EP0736209B1 - Remote controller pre-programmed to operate a number of apparatuses - Google Patents

Description

The present invention as it in defined in the appended claims refers to the field of the remote controllers for electronic and electromechanical apparatuses, such as television sets, video recorders, satellite receivers and the like, and particularly concerns a remote controller for such apparatuses, which has been pre-programmed at the factory to operate a number of such apparatuses.

Remote controllers are known, which are pre-programmed to act on a number of apparatuses of the described kind: generally, they use an automatic or semi-automatic search device, in order to select the apparatus which to act on. The document WO-A-9315488 discloses such a remote controller.

Generally speaking, such an automatic or semi-automatic search device is started by inserting a code by means of keys or a sequence of keys. In such a manner, the search begins after the release of a particular key, it is made to advance among the various kind of available apparatuses, by pressing one or more keys and the storing of the type of apparatus to control is achieved by pressing a particular key or combination of keys, only after the user has verified the correct response to a given control signal or a given number of control signals.

Such a procedure appears rather complex to be carried out and often the user forgets the last step and he does not store the type of apparatus which must be operated, and therefore the search has to be repeated afterwards, always starting from the first type of apparatus provided by the remote controller, type which is always the same at each beginning of programming.

Therefore, the main object of the present invention is to provide a pre-programmed remote controller of simplified use by the user.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a pre-programmed remote controller of simple and cheap construction, suitable for a mass production.

According to the present invention, a pre-programmed remote controller, in which control codes for a number of apparatuses are memorised and in which a search is carried out among the memorised codes to find out the codes related to a particular model of apparatus on which it is desired to act, is characterised in that it comprises means for the automatic memorisation of the selected model of apparatus, acting before the end of the search cycle.

The main advantage which is achieved with the pre-programmed remote controller according to the present invention consists in a notable simplification in the use of the remote controller itself by the user, caused by the fact that the operation of memorisation of the selected apparatus model is carried out in an automatic way, saving the user a further manual operation.

The present invention will be further clarified hereinbelow and other advantages will be highlighted by the description of a practical embodiment of the remote controller pre-programmed to operate a number of apparatuses, according to the present invention, this description being given by way of example on a purely illustrative and non-limiting basis, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a block diagram and shows the electronic circuit of a remote controller according to the present invention; and

Figure 2 is a flowchart which may be used to explain the operation of the remote controller of figure 1.

With reference to the accompanying drawings, and in particular to the figure 1 thereof, it will be seen that the electronic circuit of the present remote controller includes a microprocessor 10, which controls a set 12 of light emitting diodes (LED) through an interface device driver 14 for the light emitting diodes.

The microprocessor 10, in its operation, communicates with a memory 16, storing instructions and data, and receives commands by the user through a keypad 18, including the keys for the selection and the setting of the apparatuses which to act on.

Sometimes, in more sophisticated realisations of the present remote controller, the LED's have been replaced by a display device incorporating dot matrix liquid crystals or by another similar device.

The operation of the present remote controller during the selection and the setting of the controlled apparatuses happens in the way described herein in the following, with reference in particular to the flowchart of figure 2.

When the search for finding the set of memorised codes which corresponds to the apparatus that one wants to control is started, first of all it is required that the user prearranges the apparatus itself in the specific operation mode for the acceptance of the commands sent from the present remote controller. Then the key or the set of keys must be pressed on the keypad 18 of the remote controller to start the search of the kind of apparatus.

Then the activation of a search key is performed, and during the activation of this key the search goes on and halts only at the release of the key itself.

At this point, the microprocessor 10 performs a cyclic search among all the memorised apparatus models: for each selected model it sends n times a specific control code, related to the selected model. Then it resets a timer and waits for the duration of the timer that the user releases the search key, having found that the apparatus answers the control code in the desired way.

When the search key is released, the selected model is memorised and the search ends: by way of this operation of memorisation, when the search is restarted again, it automatically recovers from the model immediately following the selected model, which lies in memory, and not from the first model of the table of the apparatuses, as it happened previously.

If, at the moment in which the timer reaches its time-out, the user continues to press the search key, the search is restarted, increasing the counter that points to the selected model and repeating n times the forwarding of the specific control code related to the selected model.

When, continuing to increase the pointer to the selected model, the last available model is reached, at the next cycle the first model, or model 0, in the table of the models is selected and a light emitting diode flashes to inform the user that the complete cycle of selection and test has been accomplished in respect to all the models provided by the present remote controller.

Although only one preferred embodiment of the remote controller pre-programmed to operate a number of apparatuses has been specifically illustrated and described herein, it is to be understood that minor variations may be made in the construction thereof without departing from scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

Claims (5)

1. Pre-programmed remote controller, in which control codes for a number of apparatuses are memorised (16) and in which a search is carried out among the memorised codes to find out the codes related to a particular model of apparatus on which it is-desired to act, which pre-programmed remote controller is characterised in that it comprises means for the automatic memorisation (10) of the selected model of apparatus, acting before the end of the search cycle.
2. Pre-programmed remote controller according to Claim 1, characterised in that it comprises means causing the search for finding out the memorised codes related to a particular model of apparatus to restart from the model immediately following the memorised one.
3. Pre-programmed remote controller according to Claim 1 or 2, characterised in that said means for the automatic memorisation of the selected model of apparatus stores the value of a pointer to a table of permanently memorised codes.
4. Pre-programmed remote controller according to Claim 3, characterised in that a signal for the user is issued every time the whole scanning of said table of codes is completed.
5. Pre-programmed remote controller according to Claim 4, characterised in that said signal for the user is comprised of the flashing of a light emitting diode (12).

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