JP2005340881A - Household electrical appliance controlling unit - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a household electrical appliance controlling unit, capable of generating an optimum function selection menu at the time of adding and expanding functions in the household electrical appliance controlling unit of a home network system. <P>SOLUTION: The household electrical appliance controller 210 is provided with a function selection menu table generating means 266, which generates a function selection menu table 251 for selecting a function by screen operation from a function information table 233. The controller 210 can provide optimum function selection menu in matching with the loaded functions, even when functions are added and expanded. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention uses a home appliance control apparatus that controls and monitors home appliances via a network in a home network system, and additionally expands and deletes the home appliance control and monitoring functions of the home appliance control apparatus. The present invention relates to a home electric appliance control apparatus that is capable of doing so.

As a conventional home network system and home appliance control device, control that expands functions to control home appliances newly connected to the network or to perform new control on already connected devices Has been invented. (For example, refer to Patent Document 1).
JP 2003-78971 A

  However, in the conventional configuration, home appliances connected to each system are different, and it is ambiguous how to configure a function selection menu for selecting a large number of functions expanded to an infinite combination for each system. All functions to be selected are displayed in a list, and it is assumed that newly added functions will be added to the list, or a function selection menu that matches the functions used in the system will be displayed in advance. It was necessary to prepare.

  When such control is performed, household appliances to be controlled are diversified, and one household appliance is controlled and monitored from a plurality of functions, and the function of controlling and monitoring the household appliance is provided. When the number of functions is increased, a large number of functions are selected from a list, and it is difficult to select functions or to prepare a function selection menu in advance.

  The present invention solves the above-described conventional problems, and displays a hierarchical function selection menu without preparing a function selection menu in advance even when functions for controlling and monitoring home appliances increase. An object of the present invention is to provide a home appliance control apparatus that allows easy function selection.

  In order to solve the conventional problem, the home appliance control device of the present invention includes a function information table in which each function for controlling and monitoring the home appliance and information on the home appliance controlled by each function are linked, Function selection menu table generating means for generating a function selection menu for selecting a function by screen operation from the function information table is provided, and screen drawing processing and operation event processing for selecting a function are based on information in the function selection menu table. Menu screen control means to perform.

  With this configuration, it is possible to provide a home appliance control apparatus that displays a function selection menu according to a functional configuration and realizes easy function selection even when functions for controlling and monitoring home appliances increase.

  According to the home appliance control apparatus of the present invention, even when home appliances connected to a network for control and monitoring are further diversified and functions for controlling and monitoring home appliances are increased, the user performs operations. The desired function can be easily selected.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In each figure, the same constituent elements are denoted by the same reference numerals and description thereof is omitted.

(Embodiment 1)
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a home network system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.

  The home network system includes a server 111, an out-of-home communication line 112, and a home network 113. The home network 113 includes a home appliance control device 121, a home appliance 131, and a home communication line 122. The home appliance control apparatus 121 can perform data acquisition and data transmission from the server 111 via the outside communication line 112. Moreover, the household appliance control apparatus 121 can acquire the operation state of the household appliance 131 via the home communication line 122, and can control it.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of the home appliance control apparatus. In FIG. 2, the home appliance control apparatus 210 communicates with the server 111 via the outside communication line 211 and communicates with the home appliance 131 via the inside communication line 212. The storage unit 221 stores a device table 231 that stores information on home appliances 131 connected via the home communication line 212, an installation location group table 232 that defines groups for classifying installation locations, control of home appliances, and the like. For each function program 241 to be executed, a function information table 233 for storing the types of household electrical appliances for which control and operation state acquisition are performed, each function program 241, and a function selection menu table 251 serving as configuration information for the function selection menu screen are stored.

  The function download processing unit 261 downloads a function program from the server 111 via the outside communication line 211 and stores it in the storage unit 221. Further, the function download processing unit 261 acquires the function information of the function program downloaded from the server 111, and instructs the function information table editing unit 263 to write the function information. The function information table editing unit 263 reads the device table. The device table 231 is read using the unit 264, and information corresponding to the connected device is written to the function information table 233 using the function information table writing unit 262. Furthermore, the function information table editing unit 263 instructs the function selection menu table generation unit 266 to generate a function selection menu table, and the function selection menu table generation unit 266 uses the device table reading unit 264 to change the device. The table 231 and the installation location group table 232 are read, the function information table is read using the function information table reading unit 265, processing is performed using these pieces of information, and the function selection menu table writing unit 267 is used. The function selection menu table 251 is written to generate a function selection menu screen configuration.

