JP2004325040A - Operation control method for server device and electronic apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To carry out unitary operation control of a plurality of electronic apparatuses connected to an internal network on the basis of weather information acquired via an external network. <P>SOLUTION: A home gateway 11 is the server device having a gateway function of relaying between a home network 10 and the Internet 100, and the weather information is acquired from a service site 3 via the Internet 100. Operation control of an air conditioner (air conditioner) 13 and a washing machine (laundry) 14 connected to the home network 10 is unitarily carried out on the basis of the acquired weather information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a server device having a gateway function for relaying between a LAN (Local Area Network) installed in a home and the Internet, for example, and an operation control method of an electronic device in the device.
[0002]
[Prior art]
With the improvement of information processing technology and information communication technology in recent years, LANs are spreading not only in offices but also in homes. The LAN laid in the home is called a home network or the like, and various home appliances such as an air conditioner and a washing machine are connected to the LAN. Home appliances connected to the home network are called network home appliances and have a communication function such as accepting a remote operation via the home network or notifying an operation status of the home appliance via the home network. ing.
[0003]
In this home network, a server device called a home server or the like is generally provided separately in order to centrally manage a plurality of network home appliances. Furthermore, many of these types of server devices have a gateway function for relaying between a home network and the Internet, and these are particularly called home gateways. Recently, network home appliances have been operated from outside using the gateway function of the home gateway.
[0004]
On the other hand, various WWW servers are connected on the Internet through which the home gateway relays the home network, and various information is disclosed in the form of Web page information. For this reason, for example, an attempt to acquire and utilize programs and information for appropriately operating home appliances such as a washing machine from the Internet has been started to be studied (for example, Patent Document 1).
[0005]
[Patent Document 1]
JP-A-2002-273089
[0006]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
In Patent Document 1, weather information (weather, temperature, humidity, wind speed, water temperature, water quality, pollen flight amount) which is convenient to refer to when performing the washing and dehydration steps is obtained from the Internet as reference information. The washing process is determined based on the acquired reference information. That is, a process suitable for the current weather condition is appropriately selected.
[0007]
However, when implementing this, since each home appliance must have a mechanism for performing advanced information processing, there is a problem that individual costs are greatly increased. Also, for example, when there are a plurality of home appliances that use weather information, even though a certain home appliance has just acquired the weather information, other home appliances need to separately acquire the weather information. There is a problem that useless communication such as going is always generated.
[0008]
The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and has a server capable of centrally controlling the operation of a plurality of electronic devices connected to an internal network based on weather information acquired via an external network. It is an object of the present invention to provide a device and a method for controlling the operation of electronic equipment in the device.
[0009]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention relates to a server device having a gateway function for relaying between a first network and a second network, wherein a server connected to the first network receives a weather message from a computer. Weather information obtaining means for obtaining information; and operation control means for operating and controlling at least one electronic device connected to the second network based on the weather information obtained by the weather information obtaining means. It is characterized by.
[0010]
The present invention also relates to a method for controlling the operation of an electronic device in a server device having a gateway function for relaying between a first network and a second network, wherein a computer connected to the first network transmits A weather information obtaining step of obtaining information; and an operation control step of operating and controlling at least one electronic device connected to the second network based on the weather information obtained in the weather information obtaining step. It is characterized by.
[0011]
In these inventions, for example, the server device integrally controls the operation of an air conditioner or a washing machine connected to a network laid in the home based on weather information acquired via the Internet. And so on.
[0012]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
[0013]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of an automatic driving control system to which a server device (home gateway) according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.
[0014]
As shown in FIG. 1, a home network 10 including, for example, an Ethernet (R) type wired LAN, a wireless LAN compliant with IEEE802.11a / b / g or Bluetooth (R) is installed in the house 1. ing. In addition to the home gateway 11, an operation display terminal 12, an air conditioner (hereinafter, air conditioner) 13, and a washing machine (hereinafter, laundry) 14 are connected to the home network 10.
[0015]
The home gateway 11 has an interface with the user via the operation display terminal 12 and has a function of controlling the operation of the air conditioner 13 and the laundry 14 in accordance with the operation of the user on the operation display terminal 12. I have. As the operation display terminal 12, for example, a tablet PC (personal computer) having a touch panel is assumed, but it can also be realized by a general PC or PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), or a combination of a television device and a remote controller. It is.
