JP2006323597A - Network household electric appliance control system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a network household electric appliance control system capable of making operability satisfactory regardless of the type of an operating terminal when remotely controlling a network household electric appliance by the operating terminal. <P>SOLUTION: When an operation screen is displayed on a television 6b used as the operating terminal, a button for setting an operating state (under cooling operation in the figure) different from the present operating state of the network household electric appliance is displayed (in a state of an "OFF" button being selected beforehand in the figure). The network household electric appliance can thereby be easily switched into the operating state different from the present operating state with simple operation to a remote control of the television. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a network home appliance control system that allows a network home appliance connected to a home network to be remotely controlled by an operation terminal.

In recent years, network home appliance control systems have been provided that allow network home appliances to be connected to a control device via a home network so that the operation of the network home appliance can be remotely controlled through the control device and the operation status can be monitored from a remote location. Has been. In order to make such network home appliances remotely controllable at home, it is possible to connect an operation terminal to the home network and perform remote control through the control device by operating the operation terminal.
JP 2004-21325 A

  By the way, when the operation screen for remotely controlling the network home appliance is displayed on the operation terminal, the operation button or the stop button for the operation target network home appliance is simply displayed (see Patent Document 1). For this reason, when a television is used as an operation terminal, an operation for selecting a button is performed using various keys provided on the remote control of the television, but on the screen using a mouse like a personal computer. It is not possible to perform an operation of selecting and determining a target location at once. For this reason, when operating network home appliances with a TV remote controller, it is desired that the target button displayed on the operation screen can be operated with as simple an operation as possible.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to control network home appliances that can improve operability regardless of the type of the operation terminal when the network home appliance is remotely controlled by the operation terminal. To provide a system.

  The network home appliance control system of the present invention is a network home appliance to be controlled, a control device that is connected to the network home appliance through a home network and outputs control information for controlling the network home appliance, An operation terminal for remotely controlling the network home appliance through the control device, a display means for displaying an operation screen including a plurality of buttons for operating the network home appliance on the operation terminal, and the display means When the operation screen is displayed, the operation screen includes display control means for displaying a predetermined button determined based on the operation state or the operation environment of the network home appliance in a preselected state (Claim 1).

  In the above configuration, when the button displayed on the operation screen is operated by the display unit, the display control unit has a button for operating the network home appliance so that the operation state is different from the button. You may make it display in the state selected beforehand (Claim 2).

  In addition, the display control unit may select only buttons that can be actually controlled with respect to the network home appliance when the display control unit displays the operation screen. 3).

In addition, when the operation screen is displayed, the display control means may display a button having the highest number of operations in a state selected in advance (Claim 4).
Further, when displaying the operation screen, the display control means may display a button determined based on information such as temperature, humidity, season, and time in a preselected state. ).

  According to the present invention, when an operation screen is displayed on the operation terminal, a predetermined button determined based on the current operation state or the operation environment of the network home appliance is displayed on the operation screen in a preselected state. Therefore, the operation state of the network home appliance can be switched by a simple operation on the operation terminal.

(First embodiment)
A first embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. FIG. 4 shows a configuration example of the network system. In FIG. 4, a home network 2 is configured in a residence 1, and a home gateway (corresponding to a control device) 3 is connected to the home network 2. The home gateway 3 serves as a contact point between the home network 2 and the Internet 4 that is an external network, and has an interface to the home network 2 and an interface to the Internet 4.

In addition to the home gateway 3, a network home appliance (hereinafter, “net home appliance”) 5 and an operation terminal 6 are connected to the home network 2.
The home network 2 is physically a specific network or a mixed network of wired LANs such as Ethernet (registered trademark) and IEEE 1394, and wireless LANs such as Bluetooth (registered trademark) and 802.11. Can be configured.