  The function selection menu screen display process is performed as follows. The function selection menu table reading unit 281 that is controlled by the function selection menu screen control means 282 reads the function selection menu table 251, generates menu screen display information from the information in the function selection menu table 251, and displays it on the display device 283. I do.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a device table, which is a table for managing information on devices connected to the home network. The device name 311 is a name uniquely determined for each connected home appliance. The device type 312 represents the type of home appliance. An installation location 313 represents a location where the home appliance is installed. The device name 311, device type 312, and setting location 313 may be indicated by codes.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the installation location information table, which is a table for managing information for classifying the installation locations. The installation location 411 represents the installation location of the home appliance, and includes all the contents of the installation location 313 that is an item of the device table. The installation location group 412 is a group name for classifying the installation locations. The installation location group 412 may be indicated by a code.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a function information table, which is a table for managing information on function programs in the home appliance control apparatus. A line number 511 is a number for managing a line of the function information table. The function program name 512 is a name for specifying a function, and the content of each item is unique. The connected device 513 represents a home appliance whose function program controls and monitors, and can represent a plurality of home appliances in parallel. The contents of the connected device 513 are included in the device name 311 of the device table. The device control type 514 indicates the type of whether home appliance monitoring is performed, simultaneous control is performed, control is performed for each home appliance, or the devices are linked and controlled.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the extended function information table, which is a table for managing information obtained by extending the function information table as a temporary table by the function selection menu table generating means. A line number 611 is a number for managing a line of the extended function table. The function program name 612 is a name for specifying a function, and is included in the function program name 512 of the function information table. The connected device 613 represents a home appliance whose function program controls and monitors, and can represent a plurality of home appliances in parallel. The content of the connection device 613 is the content of the connection device 513 of the corresponding function program in the function information table or a part thereof. The installation location 615 describes all the locations where the connection device 613 is installed. The installation location 615 is obtained by acquiring the location where the connection device 613 is installed from the device table. The installation location group 614 is a group of installation locations where the connection devices 613 are installed, and is obtained by acquiring the group to which the installation location 615 belongs from the installation location information table. The device control type 514 indicates the type of whether home appliance monitoring is performed, simultaneous control is performed, control is performed for each home appliance, or the devices are linked and controlled.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of the function selection menu table, showing the configuration of the function selection menu screen. A line number 711 is a number for managing a line of the function selection menu table. A hierarchy 1 712, a hierarchy 2 713, and a hierarchy 3 714 represent selection items of each hierarchy of the function selection menu. The function program name 715 represents the function program corresponding to the menu, and is the same as the content of the function program name 612 of the extended function table.

  FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a priority table, which represents the priority of items that become keys when determining the menu configuration. The priority 811 is a number for managing the priority. The smaller the number, the higher the priority. Item 812 is a key item.

  FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a flow for generating the extended function information table from the function information table. FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a flow for generating a function selection menu table from the extended function information table. The function selection menu table generation means generates a function selection menu table by sequentially performing processing according to these two flows.

  The function selection menu table creation means performs step 911 for acquiring one line of the function information table via the function information table reading unit 265. Next, step 912 for confirming the presence / absence of individual control by the device control type is performed. Here, for example, when the value of the device control type 514 of the acquired row is “0001: individual control”, it is determined as a function program for individually controlling the device, and when it is “0011: simultaneous / individual control”, the device is determined. It is determined that the function program has a function for individually controlling the connected devices 513 and a function for simultaneously controlling the connected devices 513 to be controlled, and it is determined that there is individual control, and “0000: monitor”, “0010: simultaneous control”, “Interlocked control” determines that there is no individual control. For the line determined to have individual control, step 913 is performed to divide the line for each connected device. For example, when the row with the row number “10” in the function information table is acquired, the device control type 514 is “0001: individual control”, and the connected device 513 is “camera 1, camera 2”. Then, this line is the function program “Camera”, the connected device is “Camera 1”, the device control type is “0001: Individual control”, the function program “Camera”, the connected device is “Camera 2”, and the device control type. Is divided into rows of “0001: Individual control”. When the device control information 514 is “0011: simultaneous / individual control”, the device control information is divided into “0010: simultaneous control” rows and the device control information for the number of connected devices is divided into “0001: individual control” rows. Is done. Next, step 914 of acquiring the installation location and the installation location group is performed. In this step, the device table reading unit 264 is used to read the device table 231 and the installation location group table 232, and the installation location 313 that matches the name included in the connected device 513 and the device name 311 of the device table is acquired. An installation location group that matches the location value and the installation location 411 in the installation location information table is acquired. For example, when the line number 511 of the function information table is “8”, the connected device 513 is “Range 1”, so the installation location is “Kitchen” and the installation location group is “1F”. When the connected device 513 includes a plurality of devices, a plurality of values are set in the installation location or the installation location group. At this time, in this example, when the value of the installation location group is both “1F, 2F”, conversion to “entire house” is performed. Next, in step 915 of storing information in the extended function information table, the value of each row for which acquisition setting has been set is stored in the extended function information table. Next, in step 916 for confirming the completion of all lines, it is confirmed whether all the lines have been extracted from the function information table and the processing from 911 to 915 has been performed. repeat. After all rows are processed and information is stored in the extended function information table, the priority is read in the priority table reading step 917. Then, step 918 of sorting the extended function information table is performed. This sorts all rows in the order of priority items acquired in 917. For example, an item 812 with a priority 811 of “1” in the priority table is “installation location group” and a priority 811 is “2”. When the item 812 is “installation location”, the entire extended function information table is sorted using the installation location group 614 as a key, and the installation location group 614 sorts the installation location 615 as a key within the same value. In this way, an extended function information table is created.

