JP2006100951A - Remote management system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem of an excessively expensive conventional maintenance support system by household electric appliance manufacturers that users make a contact with the support center of a manufacturer on the occurrence of a fault in a household electric appliance, explain fault contents and receive directions, but there are many users incapable of properly grasping the fault contents and cannot exactly explain the fault contents to the support center of the manufacturer, then the support center cannot provide exact directions to the users, cannot often understand the situation of the fault contents without making a visit to the site even when the visit is resultingly unnecessary, and a serviceman is dispatched to the site. <P>SOLUTION: On the occurrence of the fault in the household electric appliance, the user has only to operate one button attached to the household electric appliance or the remote controller, then the household electric appliance executes "self-diagnosis" and displays the result of the diagnosis on a liquid crystal display panel. Thus, dispatching of the serviceman can be minimized. Since the household electric appliance executes the self-diagnostic function on the occurrence of the fault in the household electric appliance, it is possible to prevent increase in traffic imposed on apparatuses in the maintenance service center. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a remote management system having a self-diagnosis function for easily detecting and notifying a failure of a home network device using a communication network.

  Conventionally, when a failure such as a failure of a home appliance occurs, the user contacts the manufacturer's maintenance service center using a telephone or the like, explains the content of the failure, and receives an instruction to deal with the failure. However, there are many users who cannot accurately grasp the failure content, and the failure content cannot be explained well to the manufacturer's maintenance service center. Therefore, the maintenance service center cannot provide an accurate failure countermeasure instruction to the user. Therefore, even when a failure can be dealt with verbally by telephone or the like and there is no need to dispatch a service man, a service man is often dispatched, and there is a problem that the cost of dealing with the failure as a manufacturer is high.

In response to this problem, the operation status and device information are automatically acquired from the devices in the house during operation, and the maintenance center performs diagnosis and response according to the contents (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
JP 2002-44750 A

  However, in the conventional configuration, it is necessary to regularly collect in-house information at the maintenance service center, which increases the burden on the maintenance service center and increases traffic. In addition, it is not assumed that basic self-diagnosis functions including confirmation of operation status of software in the home device, confirmation of setting information, diagnosis with re-acquisition of the IP address, memory check, and initialization will be executed.

  In order to solve the above-described conventional problems, the present invention has an input unit and a self-diagnosis unit, a transmission unit, and a display unit which are equipped with a maintenance button in a home device and request a self-diagnosis, and by a remote management system via a network, The failure is dealt with by the liquid crystal panel display at the user's house.

  With this configuration, the self-diagnosis function of the home device is executed when the home device fails, and if it is determined as a failure, it is reported to the remote management device and can respond quickly to the failure. Since the function is executed, an increase in traffic to the maintenance service center can be prevented.

  In the implementation of the present invention, in a system in which a home device and a remote management device are connected via a network, and the remote management device manages information on the home device, the user can execute the self-diagnosis unit function in one operation, It has a function to report the result to the maintenance service center.

  In the implementation of the present invention, a button for executing the “self-diagnosis function” is prepared as one of the input means, and the user presses the button to execute the “self-diagnosis function”. It has a function to report the result to the maintenance service center.

  In the implementation of the present invention, a remote control is used as one of the input means, and the self-diagnosis function is executed when the user presses a button for executing the self-diagnosis function provided in the remote control remotely. It has a function to report to the maintenance service center.

  In the embodiment of the present invention, the remote control has a liquid crystal panel, and has a function of displaying a diagnosis result.

  According to the present invention, the user can perform “self-diagnosis” and “automatically report” to the maintenance service center by just performing “one operation”, and can accurately grasp the failure situation. The failure can be solved by “displaying” the diagnosis result on the remote controller.

  Diagnosis is performed with "one operation" only when necessary, so that an increase in traffic to the maintenance service center can be prevented.

  Further, since the operation with the remote controller is possible, the diagnosis result can be confirmed even if the in-home device main body is broken.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a connection form in the present invention.