  In this embodiment, Echonet (registered trademark) is used to control the network home appliance 5. This echo net defines commands, protocols, objects, APIs, and the like for controlling equipment devices (white appliances, etc.) on various physical media such as electric light wires and twisted pair wires. The home gateway 3 has an echo net server function, and has a function of controlling the net home appliance 5 based on the echo net protocol. In other words, the function of searching the home network 2, automatically detecting the net home appliance 5 connected to the home network 2, and acquiring home appliance information related to the net home appliance 5 from the detected net home appliance 5 is also provided. Have.

  On the other hand, an ASP (Application Service Provider) server (corresponding to a display means and display control means server) 7 is connected to the Internet 4. The ASP server 7 has a function of collecting and registering information on the network home appliance 5 acquired by the home gateway 3 and, as will be described later, the operation of the network home appliance 5 through the home gateway 3 in accordance with an operation on the operation terminal 6. It also has a function to control.

  In FIG. 4, only one Internet home appliance 5 and operation terminal 6 are illustrated, but in general, a plurality of devices are generally connected. Further, although only one home network 2 and one ASP server 7 are shown, a plurality of home networks 2 and a plurality of ASP servers 7 can exist on the Internet 4.

  The home gateway 3 has a global IP and communicates directly with the ASP server 7 and the Internet 4 using TCP / IP. In this embodiment, the domain of the ASP server 7 is “netkaden.toshiba.co.jp”, and the home gateway 3 can acquire the global IP of the ASP server 7 by a DNS (Domain Name System) server. The home gateway 3, the network home appliance 5, and the operation terminal 6 have private IP addresses belonging to the same network address, communicate with the TCP / IP through the home network 2, and communicate with the ASP server 7 and the TCP / IP through the home gateway 3. It is designed to communicate with IP.

Note that the network home appliance 5 and the operation terminal 6 may have a unique global IP address instead of the private IP address and directly communicate with the ASP server 7.
Here, the home gateway 3 has a function as a proxy server, and when accessed from the operation terminal 6, the presence or absence of encryption for data communication with the ASP server 7 according to the access path. Is set to switch.

In order to realize such an encryption function, the home gateway 3 is set as follows.
Proxy Pass / a / "https://netkaden.toshiba.co.jp/"
Proxy Pass / b / "http://netkaden.toshiba.co.jp/"
Proxy Pass Reverse / a / "https://netkaden.toshiba.co.jp/"
Proxy Pass Reverse / b / "http://netkaden.toshiba.co.jp/"

  In other words, when access including “/ a /” in the access path arrives at the home gateway 3, the ASP server 7 is accessed by https (with encryption by SSL (Secure Socket Layer)) and data communication by encryption is executed. To do. When an access including “/ b /” in the access path arrives, the ASP server 7 is accessed with http (no encryption), and data communication is executed without encryption. In this embodiment, the control command information is encrypted as will be described later, and the image or html source body is not encrypted. This is because if the control command information is stolen by a third party, there is a risk of unauthorized access by eavesdropping or impersonation.

  The operation terminal 6 connected to the home network 2 functions as a home appliance remote controller for controlling a desired network home appliance 5 via the home gateway 3. For example, a personal computer, a TV, a mobile phone terminal, a PDA In the present embodiment, an example using a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as a PC) 6a and a television 6b will be described as shown in FIG.

  In the present embodiment, a case where a Web browser is used as a remote control screen for Internet home appliance control, that is, a case where an interface for controlling the Internet home appliance 5 is provided in the form of a Web screen will be described as an example. That is, when the operation terminal 6 is a home appliance remote controller, an operation screen for controlling a predetermined network home appliance 5 is displayed on the web browser 8 (see FIG. 4) of the operation terminal 6, and the operation screen is It is composed of a Java file for controlling home appliances, an image file, and the like.

  As a specific example of the Web browser 8, when the operation terminal 6 is a personal computer 6a, Internet Explorer (registered trademark) or Netscape (registered trademark) is representative, and the operation terminal is a television (digital television) 6b. Is typically Netfront (registered trademark).

Next, the ASP server 7 connected on the Internet 4 will be described.
FIG. 5 shows a configuration example of the ASP server 7. In FIG. 5, the ASP server 7 has a Web server function for providing a screen and interface for home appliance control to the operation terminal 6 having the Web browser 8.