  Next, the function selection menu table is generated from the extended function information table. For example, the table shown in FIG. 7 is generated from the table shown in FIG. First, step 1011 for setting the priority used in internal processing to 1 is performed. Next, step 1012 for extracting contents from the extended function information table is performed. This is to extract the line number of the line with the same content of the upper priority item and the item content of the specified priority in order from the top of the extended function information table. When the priority is 1, the line number of all lines The contents of the corresponding priority 1 item are extracted. For example, in the case of FIG. 6, when the priority is 1, all items of each row number and the installation location group 614 are extracted and divided into “entire house” row, “1F” row, and “2F” row. Next, in the number of extracted lines confirmation step 1013, it is confirmed whether the number of extracted lines is larger than the number of functions that the menu can display simultaneously. For example, assuming that the number of functions that can be displayed on the menu at the same time is 8, if the priority is 1 in FIG. 6, more than 8 lines are extracted, and the process proceeds to the next step. Next, in step 1014 for confirming the number of extracted contents, it is confirmed whether there are two or more extracted contents. In the case of priority 1, since there are three types, “entire house”, “1F”, and “2F”, the process proceeds to the next step. Next, in step 1015 of storing the contents of the designated priority item in the function selection menu table, the contents of the designated priority item are stored in the highest level not filled in the line so as to correspond to the extracted line number. Here, “entire house”, “1F”, and “2F” of each extracted row are stored in the hierarchy 1712 of the function selection menu table. In FIG. 7, the display frames are combined into one for the same contents so that the menu hierarchy can be easily understood. Next, step 1017 is performed to confirm whether the specified priority items have been extracted up to the last line. In the case of priority 1, since all rows have been extracted, the next step is performed. Next is step 1019 for confirming whether or not the process has been executed up to the final priority. Since there is the next priority, step 1018 for incrementing the priority is performed, and the process returns to step 1012. In step 1012 in which the priority is 2 and the contents are extracted from the extended function information table, first, the installation location group 614 extracts the row number 611 and the installation location 615 of 6 rows of “entire house”. In step 1013, the number of functions that can be displayed simultaneously in the menu is extracted in the next extracted line number confirmation step 1013. Therefore, step 1016 for storing the function program name and the layer end code in the function selection menu table is performed. Become. Here, the corresponding function program name 612 is acquired from the line number, and stored together with the layer end code in layer 2 713 of the function selection menu table. Thereafter, in step 1017 for confirming whether the specified priority item has been extracted up to the last line, the process returns to step 1012 since the last line has not been completed. Next, the row number and installation location of the row whose installation location group is “1F” are acquired from the extended function information table. When the process is repeated and the step 1017 is completed to the last cattle with the final priority, the step 1020 for storing the function program name and the layer end code in the unfilled final layer of the function menu table is performed. With the same processing as 1016, the layer end code is stored in all rows. In FIG. 7, an item of function program name 715 is separately provided, and the value of function program name 612 of the extended function information table is stored in 715. For example, in the line numbers 14, 15, and 16, the same menu hierarchy is stored. The names of connected devices are converted so that the same function program names are not lined up. In this way, the function selection menu table is generated.

  FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of the main menu screen of the function selection menu, which is drawn by the function selection menu screen control means. The main menu screen 1101 is generated from the hierarchy 1 712 of the function selection menu table. An item is selected with the cursor 1102, and a menu of the next layer of the selected item is displayed on the screen. FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of a sub-menu screen of the function selection menu, which is a screen displayed when “entire house” is selected with the cursor 1102 in FIG. The contents of the items in the hierarchy 2 713 in which the contents of the hierarchy 1 712 of the function selection menu table are “entire house” are displayed.