  Reference numeral 100 denotes a home device, which is a home appliance in the present embodiment. The home device 100 includes a self-diagnosis unit 102 and a transmission unit 103, and the input unit 101 is included in the home device 100 and includes a maintenance button 105. This maintenance button is provided in the home device 100 and the remote controller 130 (105 and 132). The maintenance buttons 105 and 132 may be mounted independently on the input unit 101 or the remote controller 130, or may be displayed on the display unit 131 in a form like a touch panel. Reference numeral 102 denotes a self-diagnosis unit that confirms the normality of the operation of the home device 100 and checks the cause of a failure. A transmission unit 103 transmits the self-diagnosis data created by the self-diagnosis unit 102 through the network 111. Although the network 111 is the Internet in this embodiment, it is not limited to this. Reference numeral 120 denotes a remote management device provided in the maintenance service center 140, which is connected to the home device 100 via the network 111, receives the self-diagnosis result of the self-diagnosis unit 102, and manages the information. In the case of a fault that can be repaired by remote operation, the remote management device 120 displays it on the display unit 131, and the user confirms the diagnosis result. If the diagnosis result is normal, the self-diagnosis unit 102 does not transmit the self-diagnosis result to the remote management device 120.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the operation of each function in the present invention.

  When the user feels an abnormality in the home device 100 (for example, the program is not shown on the screen or the sound does not flow), a maintenance button provided on the input unit 101 or the remote controller 130 is pressed (201). By this operation, the input unit 101 sends a self-diagnosis execution request to the self-diagnosis unit 102 (202). In response to the self-diagnosis request transmitted from the input unit 101, the self-diagnosis unit 102 performs self-diagnosis based on a self-diagnosis program for finding a predetermined failure set in advance (203). As a result of the self-diagnosis, if it is determined that there is no abnormality, the display unit 131 notifies the user that there is no abnormality, and the process ends (208). If it is determined that there is an abnormality, the process proceeds to 205 (204). 205 notifies the transmitter 103 of the abnormal content. The transmission unit 103 receives the notification of the abnormality content from the self-diagnosis unit 102 and transmits it to the remote management device 120 via the Internet (206). The remote management device 120 manages the abnormality content received from the transmission unit 103. (207). The remote management device 120 determines whether the fault can be repaired by remote operation based on the acquired fault information of the device (209). If the fault can be repaired by remote operation, the remote management device 120 performs remote operation by transmitting a command or the like, The notification is made on the display unit 131, and the process ends (210). If the repair is impossible by remote operation, a message such as “Please notify the service company” is displayed on the display unit 131 (211). In this embodiment, the display unit 131 is mounted on the remote control 130, but it may be mounted on the home device 100 or both. When the display unit 131 is mounted on the household device 100, the remote controller 130 may not have a display unit.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the operation of the device after operating the maintenance button in the present invention.

  After pressing the maintenance button (300), self-diagnosis is performed by the self-diagnosis program of the self-diagnosis unit 102, and problems that can be solved by the self-diagnosis unit 102 are displayed on the display unit 131 (301). Problems that cannot be solved by the self-diagnosis unit 102 are reported to the maintenance service center via the network (303). Based on the sent self-diagnosis result and the trouble countermeasure stored in the remote management device 120, the necessity of the trouble countermeasure of the home device is determined (304), and when the trouble countermeasure is determined to be necessary, the trouble countermeasure is transferred to the home device 100. It is sent and displayed on the display unit 131 (306). If the failure information cannot be repaired remotely, a message such as “Please notify the service company” is displayed (306). The failure information is stored in the remote management device 120 (305).

  FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the location of the maintenance button and the display unit in the present invention.

  Reference numeral 400 denotes a home device. 401 is a maintenance button. Reference numerals 402 and 405 denote display units that indicate a self-diagnosis state to the user. The display unit can be realized by, for example, a liquid crystal panel. For example, "diagnosis start", "during diagnosis", "center inquiry", "diagnosis end", "diagnosis result display" (liquid crystal code or message), "please notify service company", etc. can be considered. Reference numeral 403 denotes a remote controller. Reference numeral 404 denotes a maintenance button.

  Here, the self-diagnosis function performed by the self-diagnosis unit 102 includes, for example, confirmation of the operation status of the software of the in-home device 100 and confirmation of setting information, diagnosis accompanied by re-acquisition of the IP address, memory check, initialization, etc. This includes those that cannot be performed while the home device 100 is in operation.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a specific function example between the home device 100 and the maintenance service center 140 according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 5, the home device 100 and the maintenance service center 140 are connected via the Internet. This IP address is set by the user when connecting to the home network. The network is set by performing address setting (IP address, subnet mask, gateway address), DNS setting (primary DNS, secondary DNS), and performing a connection test. At the same time, the user registers customer information such as a home device ID, customer ID, address, telephone number, and installation date, and registers with the remote management device 120 of the maintenance service center 140 via the Internet.

  The customer registration information sent from the home device 100 is stored in the remote management device 120 of the maintenance service center 140 as customer registration information (home device ID, customer ID, address, telephone number, installation date). With this setting, the maintenance service center 140 can identify the customer's device.