  In addition, the ASP server 7 has a function of generating a program for controlling home appliances (such as a web page for controlling home appliances) for the operation terminal 6 and distributing the file, and is necessary for that. For files, image files, and individual Internet home appliances 5, a cgi file, an image file, and the like necessary for creating the operation screen are stored.

By accessing the ASP server 7 via the home gateway 3, the operation terminal 6 can acquire a file necessary for creating an operation screen by HTTP or HTTPS as described later.
In order to realize such a function, the ASP server 7 is provided with a personal information database 9, an owned device information database 10, and an attribute information database 11.

  FIG. 6 shows an example of the personal information database 9. In FIG. 6, in the personal information database 9, name, affiliation group, and skin are set corresponding to the user ID. An affiliated group is a condominium in which a user lives or a developer who develops a condominium, and is a group that receives the same service when receiving a service provided by the ASP server 7. A skin is a processing layer for display, and the Web material transmitted to the operation terminal 6 by changing the skin for each operation terminal 6 is the same, but the way it is displayed (screen layout and color) is different. Can be made.

FIG. 7 shows the owned device information database 10. In FIG. 7, in the owned device information database 10, the owned device and the installation location are set corresponding to the user ID.
FIG. 8 shows the attribute information database 11 displayed for each group. In FIG. 8, a display location, an image, and a link URL (Uniform Resource Locator) are set in the attribute information database 11 corresponding to the group.

On the other hand, when the ASP server 7 determines the group to which the user belongs, the ASP server 7 changes the display control skin according to the group.
FIG. 9 shows an example of a skin directory set in the ASP server 7. In FIG. 9, html and img directories are set under each skin directory, and predetermined files are stored in these directories. In FIG. 9, the same parts (“title.gif”, “Toshiba.gif”, etc.) have the same names.

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be described.
When the user starts up the operation terminal 6, the Web browser 8 of the operation terminal 6 requests a TOP screen from the ASP server 7 through the home gateway 3.

  FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the flow until the ASP screen is displayed on the operation terminal 6 by the ASP server 7. In FIG. 10, when the ASP server 7 receives the request for the TOP screen (S1), the ASP server 7 checks the authentication key for identifying the user (S2), and when the check result is NG (S3: NG). An error page is displayed (S9). When the check result is OK (S3: OK), the owned device for each user is searched based on the owned device information (S4), and the group to which the user belongs is searched (S5). In the example shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, when the specified user ID is “00001”, for example, “Air Conditioner” is installed in “Living” and “Living” is “ Search for “Lighting” installed. Also, it is searched that the belonging group is “A”.

Next, the ASP server 7 checks the skin (S6). In the example illustrated in FIG. 7, it is checked that the skin having the user ID “00001” is “1”.
Next, the ASP server 7 discriminates the Web browser 8 of the operation terminal 6 (S7), and then displays a TOP screen (S8). In the example shown in FIG. 8, as attribute information to be displayed for each group, “1”, “2”, and “3” are set as display locations corresponding to the group “A” (display locations on the PC 6a). (See FIG. 11), “title.gif”, “cm.gif”, “topics.gif” are saved as image files corresponding to the display locations, and “http” is linked as a link corresponding to the image file. :: //AAA/index.html "," http: //AAA/cm.html ", and" http: //AAA/topics.html "are set. Therefore, when the ASP server 7 transmits such an html file to the user's PC 6a, the TOP screen can be displayed by the Web browser 8 of the PC 6a.

  By the way, on the TOP screen for the PC 6a, a plurality of display contents (display by one frame formed from the Web material) for forming the TOP screen possessed by the ASP server 7 are displayed.