  According to such a configuration, the home appliance control device includes a function information table in which each function for controlling and monitoring the home appliance and information on the home appliance controlled by each function are provided, and a function selection for selecting a function by a screen operation Function selection menu table generation means for generating a menu from the function information table, and a function selection menu screen control means for performing screen drawing processing for selecting a function and operation event processing based on information in the function selection menu table. It is not necessary to decide the menu configuration according to the type and number of functions in advance even when functions are added or expanded or reduced or deleted, so that even when functions are expanded, selection is easy. Function selection menu can be provided.

  In the present embodiment, the device table 231 and the installation location group table 232 are stored in the storage unit 221, but the device table 231 and the installation location group table 232 are not stored, and a function selection menu table is used using a function information table. 251 generation processing may be performed. Further, although the function program 241 is downloaded from the server 111, the function program 241 may be downloaded via a medium. Moreover, although the installation location group and the installation location were used as the priority, the type and number of connected devices, the product group of the devices, the type of network transmission medium, and the like may be used. Further, the priority table may not be used, and a plurality of menu layers may be provided using a plurality of priority tables and the like, and selection or use by the user may be performed.

  The network system according to the present invention is useful as a home network system in detached houses and apartment houses. It can also be used in offices, business offices, and apartment buildings.

The figure which shows the structure of the home network system in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which shows the structure of the household appliance control apparatus in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which shows an example of the apparatus table in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which shows an example of the installation location information table in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which shows an example of the function information table in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which shows an example of the extended function information table in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which shows an example of the function selection menu table in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The figure which shows an example of the priority table in Embodiment 1 of this invention. The flowchart which produces | generates an extended function information table from the function information table in Embodiment 1 of this invention The flowchart which produces | generates a function selection menu table from the extended function information table in Embodiment 1 of this invention The figure which shows an example of the main menu screen of the function selection menu in Embodiment 1 of this invention The figure which shows an example of the submenu screen of the function selection menu in Embodiment 1 of this invention

Explanation of symbols

111 Server 112, 211 External communication line 113 Home network 121, 210 Home appliance control device 122 Home communication line 131 Home appliance 221 Storage unit 231 Device table 232 Installation location group table 233 Function information table 241 Function program 251 Function selection menu 261 Function Download processing unit 262 Function information table writing unit 263 Function information table editing unit 264 Device table reading unit 265 Function information table reading unit 266 Function selection menu table generation unit 267 Function selection menu table writing unit 281 Function selection menu table reading unit 282 Function selection Menu screen control means 283 Display device 311 Device name 312 Device type 313 Installation location 411 Installation location 412 Area Exchange Group 511 line number 512 function program name 513 connected apparatus 514 device control type 611 line number 612 function program name 613 connected device 614 location groups 615 location 616 device control type 711 Line Number 712 stratum1
713 Tier 2
714 Tier 3
715 Function program name 811 Priority 812 Item 1101 Main menu screen 1102 Cursor 1201 Submenu screen 1202 Cursor

Claims (6)

In a home appliance control device that controls and monitors home appliances connected via a network,
A function information table in which each function for controlling and monitoring the home appliance and information on the home appliance controlled by each function are provided,
A function selection menu table generating means for generating a function selection menu for selecting a function by a screen operation from the function information table;
A home appliance control apparatus comprising a function selection menu screen control means for performing screen drawing processing for selecting a function and operation event processing based on information in a function selection menu table. The home appliance control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the function selection menu table can have a concept of hierarchization, and includes function selection menu screen control means corresponding to screen drawing processing and operation event processing of the hierarchical menu. The function information table includes at least one item of device control type indicating whether to control home appliances or status acquisition, and information on the home appliances to be controlled, device type, installation location, and network transmission medium type The home appliance control apparatus according to claim 2. A device table including at least one item of device type, installation location, and network transmission medium type as information on the home appliances,
The home appliance control apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising: a function selection menu screen control unit that generates a function selection menu table from the device table and the function information table. The function information table or the device table includes at least one item of a device group for classifying the device type and an installation location group for classifying the installation location;
5. The home appliance control apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising: a device group table that associates device types and device groups, and an installation location group table that associates installation locations and installation location groups. 6. Function download control means for downloading a function program for controlling and monitoring home appliances via media or a network, and function information table editing means for adding or changing information by writing information of the downloaded function program in the function information table With
The home appliance control apparatus according to claim 2, further performing function expansion using the function selection menu screen control means.

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