[0016]
Further, the home gateway 11 is also connected to an ISP (Internet Service Provider) 2 via a modem 15, and can connect to the Internet 100 via the ISP 2. That is, the home gateway 11 has functions such as a router, a hub, and a wireless LAN access point. A service site 3 to be described later is connected to the Internet 100 connectable via the ISP 2.
[0017]
Here, an IP protocol is assumed as a higher-layer protocol of the home network 10, and UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) or ECHONET is assumed for discovery, status management, control, and the like of each device by the home gateway 11. When the service of the service site 3 is used, the home gateway 11 transmits a request to the server of the service site 3 and receives the response. The protocol in this case is HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) or a dedicated protocol. Any of the dedicated protocols by the application program may be used.
[0018]
In addition, the air conditioner 13 and the laundry 14 have a function of connecting to the home network 10, a function of receiving device control information from the home gateway 11 and operating based on the content thereof, and a status of the own device via the home network 10. To the home gateway 11. It is assumed that each of the air conditioner 13 and the laundry 14 is provided with a display device such as an LCD and an LED and a button-type switch that can be manually operated.
[0019]
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of the service site 3 described above.
[0020]
The service site 3 provides appropriate weather information to the home gateway 11, and as shown in FIG. 2, a user management DB server 31 for managing registered user information, a charging management server for performing charging management for service use. 32, a firewall 33 for controlling access to a LAN to which the user management DB server 31 is connected, a web server 34 to which the home gateway 11 or the like accesses via the Internet 100, a weather information DB 35 for storing weather information, and a web A firewall 36 is provided for limiting access to the LAN to which the server 34 is connected to only access to the Web server 34. Here, it is assumed that the registered user information relating to the user of the present system is already managed in the user management DB server 31.
[0021]
The service site 3 periodically collects information from a plurality of weather information sources (Web information pages) on the Internet 100 in order to stably provide the user with optimal weather information. The update cycle is determined according to the update cycle of the service site 3, but here, for example, every three hours. FIG. 3 shows the contents of a table in the weather information DB 35 that stores the collected information. As shown in FIG. 3, the table holds date, day of the week, weather, update time, temperature (° C.), probability of precipitation (%), washing index (%), pollen information, and regional information. The types of weather and pollen information are as shown in FIGS.
[0022]
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a hardware configuration of the home gateway 11.
[0023]
As shown in FIG. 6, the home gateway 11 includes an MPU unit 111 that executes programs, controls communication, controls the server body, and the like, a memory unit 112 including a RAM and a ROM that the MPU unit 111 uses when executing programs, various settings. HDD unit 113 for storing information, programs, various content files, etc., power supply unit 114 for supplying power, media interface unit 115 for exchanging data files in home gateway 11 with various media, and viewing contents on a television device. A / V interface unit 116 used when operating the home gateway 11 with an infrared remote controller, routing of communication packets on the WAN side and LAN side, address conversion between the WAN side and LAN side, and fire C Router section 117 for performing a LAN function, a wired LAN interface section 118 for connecting to a device on the home network 10 or an ADSL modem on the WAN side by the Ethernet (R) method, and a wireless LAN access conforming to IEEE802.11a / b / g. It has a wireless LAN interface unit 119 that plays a role of a point and is connected to various client terminals such as the operation display terminal 12, the air conditioner 13, and the landry 14.
[0024]
FIG. 7 shows functional blocks of the home gateway 11.
[0025]
As shown in FIG. 7, on the home gateway 11, a device control information creation unit 121 that creates and displays device control information based on operating conditions stored in advance from acquired weather information, and a service site 3 A weather information request / processing unit 122 for requesting weather information from the web server 34 and extracting and registering weather information from the response, an internet connection unit for performing authentication and encryption communication with the web server 34 123, a device operation history storage unit 124 that stores history information such as ON / OFF days of the device, time and frequency, and a user interface unit 126, which allows a user to set operation conditions according to weather conditions. An operation condition setting / storage unit 125 for storing the setting contents, an input from the operation display terminal 12 via the home network 10 and a user input Each part of the home network configuration unit 127 for controlling communication with the user interface unit 126 and each device in the home network 10 for performing shown is constructed. Here, it is assumed that the operating conditions of the air conditioner 13 and the laundry 14 are set and stored by the operating condition setting / storage unit 125 as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9. More specifically, first, the air purifying function of the air conditioner 13 is activated when the pollen information is ID1 to ID5, and the strength is “strong” for ID1 and ID2, “medium” for ID3, In the case of ID4 and ID5, it is set to “weak”. On the other hand, for the laundry 14, “ON” and “OF” of the drying function are determined corresponding to the weather IDs 1 to 15, respectively.