  In the example shown in FIG. 12, the display content of the TOP screen 12 displayed on the PC 6a includes a common title screen 12a, a home appliance list screen (operation screen) 12b, and a commercial that is a display content for each group to which the user belongs. It consists of a screen 12c and a topics screen 12d. In addition, an icon 12e indicating the net home appliance 5 is displayed on the home appliance list screen 12b. Since the display contents for displaying these screens are originally created on the assumption that they are displayed on the PC 6a having a display with a large number of pixels, even if a plurality of display contents are displayed on the PC 6a, the display contents of the PC 6a are displayed. Everything can be displayed on the screen without any problems.

However, when the television 6b is used as the operation terminal 6, the number of pixels of the television 6b is smaller than that of the PC 6a (this is the same even if the television 6b has a large screen). Not all possible display contents can be displayed.
Therefore, in the present embodiment, when the ASP server 7 determines that the Web browser 8 of the operation terminal 6 is, for example, a television front, the operation server 6 determines that the operation terminal 6 is the television 6b, and the title screen 12a and The home appliance list screen 12b is displayed as display content (see FIG. 13). In this case, the Web material of the display content on the home appliance list screen 12b displayed on the television 6b is the same as the Web material of the display content on the home appliance list screen 12b displayed on the PC 6a, and the common use of the Web material is illustrated. It has been.

Furthermore, in this embodiment, the display content is changed by the skin according to the group to which the user belongs. In other words, any display of the TOP screen 12 for the PC 6a shown in FIG. 12 or the TOP screen 12 for the TV 6b shown in FIG. 1, TOP screen 12 is displayed in blue, skin In 2, it was switched to orange display. In this case, the web materials (parts) necessary for display are the same, and the display color is only changed by the skin. Further, not only colors but also different layouts can be displayed. Therefore, the TOP screen 12 can be displayed on the PC 6a or the television 6b in a display form suitable for the group to which the user belongs only by changing the skin.

  In order to realize such a function, a directory is set for each skin in the ASP server 7 as shown in FIG. 9, and the same parts are used. In other words, even if the components constituting the display content are the same, the way in which the user belongs is changed for each group to which the user belongs by changing the skin.

  Now, as described above, it is possible to remotely control the desired home appliance 5 by operating the TOP screen 12 displayed on the PC 6a or the television 6b. For example, when the user wants to operate, for example, an air conditioner on the PC 6a as the operation terminal 6, the user clicks the air conditioner icon 12e displayed on the PC 6a with the mouse selected. Further, when it is desired to operate the air conditioner on the television 6b as the operation terminal 6, the “OK” key 15 is operated with the “Cross” key 14 of the remote controller 13 shown in FIG.

  Here, in the icon 12e of each home appliance 5 on the TOP screen 12, a link necessary for creating the operation screen of each home appliance 5 is designated as a link destination at the time of selection. For example, the air conditioner icon 12e has a link to “aircon.html” stored in the ASP server 7.

  When the “OK” key 15 is operated while the air conditioner icon 12e on the TOP screen 12 displayed on the operation terminal 6 is selected, the icon is “192.168.1.1/b/aircon.html”. Since the link is established, the television 6b accesses the home gateway 3 with the access path “192.168.1.1/b/aircon.html”.

  When accessed at “192.168.1.1/b/aircon.html”, the home gateway 3 includes “/ b /” in the access path. The ASP server 7 is accessed without encryption using http and “aircon.html” is requested (see FIGS. 15 and 16).

  The ASP server 7 transmits “aircon.html” held by the ASP server 7 to the operation terminal 6 via the home gateway 3 without being encrypted in response to a request from the home gateway 3 based on http. As a result, the operation terminal 6 executes the received “aircon.html”.

An example of “aircon.html” set in the ASP server 7 is shown below.
[Aircon.html]
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv = "Content-Type" content = "text / html; charset = EUC-JP">
<title> Air conditioner </ title>
<script language = "javascript" src = "/ a / air # control.js"></script> ； Control information
</ head>
<body>
<img src = "/ b / aircon.gif" alt = "" width = 1 height = 1></td>; Air conditioner operation screen
</ body>
</ html>
In this program, the control information for specifying the script language is encrypted by including “/ a /” in the access path, and the information for displaying the air conditioner operation screen includes “/ b /” in the access path. This indicates that encryption is not performed.

