorded by means of a mobile telephone or the like comprising the camera, and the coded information or user data comprised of the coded information is transmitted to the household appliance, that the household appliance uses the coded information extracted from the user data included and taken into an internal memory or the directly received user data in the internal memory takes over and that the household appliance interprets the user data as an automatic program and processed directly or due to a user action as an automatic program.

The peculiarity of the approach presented here lies in the fact that the automatic program transmitted in each case to the household appliance is present in the form of coded information that can be detected by a mobile telephone, for example encoded information in the form of a QR code.

From the EP 2 573 634 A a method for operating a household appliance is known in which also household appliance programs can be added or changed. For this purpose, it is provided that by means of a mobile phone or the like, the respective household appliance is identified and then by means of a household appliance-specific identifier access to a database is made in the example, household appliance programs are made available for selection by the user. In this way, selected household appliance programs can then be transferred to the respective household appliance and in its memory. The mobile phone acts as an interface.

Unlike the present invention is in the from the EP 2 573 634 A known solution identifies the respective household appliance and can be done with an available identifier then access to a database of home appliance programs. This always requires a technical data accessibility of the database usually held on the Internet. By contrast, in the present invention, the household appliance programs referred to here as automatic programs are in another form, namely for example in the form of a QR code. For example, they can be included in a cookbook, instruction manuals or similar media. Access to the automatic program does not require a data connection to a remote location. It is sufficient if there is a possibility to capture and interpret the code selected in each case for coding the automatic program. This is done according to the invention with a mobile phone or a comparable mobile device and a camera included therein. The data thus acquired, ie either the automatic program in the selected coding or already the user data extracted therefrom, are transmitted to the respective domestic appliance and loaded into the memory of its control device. There, the automatic program is then available for execution. If the available memory area is exhausted when multiple automatic programs are transferred to the memory of the household appliance, there is no problem in that older automatic programs are overwritten, because even those overwritten automatic programs that are no longer directly available in the household appliance are still available to the user in his cookbook or the respective originally used medium and can be transferred back to the household appliance at any time.

When overwriting older, already in the memory of the control device befindliches automatic programs can proceed according to different strategies. On the one hand, consideration of a frequency of use comes into consideration. On the other hand or additionally, a consideration of a time of a last use comes into consideration. In an automatically formed list, the automatic programs located in the memory of the control device are arranged according to the strategy used in each case. The most recent entries of such a list point to those memory areas in the memory of the control device, in which rarely used automatic programs or automatic programs which have not been used for a long time are located. In accordance with the memory requirement of a respectively received, new automatic program, the memory area of one or more of such automatic programs can be enabled so that sufficient storage space is available for the new automatic program.

In addition, the household appliance may also include a functionality by means of which it is possible to exclude individual automatic programs from inclusion in such a hierarchically ordered list. This has the effect that such automatic programs are never overwritten when transmitting new automatic programs according to the approach presented here. As a result, a kind of write protection for individual automatic programs located in the memory of the control device is achieved.

The automatic programs can be created centrally, for example by the manufacturer of the respective household appliance. A home appliance manufacturer can create suitable automatic programs for certain household appliance types and make them available to his customers, ie a user of a respective domestic appliance, for example by having automatic programs in the form of printed media (cookbooks and the like) and / or on the Internet.

The automatic programs described here can also by third parties, so for example the user of the respective household appliance itself or "professionals", so for example renowned chefs in the case of ovens or other cooking appliances as household appliances, created. When creating automatic programs, a development environment provided by the respective household appliance manufacturer is used. For example, this development environment makes all the features included in a particular type of home appliance available in a simple, clear, and intuitively usable manner. Then, by means of the development environment, individual functions can be selected and brought into a respectively desired sequence (for example, heating, maintenance, grilling, heating, etc.) and additionally optionally parameterized. In this way, in an automatic program for an oven, for example, a duration and a target temperature of a first heating phase, a duration of a rest phase, a duration of a second heating phase with a target temperature and a parameterization of a temperature profile (for example, linear or exponential), etc. can be specified , When the automatic program creation is completed in this way, the development environment generates a coded form of the automatic program thus created. The coded form of the newly created automatic program is then, for example, the representation of the automatic program in the form of a QR code. This can be made available on the Internet or be included in a cookbook or the like. In this way, potential users can gain access to the automatic program and use this with their home appliance by detecting the QR code using the mobile phone of the user of the respective household appliance and - as described above - is transferred to the household appliance.