[0026]
Here, the data stored in the device operation history storage unit 124 is referred to as operation history data 1241, and the data stored in the operation condition setting / storage unit 125 is referred to as operation condition data 1251.
[0027]
Next, an overall flow of the present system to which the service site 3 and the home gateway 11 having such a configuration are applied will be described with reference to FIG.
[0028]
When the user operates the operation display terminal 12 to turn on each device of the air conditioner 13 and the laundry 14 ((S1) in FIG. 10), a start command is transmitted to each device via the home gateway 11, and each device is started. (S2 in FIG. 10). At the same time, the home gateway 11 logs in to the service site 3 ((S3) in FIG. 10). This login is completed after user authentication on the service site 3 side ((S4) in FIG. 10).
[0029]
Subsequently, the home gateway 11 transmits a weather information request message to the service site 3 ((S5) in FIG. 10). On the other hand, the service site 3 transmits the weather information as the response message ((S6) in FIG. 10). Then, the home gateway 11 receiving the weather information transmits data for displaying the weather information to the operation display terminal or the like ((S7) in FIG. 10).
[0030]
Next, the home gateway 11 collates the weather information with the above-described operation condition data 1251 to create optimal device control information ((S8) in FIG. 10). Then, the home gateway 11 causes the operation display terminal 12 or the like to perform display based on the setting of whether or not the user is required to confirm before driving ((S9) in FIG. 10). Here, when the user is requested to confirm before driving, the user can change the driving content. On the other hand, when the user's confirmation input is made ((S10) in FIG. 10), the home gateway 11 transmits the device control information created earlier to each device ((S11) in FIG. 10). Then, each device that has received the device control information starts an actual operation ((S12) and (S13) in FIG. 10).
[0031]
That is, for example, when the user operates the operation display terminal 12 to operate the air conditioner 13, the home gateway 11 obtains weather information from the service site 3 via the Internet 100, and turns on / off the air purifying function based on the amount of pollen at that time. The operation control of the air conditioner 13 is automatically executed according to the weather information, such as determining OFF or strength.
[0032]
FIG. 11 shows an example of a flowchart of a weather information response in the service site 3.
[0033]
When the home gateway 11 requests weather information via the Internet 100, the service site 3 performs, for example, authentication using SSL and transmits a digital signature (step A1). After this authentication, the service site 3 executes a process of mutually creating an encryption key for encrypted communication with the home gateway 11 (step A2). When the user ID is received from the home gateway 11 after the execution (step A3), the service site 3 searches the DB in which the user information is registered in advance by using the user ID, and finds the area ID corresponding to the address of the user. (Step A4). Next, the service site 3 searches for the weather information of the area by the area ID (step A5), and returns the weather information to the home gateway 11 as Web page information (step A6).
[0034]
On the other hand, FIG. 12 shows a flowchart of the home gateway 11 regarding the request for the weather information via the Internet 100 to the service site 3 and the registration of the response to the table in the table.
[0035]
First, the home gateway 11 authenticates that the service site 3 is a correct site (Step B1). Here, for example, a digital signature is used assuming authentication by SSL. Next, the home gateway 11 executes a process of mutually creating an encryption key for encrypted communication with the service site 3 (step B2), and transmits the user ID to the service site 3 (step B3).
[0036]
After the transmission of the user ID, the weather information optimal for the area is returned from the service site 3 as Web page information. Therefore, the home gateway 11 extracts the weather information from the Web page information (step B4). The information is registered / updated in the weather information table of the memory unit 112 (step B5).
[0037]
FIG. 13 shows a flowchart of creation of device control information executed by the home gateway 11 when a washing start event occurs and transmission to the landry 14.