  When the ASP server 7 transmits the above-mentioned program “aircon.html” to the operation terminal 6, the ASP server 7 is accessed from the operation terminal 6 by using http, so that the HTML tag itself constituting “aircon.html” is displayed. Send without encryption.

When the web browser 8 of the operation terminal 6 receives “aircon.html” from the ASP server 7, it executes the “aircon.html”.
That is, it requests the ASP server 7 for control information and an air conditioner operation screen necessary for creating the TOP screen 12 to the ASP server 7. At this time, the home gateway 3 determines whether “/ a /” or “/ b /” is included in the access path received from the operation terminal 6, and if “/ a /” is included, that is, In the above program example, the control information “air “control.js” is encrypted with https and requested to the ASP server 7. If “/ b /” is included, that is, in the above-described program example, “aircon.gif” is requested to the ASP server 7 without encryption (see FIGS. 15 and 16).

By the above operation, the encrypted “aircon.html” is transmitted after the ASP server 7 transmits the unencrypted “aircon.html” to the operation terminal 6 via the home gateway 3. “control.js” and “aircon.gif” which is not encrypted are transmitted in order, and the TOP screen is displayed on the operation terminal 6 (see FIGS. 15 and 16).

  FIG. 17 shows a sequence among the operation terminal 6 (the television 6b in the figure), the ASP server 7, and the internet home appliance 5 (the air conditioner 5a in the figure). In FIG. 17, the ASP server 7 confirms the state of the air conditioner 5a in response to the access from the television 6b. When the air conditioner 5a returns the state, an operation screen is displayed on the television 6b based on the acquired information. To do. At this time, when displaying the operation screen on the television 6b, the ASP server 7 switches the display of a cursor for selecting an icon according to the current state of the air conditioner 5a. That is, as shown in FIG. 1, when the air conditioner 5a is in operation, the cursor is stopped, and when the air conditioner is stopped, the cursor is in operation. To the television 6b via the home gateway 3.

  Through the above operation, the operation screen 16 of the air conditioner 5a as shown in FIG. 2 is displayed on the television 6b. On this operation screen 16, an "ON" button 17 for operating the air conditioner 5a and an "OFF" button 18 for stopping are displayed. At this time, on the operation screen 16, when the air conditioner 5a is operating (in the cooling operation in the figure), the “OFF” button 18 is displayed in a state selected in advance by the cursor (thick line in the figure). When the air conditioner 5a is stopped, the “ON” button 17 is displayed in a state selected in advance by the cursor as shown in FIG.

  Now, in order to stop the operating air conditioner 5a on the operation screen 16 of the air conditioner 5a, the “OFF” button 18 is displayed in a pre-selected state, so that the “determine” on the remote control 13 of the TV 6b is displayed. The key 15 is operated. As a result, the television 6b transmits a stop command for the air conditioner 5a as a request message including, for example, a CGI parameter to the ASP server 7 via the home gateway 3 as shown in FIG.

  Upon receiving this request message, the ASP server 7 converts a stop command for the air conditioner 5a based on CGI parameters, for example, into a stop command for the air conditioner 5a in the Echonet protocol, and transmits this to the home gateway 3.

When the home gateway 3 receives a stop command for the air conditioner 5a by the Echonet protocol, the home gateway 3 transmits a stop command to the air conditioner 5a.
With the above operation, the operated air conditioner 5a can be stopped by remote control by operating the remote controller 13.

  At this time, as shown in FIG. 17, when the ASP server 7 confirms that the state of the air conditioner 5a has changed during the stop in response to turning off the air conditioner, it is displayed on the operation screen of the operation terminal 6. The cursor is moved to the “ON” button 17. Therefore, the user can easily perform an operation for operating the air conditioner 5 a by the remote controller 13 with a single operation on the “OK” key 15.

