JP2003241895A - Device and method for warning battery shutoff of wireless pointing device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve convenience of a wireless pointing device by warning battery shutoff of a wireless pointing device and preventing troubles caused by battery shutoff. <P>SOLUTION: A battery power detecting circuit 15 is set on a wireless pointing device 1. A battery shutoff warning signal 101 is sent to an electronics device 2 when battery voltage value goes under a set point. When the electronics device 2 receives a battery shutoff warning signal 101, it lights a battery shutoff warning indicator 21 to notice users that battery is nearly running out. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a wireless pointing device used as an input device for electronic equipment such as a personal computer, a battery dead warning device for a wireless pointing device of an electronic equipment body using the same, and a wireless pointing device. This is related to the battery dead warning method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional wireless pointing device, in order to prevent the battery from running out, a secondary battery is used to charge the battery when not in use, or a small generator is used to drive the generated electric power. The secondary battery is being charged.

As the prior art, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-28182
There is No. 9 publication.

In the above publication, the pointing device and the electronic device main body have a bidirectional communication function, the electronic device main body sends a battery remaining amount read command to the pointing device, and the built-in battery of the built-in battery is received in response to the command. You can check the remaining amount. FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a configuration of communication in the related art. Communication between the pointing device 30 and the electronic apparatus main body 33 is performed by transmitting circuits 31, 35, receiving circuits 32, 3, 3.
4 is used for bidirectional communication.

However, in the conventional method, it is necessary to periodically send a battery remaining amount reading command from the electronic device main body 33 to the pointing device 30 and check the remaining amount of the battery from the response of the pointing device 30 in response to the command. Since the circuit of the pointing device 30 is regularly operated without moving the device 30, the power consumption of the pointing device 30 is inevitably increased and the battery is exhausted quickly.

Further, in the method of avoiding the above-mentioned drawbacks and not periodically checking the battery remaining amount, it is necessary for the user to occasionally check the battery remaining amount by operating the electronic device main body 2, so that the battery remaining amount is checked. Without this, there is a risk that the battery will run out suddenly without realizing that the battery is almost dead and that convenience may be impaired.

[0007]

In the prior art, the electronic device main body periodically sends a command to the pointing device to check the remaining battery level of the pointing device, so that the pointing device can be periodically operated without moving. The operation of the pointing device circuit has the drawback of accelerating battery consumption.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks, and displays a battery dead notice to the user before the battery runs out, so that the wireless pointing device battery dead notice is less likely to cause troubles due to the battery drain. An object is to provide an apparatus and a method thereof.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a remaining amount detecting means for detecting a remaining amount of a battery and generating a battery dead notice signal according to the remaining amount, and the remaining amount detecting means. Wireless pointing device for wirelessly transmitting the battery dead notice signal generated by the means, a warning signal receiving means for receiving the battery dead notice signal from the wireless pointing device, and the received battery dead notice It is characterized by comprising an electronic device main body having a notice means for giving a notice of battery exhaustion according to the content of the signal.

According to the present invention, the wireless pointing device transmits a battery packet with a battery dead notice signal, and the electronic device body that has received the data packet displays a battery dead notice of the wireless pointing device. You can prevent the battery from draining, monitor the remaining battery level of the wireless pointing device at all times, and display a dead battery notice when the battery is almost dead, avoiding troubles due to dead battery and improving convenience. .

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an external view showing a state of an electronic equipment main body 2 and an attached wireless pointing device 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 1 is a wireless mouse as a wireless pointing device, and 2 is an electronic device body. The electronic device body 2 includes a receiving circuit 22 for wirelessly communicating with the wireless mouse 1. The wireless communication uses infrared rays or radio waves.

Reference numeral 21 denotes a battery dead notice indicator which lights up when the battery dead notice signal 101 is received from the mouse 1 via the receiving circuit 22. The battery dead notice indicator 21 may be turned on before receiving the battery dead notice signal 101 and turned off when receiving the battery dead notice signal 101. Moreover, although the LED is normally used as the battery dead notice indicator 21,
Not limited to this, any display may be used as long as it can be visually identified.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit of the wireless mouse 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention. 11
Is a built-in battery, and may be a primary battery or a secondary battery. Reference numeral 12 is a movement amount detection circuit, 13 is a button information detection circuit, 14 is a data packet generation circuit, and 16 is a transmission circuit, which is usually composed of a CPU or the like.

The movement amount and button information detected by the movement amount detection circuit 12 and the button information detection circuit 13 generate a data packet in the data packet generation circuit 14, and the transmission circuit 1
6 is transmitted to the main body of the electronic device.

A battery remaining amount detecting circuit 15 generates a battery dead notice signal 101 when the voltage of the battery 11 becomes lower than a predetermined voltage. The battery dead notice signal 101 is embedded in a part of the data packet by the data packet generation circuit 14 and transmitted to the reception circuit 22 of the electronic device body 2 by the transmission circuit 16.

The power supply control circuit 17 is a circuit for reducing power consumption when the wireless mouse 1 is not operated. If the wireless mouse 1 is not operated, the power supply control circuit causes the wireless mouse 1 to operate by the operation stop signal 18.
It shuts down the main circuit and limits the power supply to only the power required to resume operation. When the wireless mouse 1 is moved or the button is operated, the operation start signal 19 is sent to the power supply control circuit 17, and the power supply control circuit 17 restarts the supply of power to the circuit of the wireless mouse 1.