[0038]
First, the home gateway 11 checks whether the information of the weather information table held in the memory unit 112 is the latest (step C1). This is done, for example, by comparing the date and update time with the current time, and processing under the condition that the difference is regarded as the latest if the difference is within a predetermined time, for example, 6 hours. Here, if it is determined that it is not the latest (NO in step C1), the home gateway 11 executes the flow shown in FIG. As a result, for example, when the air conditioning by the air conditioner 13 has been performed within six hours, it is possible to prevent the execution of the redundant acquisition processing of the weather information. When it is confirmed that the information is the latest information (YES in step C1), the home gateway 11 transmits data for displaying weather information to the operation display terminal 12 or the laundry 14 (step C3).
[0039]
Next, the home gateway 11 performs a process of creating device control information, specifically, a process of creating control information as to whether or not drying is to be performed after dehydration. For this purpose, the home gateway 11 first confirms whether the driving condition according to the user's weather is set in advance by the driving condition setting / storage unit 125 (Step C4). If registered (YES in step C4), home gateway 11 can uniquely create device control information using the weather ID in the weather information as a key (step C5). On the other hand, if it is not registered (NO in step C4), device control information is created using, for example, the weather in the weather information, the probability of precipitation, and the washing index (steps C6 and C7). As an example of the algorithm in this case, the weather includes “rain or snow” (weather ID: 1-7, 11, or 12), and the precipitation probability in the current time zone is 70%. If the above is the case and the washing index is 30% or less, processing is performed under the condition that drying is performed. That is, when the setting is not performed by the user, the standard operation previously assigned to the weather condition is selected.
[0040]
Next, before driving, the home gateway 11 confirms whether or not a setting for asking the user for confirmation is set (step C8). Here, if the user's confirmation is required (YES in step C8), the home gateway 11 determines whether or not to perform the drying, and uses the data for displaying the operation details as the operation guide as the operation display terminal 12 or the laundry. 14 (step C9). Thereafter, when a user's confirmation input is obtained from the operation display terminal 12 or a button of the laundry 14 (YES in step C10), the device control information created earlier is transmitted to the laundry 14 (step C11). Thereby, the laundry 14 starts operating. If a timeout occurs without any input while waiting for a user confirmation input (step C10), the process ends without transmitting the device control information. The same processing flow is applied to the case of the air conditioner 13.
[0041]
As described above, according to the automatic driving control system, the air conditioner 13 and the laundry 14 connected to the home network 10 of the house 1 are determined by the home gateway 11 based on the weather information acquired from the service site 3 via the Internet 100. Operation control can be performed in a unified manner. On the other hand, each of the air conditioner 13 and the laundry 14 only needs to be operable in accordance with the device control information transmitted from the home gateway 11, and a mechanism for performing advanced information processing such as acquisition and analysis of weather information. There is no need to provide. Therefore, even if the air conditioner 13 and the laundry 14 are existing network home appliances, the service function can be used by updating the software in the home gateway 11 without modifying them.
[0042]
By the way, in the above-described embodiment, an example in which the home gateway 11 acquires weather information from the service site 3 has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, as shown in FIG. 14, another WWW server 4 ( Alternatively, it may be obtained from the ISP 2). In this case, for example, the service site 3 receives information or a program indicating which Web page information of which WWW server 4 is to be obtained and how to extract weather information from the obtained Web page information. It is possible. The provision of the information or the program is also possible by distributing a recording medium such as a CD-ROM.
[0043]
Further, in the above-described embodiment, an example has been described in which when the user operates the operation display terminal 12, the weather information is acquired in order to appropriately control the operation of the target device. Since the device operation history storage unit 124 stores the history information such as OFF as the operation history data 1241, for example, for the laundry 14, the weather condition indicated by the weather information is a so-called laundry weather, and since the previous operation, When a predetermined number of days have passed, it is also possible to present a guide for recommending washing to the user. Further, when the weather information includes long-term information such as a weekly forecast, a day suitable for washing may be presented.
[0044]
That is, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment as it is, and can be embodied by modifying the constituent elements in an implementation stage without departing from the scope of the invention. Various inventions can be formed by appropriately combining a plurality of constituent elements disclosed in the above embodiments. For example, some components may be deleted from all the components shown in the embodiment. Further, components of different embodiments may be appropriately combined.