  As described above, in order to move the cursor from the “OFF” button 18 to the “ON” button 17 on the operation screen 16 of the air conditioner 5a, communication between the home gateway 3 and the ASP server 7 is non-SSL. Communication. This is because the Internet communication from the home gateway 3 to the ASP server 7 is only information necessary for specifying the image of the operation button from the control result, and thus information for specifying the device is not included.

  On the other hand, as shown in the sequence of FIG. 18, when the ASP server 7 confirms the state of the air conditioner 5a and the air conditioner 5a is out of order, the ASP server 7 displays “ON” on the operation screen displayed on the television 6b. Neither the “” button 17 nor the “OFF” button 18 can be selected. As such a control method, for example, "<a href="/cgi-bin/on.cgi"> <img src =" off.gif "> </a> ”Is described as“ <img src = “off. It can be implemented by changing to gif ">".

  According to such an embodiment, when an operation screen for operating the internet home appliance 5 is displayed on the operation terminal 6, an operation button for performing an operation different from the current operating state of the internet home appliance 5 is previously displayed with the cursor. Since the display is made in the selected state, when the internet home appliance 5 is switched to an operation state different from the current operation by operating the remote control 13 of the television 6b, the switching is performed by a single operation on the “OK” key 15 of the remote control 13. Can do. Therefore, the operability can be simplified as compared with a case where a desired operation button on the operation screen is selected and determined by operating various keys on the remote controller of the television.

(Second embodiment)
Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 19 to 22, and the same parts as those in the first embodiment will be denoted by the same reference numerals and description thereof will be omitted. The second embodiment is characterized in that, when transmitting device-specific identifier information possessed by the home gateway 3, the identifier information is encrypted and transmitted to the ASP server 7.

The ASP server 7 stores “monitor.cgi” instead of “aircon.gif” shown in the first embodiment.
Further, “aircon.html” stored in the ASP server 7 is programmed as follows.
[Aircon.html]
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv = "Content-Type" content = "text / html; charset = EUC-JP">
<title> Air conditioner </ title>
<script language = "javascript" src = "/ a / air # control.js"></script> ； Control information
</ head>
<body>
<script language = "javascript" src = "/ a / monitor.cgi"></script>; Air conditioner screen
</ body>
</ html>
This program indicates that information for displaying an air conditioner operation screen in addition to control information for designating a script language is encrypted by including “/ a /” in the access path.
Further, as an example of home gateway information set in the ASP server 7, a home gateway individual identifier is set corresponding to the user ID as shown in FIG.

  In the present embodiment, when the web browser 8 of the operation terminal 6 executes “aircon.html” described above to access “monitor.cgi” with “/ a /”, the home gateway 3 determines its own solid identifier. Since the information is passed to the ASP server 7, “monitor.cgi” identifies the user based on the individual identifier information, creates an operation screen of the target device, and sends it to the operation terminal 6 via the home gateway 3.

With this operation, as shown in FIG. 19 and FIG. 20, the “aircon.html” that is not encrypted is transmitted from the ASP server 7 to the operation terminal 6 via the home gateway 3 and then encrypted. Air control.js "and encrypted" monitor.cgi "are sent.

  Here, when the air conditioner 5a is in operation, the “OFF” button 18 is displayed on the operation screen 16 of the air conditioner 5a displayed on the television 6b in a state selected in advance by the cursor. When the “OK” key 15 of the remote controller 13 of the television 6b is operated, the remote controller 13 requests the ASP server 7 to execute a stop command via the home gateway 3.

  Since the ASP server 7 outputs a stop command to the home gateway 3, the home gateway 3 executes the stop command to stop the air conditioner 5a, and then requests the ASP server 7 for an OFF screen. In this case, since the device information is not included in the OFF screen, the OFF screen is requested without encryption.

  By such an operation, as shown in FIG. 22, “Off.gif” is transmitted from the ASP server 7 to the home gateway 3 without encryption, so that the operation screen 16 of the television 6b is switched to the stop screen. In this case, “On.gif” for displaying the buttons on the operation screen with the cursor selected is simply switched to “Off.gif”, and other Web materials constituting the operation screen are changed. There is nothing.