The above object is also achieved with a system having at least one household appliance and at least one mobile telephone, wherein the household appliance the mobile phone in a manner cooperate to carry out a method of the kind described here and hereinafter. The household appliance and the mobile telephone usually carry out functions implemented in software, so that the corresponding computer programs function as means for carrying out the method. The invention is therefore also a computer program with program code instructions that can be executed by a computer, namely, on the one hand, a computer program held on the side of the household appliance and, on the other hand, a computer program held on the mobile phone side, and finally also a storage medium with at least one such computer program.

Advantageous embodiments and further developments of the invention will become apparent from the following dependent claims and / or from an implementation of one or more features of claim 1 and the claims based thereon, in particular in the form of software. In the claims used in the claims point to the further development of the subject of the main claim by the features of the respective subclaim. They should not be construed as a waiver of obtaining independent, objective protection for the feature combinations of the dependent claims. Furthermore, with a view to an interpretation of the claims in a closer specification of a feature in a subordinate claim, it is to be assumed that such a restriction does not exist in the respective preceding claims. Finally, it should be noted that the method specified here can also be developed according to the dependent device claims and vice versa.

An embodiment of the invention is shown purely schematically in the drawings and will be described in more detail below. Corresponding objects or elements are provided in all figures with the same reference numerals. The or each embodiment is not to be understood as limiting the invention. Rather, in the context of the present disclosure, changes or variants are possible, in particular those, for example, by combination or modification of individual in conjunction with the described in the general or specific description part and in the claims and / or drawings features or elements or Process steps for the expert in terms of solving the problem can be removed and lead to a new subject or to new process steps or process steps.

Show it

1 a schematic illustration of the approach proposed here for transmitting coded in a two-dimensional code automatic programs to a household appliance,

2 a QR code as an example of a two-dimensional code,

3 the transmission of an automatic program to a household appliance and the household appliance with further details as well

4 a schematic illustration of ways to create and provide coded in a two-dimensional code automatic programs.

The representation in 1 shows - very simplified - a household appliance 10 , which is shown here as an example - but without waiving any further generality - as an oven, as well as a user 12 of the household appliance 10 , The representation in 1 shows a snapshot in the application of the approach proposed below and thus also a schematic representation of the executed within the proposed approach steps. After that, the user detects 12 by means of a mobile phone 14 , usually a mobile phone 14 in the form of a so-called smartphone or the like, the image of encoded information. At the in 1 In the situation shown, the image of encoded information is in a cookbook 16 or similar. The coded information may be in the form of a two-dimensional code, for example, in particular a so-called QR code 18 ( 2 ) in the respective medium, here the cookbook 16 to be included.

The following description is in the interest of better readability - but also without waiving a broader universality - using the example of a QR code 18 as each evaluated two-dimensional code. Instead of the term QR code 18 Accordingly, the more general term "two-dimensional code" should also be read along with it, and the two-dimensional codes in question include in particular barcodes and matrix codes. Instead of a mobile phone 14 Also comes every other mobile device, which one for capturing the respective QR code 18 suitable Camera, in consideration, so for example a so-called tablet computer or a computer in the form of a notebook.

The user 12 So captures with his mobile phone 14 for example, in a cookbook 16 located QR code 18 and the payload included in the information thus encoded 20 be wireless to the home appliance 10 transmitted. In the transmission of user data 20 to the household appliance 10 comes into consideration that already the mobile phone 14 the one from the QR code 18 included user data 20 extracted and only the payload 20 wirelessly to the household appliance 10 transmitted. Additionally or alternatively, it is also considered that the mobile phone 14 the QR code 18 (and hence the QR code 18 included user data 20 ) wirelessly to the household appliance 10 transmitted, the household appliance 10 the extraction of user data 20 from the received QR code 18 takes over. In this way, directly or indirectly to the household appliance 10 reaching user data 20 be in an internal memory 22 ( 3 ) of the household appliance 10 accepted. Subsequently, the household appliance 10 the user data 20 as automatically running operating program (automatic program 30 ; 3 ) interpret and so the home appliance 10 transmitted automatic program 30 work off, for example, to trigger a special sequence of a cooking process in the oven.