[0045]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, a server device capable of centrally controlling the operation of a plurality of electronic devices connected to an internal network based on weather information acquired via an external network, and an electronic device in the device. An operation control method for the device can be provided.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of an automatic driving control system to which a server device (home gateway) according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.
FIG. 2 is an exemplary view showing a schematic configuration of a service site of the embodiment.
FIG. 3 is an exemplary view showing contents of a table in a weather information DB according to the embodiment;
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing weather types in a table shown in FIG. 3;
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing types of pollen information in a table shown in FIG. 3;
FIG. 6 is an exemplary view showing a hardware configuration of a home gateway according to the embodiment.
FIG. 7 is an exemplary view showing functional blocks of a home gateway according to the embodiment;
FIG. 8 is a view showing operating conditions of the air conditioner set and stored by an operating condition setting / storage unit of the embodiment.
FIG. 9 is an exemplary view showing laundry operating conditions set and stored by the operating condition setting / storage section of the embodiment.
FIG. 10 is an exemplary view for explaining the overall flow of the automatic operation control system according to the embodiment.
FIG. 11 is a flowchart of a weather information response in the service site of the embodiment.
FIG. 12 is an exemplary flowchart of a home gateway regarding a request for weather information via the Internet to the service site of the embodiment and a registration of the response to a table in a table;
FIG. 13 is a flowchart of creation of device control information executed by the home gateway and transmission to the land according to the embodiment when a washing start event occurs.
FIG. 14 is a view showing a modification of the automatic operation control system according to the embodiment.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... house, 2 ... ISP, 3 ... service site, 4 ... WWW server, 10 ... home network, 11 ... home gateway, 12 ... operation display terminal, 13 ... air conditioner (air conditioner), 14 ... washing machine (laundry) , 15 modem, 31 user management DB server, 32 billing management server, 33 firewall, 34 web server, 35 weather information DB, 36 firewall, 100 internet, 111 MPU unit, 112 Memory unit, 113 HDD unit, 114 power supply unit, 115 media interface unit, 116 AV interface unit, 117 router unit, 118 wired LAN interface unit, 119 wireless LAN interface unit, 121 device control information creation Unit, 122 ... weather information request / processing unit, 23 ... Internet connection unit, 124 ... device operating history storage unit, 125 ... operating condition setting / storage unit, 126 ... user interface unit, 127 ... home network configuration unit.

Claims (8)

A server device having a gateway function for relaying between a first network and a second network,
Weather information acquisition means for acquiring weather information from a computer connected to the first network;
A server device comprising: an operation control unit that controls operation of at least one electronic device connected to the second network based on the weather information acquired by the weather information acquisition unit. 2. The server device according to claim 1, further comprising operating condition setting means for setting operating conditions for causing the electronic device to perform a desired operation for each weather condition indicated by the weather information. Before executing the operation control of the electronic device, a confirmation presence / absence setting unit for setting whether or not to allow the user to confirm the operation content,
2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a user interface unit that, when the setting is made to be confirmed by the user by the confirmation presence / absence setting unit, presents the operation content and receives an instruction as to whether or not the operation can be performed. Server device. 2. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the weather information acquisition unit executes the acquisition of the weather information when an instruction to turn on the power of the electronic device is issued. 7. The electronic apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the weather information acquiring unit executes the acquisition of the weather information when a predetermined time or more has elapsed since the previous acquisition of the weather information. . An operation control method of an electronic device in a server device having a gateway function for relaying between a first network and a second network, comprising:
Weather information obtaining step of obtaining weather information from a computer connected to the first network;
An operation control step of controlling the operation of at least one electronic device connected to the second network based on the weather information obtained in the weather information obtaining step. The operation control method according to claim 6, further comprising an operation condition setting step of setting operation conditions for causing the electronic device to perform a desired operation for each weather condition indicated by the weather information. Before executing the operation control of the electronic device, a confirmation presence / absence setting step of setting whether to allow the user to confirm the operation content,
7. The system according to claim 6, further comprising a user interface step of presenting the operation content and receiving an instruction of whether or not the operation can be performed, when the setting is to make the user confirm in the confirmation presence / absence setting step. Operation control method.

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