  According to such an embodiment, when the home gateway 3 accesses the ASP server 7 in response to a request from the operation terminal 6 and requests an operation screen, the home gateway 3 encrypts and transmits its own individual identifier information. Therefore, the ASP server 7 can return the target TOP screen, and can reliably identify the user while keeping the user information confidential.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above, and can be implemented with various modifications within the technical scope thereof.
The encryption means between the home gateway 3 and the ASP server 7 is not limited to SSL, and PKI, RSA, S / MINE, or the like may be used.

The display content may be stored in the home gateway 3 so that the home gateway 3 provides the display content to the operation terminal 6.
When displaying the operation screen on the operation terminal 6, the ASP server 7 may display the operation button with the most frequently used operation button on the basis of the past operation history.

For example, when the current month is from July to September, the ASP server 7 may select and display cooling among automatic, cooling, heating, and dehumidification.
In this embodiment, a case is described in which the operation terminal 6 is used as a remote controller for home appliance control. For example, the home gateway 3 itself includes a Web browser function (and a display function), and the home gateway 3 itself is used. Of course, a form of use as a remote control for home appliance control is also possible.

The flowchart which shows the movement display operation of the cursor of the ASP server in 1st Example of this invention. The figure which shows the operation screen where the “OFF” button is selected and displayed Figure showing the operation screen with the "ON" button selected and displayed Schematic diagram showing the overall system configuration Schematic diagram showing the configuration of the ASP server The figure which shows the personal information database of an ASP server The figure which shows the possession apparatus information database of an ASP server The figure which shows the attribute information database of an ASP server The figure which shows the directory of the skin which is registered with ASP server Flowchart showing TOP screen display operation of ASP server The figure which shows the position of the display area of the operation terminal Schematic diagram showing the TOP screen of a personal computer Schematic diagram showing the TV TOP screen Top view showing part of the remote control Overall schematic showing data flow Sequence showing the flow of data between devices until the operation screen is displayed Sequence showing the flow of data between devices until the cursor is selected and displayed FIG. 17 equivalent diagram showing the case where the air conditioner is out of order FIG. 15 equivalent view showing the second embodiment of the present invention. 16 equivalent diagram The figure which shows the home gateway information database of an ASP server The figure which shows the switching procedure of the display of the operation screen

Explanation of symbols

  In the drawings, 2 is a home network, 3 is a home gateway (control device), 4 is the Internet, 5 is a network home appliance, 5a is an air conditioner (network home appliance), 6 is an operation terminal, and 6a is a personal computer (operation terminal). , 6b is a television (operation terminal), 7 is an ASP server (display means, display control means), 8 is a Web browser, 12 is a TOP screen, and 12b is a home appliance list screen (operation screen).

Claims (5)

Network home appliances to be controlled,
A control device connected to the network home appliance via a home network and outputting control information for controlling the network home appliance,
An operation terminal for remotely controlling the network home appliance through the control device;
Display means for displaying an operation screen including a plurality of buttons for operating the network home appliance on the operation terminal;
When the display unit displays the operation screen, the display unit includes a display control unit that displays a predetermined button determined based on an operation state or an operation environment of the network home appliance in a preselected state. Network home appliance control system.   The display control means, when a button displayed on the operation screen by the display means is operated, a state in which a button for operating the network home appliance is selected in advance so that the operation state is different from the button The network home appliance control system according to claim 1, wherein the network home appliance control system is displayed.   3. The network home appliance control system according to claim 1, wherein, when displaying the operation screen, the display control unit can select only buttons that can be actually controlled with respect to the network home appliance. 4. .   3. The network home appliance control system according to claim 1, wherein, when displaying the operation screen, the display control unit displays a button having the highest number of operations in a preselected state. 4. 3. The display control unit according to claim 1, wherein when displaying the operation screen, a button determined based on information such as temperature, humidity, season, and time is displayed in a preselected state. Network home appliance control system.

Images