The representation in 3 illustrates the previously described relationships in a different way. At the bottom of the illustration are three QR codes 18 shown. This illustrates that different media may be considered as the basis for using the approach described herein. A QR code 18 can be, for example, in a cookbook 16 or in an operating manual 24 or in the form of a representation on a screen 26 TV, computer, etc.). The respective QR code 18 comes with one from the mobile phone 14 captured camera (not shown) and by means of a on the mobile phone 14 running and accordingly loaded into a local memory software application (computer program, not shown) to the respective household appliance 10 namely a control device 28 of the household appliance 10 transfer. The transfer, either a transfer of the image of the respective QR code 18 or a transmission of the respective QR code 18 included user data 20 , as a result, results in a detected QR code 18 coded automatic program 30 in the store 22 the control device 28 is loaded. This is done by means of one of the control device 28 executed and also not shown software application (computer program). In the storage room 22 is the new automatic program 30 by means of one of the control device 28 included processing unit 32 in the form of or in the manner of a microprocessor in a conventional manner feasible. When executing an automatic program 30 results in a control of individual from the respective household appliance 10 comprehensive aggregates, for example, a control of a heating unit 34 , a control of a steam generator 36 , a control of a display device 38 and so on.

An automatic program 30 for an oven, for example, may have the following structure. 1. Hot air, up to, 120 ° HS (120); 2nd message: "insert court" M ("insert court"); 3. wait for door contact TK (); 4. Set Timer_1 to 15 minutes Set T1 (900); 5. Steam DS (); 6. Set Timer_2 to 15 minutes Set T2 (900); 7. Steam DS (); 8. Hot air, up to, 90 ° HS (90); 9. set Timer_3 to 10 minutes Set T3 (600); 10. message: "apply glaze" M ("apply glaze"); 11. Radio message to steamer, ready FK (1); 12. wait for door contact TK (); 13. Hot air, off HS (0); 14. Grill, until, 230 ° GR (230); 15. Set Timer_4 to 7 minutes Set T4 (420); 16. Grill, off GR (0); 17. Message: "Baking completed" M ("baking finished"); 18th end End

Here, in the left column with increasing natural numbers is a sequence of the individual functions of the automatic program 30 specified. In the middle column are the individual functions of the automatic program 30 specified in a readable pseudocode. In the right column are the individual functions of the automatic program 30 given as an example in a short form, as they are for the specification of individual callable functionalities of the respective household appliance 10 , so for example for controlling a heating unit 34 , be considered. The specification of the respective automatic program 30 the abbreviated form is based on the respective coding and a respectively recorded QR code 18 Thus, for example, includes a representation of an automatic program 30 in the form of individual commands in the short form outlined above. The payload 20 of the QR code 18 can thus directly as an automatic program 30 in the store 22 the control device 28 are loaded and then there for execution by means of the processing unit 32 to disposal.

The representation in 4 illustrates different possibilities for the provision of such automatic programs 30 So for the provision of such automatic programs 30 underlying encoded form, and here without waiving any further generality, it is always assumed that the provision of one in a household appliance 10 loadable automatic program 30 in the form of a QR code 18 he follows. For the explanation of the representation in 4 can therefore the terms automatic program 30 and QR code 18 be used synonymously, because any representation of a QR code 18 includes in the form of user data 20 such a QR code 18 exactly an automatic program 30 ,