FIG. 3 shows the transmission circuit 1 of the wireless mouse 1.
6 is a diagram showing an example of a data packet including a battery dead notice signal 101 transmitted from the receiver 6 to the receiving circuit 22 of the electronic device body 2. FIG. The battery dead notice signal 101 is embedded at a position indicated by P in the data packet. The place indicated by P in the data packet is a free area in the past, and the dead battery notice signal 101 is embedded therein. Specifically, the bit is set to "1" when the battery 11 has a voltage equal to or lower than a predetermined voltage, and otherwise set to "0".

As described above, since the battery dead notice signal 101 is included in the data packet for transmission, the wireless mouse 1
The amount of data sent from the electronic device main body 2 to the electronic device main body 2 is the same as that of the wireless mouse having no battery dead notice function, and does not affect the communication performance between the wireless mouse 1 and the electronic device main body 2.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the communication circuit according to the embodiment, which is the transmission circuit 16 of the wireless mouse 1.
From the electronic device body 2 to the receiving circuit 22 of the electronic device body 2 through the interface circuit 23.
Taken in.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a detailed configuration of the receiving circuit 22 of the electronic equipment main body 2. The data packet sent from the wireless mouse 1 is received by the mouse data receiving circuit 51. The receiving circuit 51 uses the P of the data packet shown in FIG.
The bit is detected as the battery dead notice signal 101 'and output to the control microcomputer 54, and the P bit is rewritten to 0 to generate the mouse data 102,
Output to the mouse controller 52.

The microcomputer 54 controls the lighting of the battery dead notice display 21.

Next, a second embodiment will be described.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing details of the receiving circuit 22 in the second embodiment. Since the basic control is the same as that of the first embodiment shown in FIG. 5, description of the same reference numerals is omitted. The battery dead notice signal 101 ′ received by the microcomputer 54 is transmitted to the operating system 61 as a battery dead notice 103 according to the content of the P bit of the battery dead notice signal 101 ′. Specifically, when the P bit is "1", the operating system 61 is notified that the battery is dead, and when the P bit is "0", nothing is notified. The operating system 61 receives the battery dead notice 103 and displays the battery dead notice on the display screen.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart for displaying the battery dead notice display in the window in the second embodiment. When the operating system 61 receives the battery dead notice 103, it calls the battery dead notice process (step S90). The battery dead notice process is step S9.
In step 1, it is checked whether the battery dead notice window is displayed, and if it is displayed, it is not displayed.

In the battery dead notice process, if the battery dead notice window is not displayed, the elapsed time after the last battery dead notice window is displayed is checked in step S92, and if it is less than the set value, no display is made. By controlling in this way, even when the battery dead notice is repeatedly issued, the battery dead display is not frequently performed.

After performing these checks, the battery dead notice processing opens a battery dead notice window and displays a message notifying that the battery is almost dead (step S9).
3).

In addition to the window display, the battery dead notice display may be changed by changing the color of the icon.

The battery dead notice processing waits for the battery dead notice window to be closed in step S94, and when the battery dead notice window is closed, the elapsed time is reset in step S95.

[0030]

According to the present invention, a wireless pointing device transmits a data packet with a battery dead notice signal, and the electronic device body receiving the data packet displays a battery dead notice of the wireless pointing device. Prevent unnecessary consumption of the battery, monitor the remaining battery level of the wireless pointing device at all times, and notify when the battery is almost dead, to avoid troubles due to battery exhaustion and improve convenience. Can be planned.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external view of a pointing device and an electronic device to which a first embodiment of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a pointing device according to the first embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a data packet according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of communication means according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a receiving circuit of the electronic device body according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a receiving circuit of an electronic device body according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a battery dead notice window display according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a bidirectional communication unit according to a conventional technique.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 batteries 12 Moving amount detection circuit 13 Button information detection circuit 14 Data packet generation circuit 15 Battery level detection circuit 16 Transmitter circuit 17 Power supply control circuit 21 Dead battery warning indicator 22 Receiver circuit 23 Interface circuit 51 Mouse data receiving circuit 101 Battery dead warning signal 102 mouse data 103 Battery dead notice

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A remaining amount detecting unit that detects the remaining amount of the battery and generates a battery dead notice signal according to the remaining amount, and a notice signal that wirelessly transmits the battery dead notice signal generated by the remaining amount detecting unit. A wireless pointing device having a transmitting means, a notice signal receiving means for receiving the battery dead notice signal from the wireless pointing device, and a notice means for giving a battery dead notice according to the content of the received battery dead notice signal. A battery pointing device for a wireless pointing device, comprising: an electronic device body of the device. 2. The battery dead notice signal is added to a data packet indicating the amount of movement of the wireless pointing device and button information.
Battery warning device for the wireless pointing device described. 3. The battery dead notification device for a wireless pointing device according to claim 1, wherein the battery dead notification means uses a display installed in the electronic apparatus main body to give an advance notification. 4. The battery of the wireless pointing device according to claim 1, wherein the battery remaining amount detecting means generates a battery dead notice signal when the voltage of the battery becomes equal to or lower than a predetermined voltage. A notice device for running out. 5. The battery dead warning device for a wireless pointing device according to claim 1, wherein the battery dead warning means gives a warning notice on a display screen by an operating system of the electronic apparatus body. 6. A battery dead notice signal generated by detecting the remaining battery level transmitted from the wireless pointing device is received, and a battery dead notice is issued based on the received battery dead notice signal. A method for predicting a dead battery of a wireless pointing device in an electronic device.