  Thereafter, when there is a failure, the user presses the maintenance button. After the button is pressed, the self-diagnosis program is started in the self-diagnosis unit 102 in the home device 100, and the failure that can be resolved is the failure code of the self-diagnosis program. The user solves the problem by displaying them on the display units 402 and / or 405. If the self-diagnostic program determines that the problem cannot be solved by itself and is abnormal, it transmits a fault code to the maintenance service center 140.

  If the remote management device 120 of the maintenance service center 140 determines that a countermeasure against the failure is necessary based on the transmitted failure code, it is associated with the stored failure response code managed for each home device ID, The correction program is activated, the correction is performed by remote operation, and the result is displayed on the display unit 402 and / or 405 of the home device 100 by a fault code or a message. When the remote response is impossible, a message such as “Please send a service person” is displayed on the display unit 402 and / or 405.

  As described above, conventionally, a service person visits a user's home to deal with the trouble of the in-home equipment. However, according to the present invention, unnecessary visits of the service person are reduced and the trouble-handling cost of the in-home equipment is reduced. Helps reduce In addition, since it is activated by one button operation only when necessary, an increase in traffic to the maintenance service center 140 can be prevented.

  In this embodiment, a liquid crystal panel is used. However, the liquid crystal panel is not necessary, and includes all display devices such as CRL and PDP.

  In this embodiment, the Internet is used as the network 111. However, one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many communication using a home network, infrared rays, power lines, radios, or the like may be used. Communication using a line may be used.

  In the present embodiment, the home device that can be connected to the network has been described. However, as another embodiment, a maintenance button is provided, so that it is possible to connect to a pre-registered server via the network with one button operation. For example, it is possible to display a list of hospitals that are being examined at night during a night emergency such as a child's fever on a TV screen, or to use for hospital guidance such as displaying information on departments.

  The remote management system equipped with the self-diagnosis function of the present invention notifies the center of the state of the device with one operation and can cope with it, and is useful for a failure management system and the like. Further, since it is possible to obtain necessary information by connecting to a server via a network with an easy operation, it is useful for an information retrieval system or the like.

The figure which shows the connection form of the function part of the remote management system provided with the self-diagnosis function in one Embodiment of this invention The figure which shows operation | movement of the function part of the remote management system provided with the self-diagnosis function in one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows operation | movement of the apparatus after operating the maintenance button of the function part of the remote management system provided with the self-diagnosis function in one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the place of the maintenance button and liquid crystal panel of the function part of the remote management system provided with the self-diagnosis function in one Embodiment of this invention The figure which shows the specific function example between the household appliance of the function part of the remote management system provided with the self-diagnosis function in one Embodiment of this invention, and a maintenance service center.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Home equipment 101 Input part 102 Self-diagnosis part 103 Transmission part 105 Maintenance button 111 Network 140 Maintenance service center 120 Remote management apparatus 130 Remote control 131 Display part 132 Maintenance button

Claims (4)

A home device and a remote management device are connected via a network, and the remote management device manages information on the home device,
The in-home equipment is
An input unit for inputting a self-diagnosis request;
A self-diagnosis unit for performing self-diagnosis of the home appliance based on the self-diagnosis request;
A transmitter that transmits the result of the self-diagnosis to a remote management device via the network;
A display unit that displays a result of the self-diagnosis or a diagnosis result of the remote management device;
The remote management system characterized in that, when it is determined from the self-diagnosis result that a countermeasure for failure is necessary, the diagnosis result of the remote management device is transmitted to the home device. The remote control further includes a remote control connected to the home appliance, the remote control further comprising a communication connection means for receiving the self-diagnosis result or the diagnosis result of the remote management device from the home appliance, and the display unit. The remote management system according to claim 1. The remote management system according to claim 1, wherein the input unit includes a button for executing a self-diagnosis. A home device and a remote management device are connected via a network, the home device and a remote control are connected, and the remote management device manages information on the home device,
The in-home equipment is
An input unit for inputting a self-diagnosis request;
A self-diagnosis unit for performing self-diagnosis of the home appliance based on the self-diagnosis request;
A transmitter that transmits the result of the self-diagnosis to the remote management device via the network;
A communication connection means for receiving a result of the self-diagnosis from the home appliance or a diagnosis result of the remote management device;
A display unit for displaying a result of the self-diagnosis or a diagnosis result of the remote management device;
The remote management device is:
The remote management system characterized in that, when it is determined from the self-diagnosis result that a countermeasure for failure is necessary, the diagnosis result of the remote management device is transmitted to the home device.

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