Such automatic programs 30 can from a home appliance manufacturer 40 created and made available. For example, there are cookbooks 16 or other media used by the appliance manufacturer 40 be issued and automatic programs 30 in the form of one or more QR codes 18 include. The user 12 Can use these media, for example, buy, borrow or along with the purchase of a household appliance 10 receive. Then the user can 12 study the recipes or other instructions described there and select them according to their needs. Following such a selection, the user detects 12 with his mobile phone 14 the associated QR code 18 , so that the so coded automatic program 30 in the manner described above to the respective household appliance 10 arrives. Another possibility is that the appliance manufacturer 40 automatic programs 30 in the form of one or more QR codes 18 in a database 42 , for example, an accessible database on the Internet 42 , accessible to a user 12 of a household appliance 10 with the purchase of a household appliance 10 or access according to other criteria. Even then the user can 12 from the so made available automatic programs 30 select one by the automatic program 30 comprehensive QR code 18 with the mobile phone 14 is detected and as a result the thus coded automatic program 30 to the respective household appliance 10 arrives.

The user 12 is not on existing automatic programs 30 limited and can in turn automatic programs 30 create. For this the user uses 12 a suitable development environment 44 the type described above and transmits an automatic program created by him 30 using one of the development environment 44 included or separate access software into the database 42 , That way, users can 12 of a respective household appliance 10 support one another by one by one user 12 created automatic program 30 also to other users 12 is made available.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMBERS

10

 household appliance

12

 user

14

 mobile phone

16

 cookbook

18

 QR code

20

 User data (of the QR code)

22

 Storage

24

 operating manual

26

 screen

28

 control device

30

 automatic program

32

 Processing unit (of household appliance, e.g., microprocessor)

34

 heater

36

 steam generator

38

 display

40

 Appliances Manufacturer

42

 database

44

 development environment

QUOTES INCLUDE IN THE DESCRIPTION

This list of the documents listed by the applicant has been generated automatically and is included solely for the better information of the reader. The list is not part of the German patent or utility model application. The DPMA assumes no liability for any errors or omissions.

Cited patent literature

• EP 2573634 A [0007, 0008]

Claims (7)

Method for operating a household appliance ( 10 ), whereby by means of a mobile phone comprising a camera ( 14 ) the image of a coded information is recorded and the coded information or user data comprised of the coded information ( 20 ) to the household appliance ( 10 ), the household appliance ( 10 ) extracted from the coded information the user data included therefrom and into an internal memory ( 22 ) or the immediately received user data ( 20 ) into the internal memory ( 22 ) and where the household appliance ( 10 ) the user data ( 20 ) as an automatic program ( 30 ) and as an automatic program ( 30 ). Method according to claim 1, wherein the domestic appliance ( 10 ) for each automatic program ( 30 ) manages a counter and thus a frequency of use of the respective automatic program ( 30 ) and when receiving new automatic programs ( 30 ) already in memory ( 22 ) existing automatic programs ( 30 ) ordered by their frequency of use and rarely used automatic programs ( 30 ) be overwritten first. Method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the domestic appliance ( 10 ) for each automatic program ( 30 ) one at each use of the automatic program ( 30 ) updated time stamp and thus a time of a last use of the respective automatic program ( 30 ) and when receiving new automatic programs ( 30 ) already in memory ( 22 ) existing automatic programs ( 30 ) are sorted according to their last use and automatic programs that have not been used for a long time ( 30 ) be overwritten first. Method according to claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein the domestic appliance ( 10 ) a marking of individual automatic programs ( 30 ), which overwrites a marked automatic program ( 30 ) in the internal memory ( 22 ) prevented. Household appliance ( 10 ) with means ( 22 . 28 . 32 ) for carrying out the method according to one of the preceding claims. System with a household appliance ( 10 ) according to claim 5 and a mobile telephone ( 14 ) with a camera and means for acquiring the coded information as well as for transmitting the coded information or the user data comprised by the coded information ( 20 ) to the household appliance ( 10 ), wherein by means of the system, a method according to any one of claims 1 to 4 is executable. A computer program comprising program code means for carrying out all the steps of any one of claims 1 to 4 when the computer program is controlled by a control device ( 28 ) of a household appliance ( 10 ) or a mobile phone ( 14 ) is carried out, as means for carrying out the method according to one of claims 1 to 4.

Images