JP2006352666A - Network household electric appliance control system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a network household electric appliance control system in which when controlling a network electric appliance through operation to an operating picture displayed on an operating terminal, a user can be surely notified of abnormality in the network household electric appliance. <P>SOLUTION: If abnormality occurs in a network household electric appliance, an external information server creates error history information indicating the occurrence of abnormality. When displaying a TOP picture on an operating terminal, if latest error history information is not read yet, the information server displays an error image in accordance with the network household electric appliance wherein the abnormality occurs, on the TOP picture of the operating terminal. Thus, the user can confirm the network household electric appliance wherein the abnormality occurs from the TOP picture displayed on the operating terminal, thereby surely dealing with the abnormality in the network household electric appliance. <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 remotely control it through the control device by operating the operation screen displayed on the operation terminal ( Patent Document 1).
JP 2005-109748 A

  By the way, when a failure or abnormality occurs in a network home appliance, the information server that manages each home network home appliance notifies the user by e-mail, for example, but it has an environment for receiving e-mail. If they do not match, there is a problem that the network home appliance continues to be used without knowing that an abnormality has occurred in the network home appliance.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and its purpose is to reliably notify a user of an abnormality of a network home appliance when the network home appliance is controlled by an operation on an operation screen displayed on an operation terminal. It is to provide a network home appliance control system that can do this.

  The present invention relates to a network home appliance to be controlled, an operation terminal connected to the network home appliance via a home network and displaying an operation screen for controlling the network home appliance, and a display on the operation terminal A control device that outputs control information to the network home appliance in response to an operation on the operation screen, and a storage unit that stores an error notification indicating failure, abnormality, etc. from the network home appliance; And when the storage means stores an error notification when the operation screen is displayed, the operation terminal displays a predetermined error notification image indicating that the error notification has been received on the operation screen. (Claim 1).

  In the above configuration, when the error notification is received from the network home appliance, the storage means creates and stores error history information indicating the network home appliance that sent the error notification and the date and time, and the operation terminal is The error history information is displayed when a predetermined browsing operation is performed, and when the latest error history information is unread when the operation screen is displayed, the predetermined error notification image is displayed on the operation screen. You may make it display (Claim 2).

Further, the operation terminal may display the predetermined error notification image on the operation screen corresponding to each network home appliance.
In addition, when the predetermined browsing operation is performed, the operation terminal may set the browsed error history information to read.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, when a network home appliance fails or becomes abnormal, an error notification indicating that is transmitted, so that the error notification is stored in the storage means.
When the user starts up the operation screen of the operation terminal to control the network home appliance, the control device displays a predetermined error notification image on the operation screen of the operation terminal. Thereby, since the user can confirm at a glance that a failure or abnormality has occurred in the network home appliance, it is possible to quickly cope with the abnormality.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, when a network home appliance fails or becomes abnormal, an error notification indicating that is transmitted, so that the network home appliance that sent the error notification and the error history information indicating the date and time are Stored in the storage means.
When the user starts up the operation screen of the operation terminal to control the network home appliance, the control device displays a predetermined error notification image on the operation screen of the operation terminal when the latest error history is unread. Thereby, it is possible to prevent the latest error history read by the user from being displayed on the operation screen of the operation terminal.

According to the invention of claim 3, it is possible to confirm at a glance the occurrence of an abnormality for each network home appliance.
According to the invention of claim 4, when the user performs a predetermined browsing operation on the operation terminal, since the browsed error history information is set to read, the read error history information is useless. You can prevent browsing.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a configuration example of a network system. In FIG. 1, 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 as 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 (such as white goods) 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 network 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 7 (corresponding to storage means) 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. 1, only one Internet home appliance 5 and operation terminal 6 are illustrated, but in general, a plurality of units 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.” (Not shown due to violation of public order and morals), and the home gateway 3 can acquire the global IP of the ASP server 7 by a DNS (Domain Name System) server. ing. 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.
The operation terminal 6 connected to the home network 2 functions as a home appliance remote controller for controlling a desired net home appliance 5 through the home gateway 3. For example, a personal computer, a television, a mobile phone terminal, a PDA, etc. Various types of devices are available.

  The operation terminal 6 uses a Web browser as a remote control screen for Internet home appliance control. In other words, when the operation terminal 6 is a home appliance remote controller, an operation screen for controlling a predetermined home appliance 5 is displayed on the Web browser 8, and the operation screen is a Java file for controlling the home appliance, Consists of image files.

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

  Next, the ASP server 7 connected on the Internet 4 will be described. 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 and an owned device information database 10.
FIG. 2 shows an example of the personal information database 9. In FIG. 2, a name is set in the personal information database 9 corresponding to the user ID.

  FIG. 3 shows the owned device information database 10. In FIG. 3, the owned equipment information database 10 is set with owned equipment and installation location corresponding to the user ID.

On the other hand, the ASP server 7 generates error history information when receiving an error notification from the network home appliance 5 as will be described later.
FIG. 4 shows an example of error history information. In FIG. 4, the error history information includes a user ID, a device, an error code, a browsing date, and a registration date. The error code is a number indicating the type of error that has occurred in the network home appliance. The browsing date is the date and time when the user viewed the details of the error history information. The registration date is the date and time when this error history information was created.

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 accesses the URL of the TOP screen set in the ASP server 7 through the home gateway 3.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a flow until the TOP screen is displayed on the operation terminal 6 by the ASP server 7. In FIG. 5, when the ASP server 7 is accessed to the URL of the TOP screen (S1: YES), the ASP server 7 checks the authentication key for specifying the user (S2), and when the check result is NG ( S3: NG), an error page is displayed (S9). If the check result is OK (S3: OK), the user's error history information is searched based on the user ID (S4), and it is confirmed whether the latest error history information is read or unread in each network home appliance 5. (S5). When there is no error history information (S6: YES), an ordinary device icon is selected (S7), and a TOP screen is displayed (S8).

  FIG. 6 shows an example of a TOP screen displayed on the operation terminal 6. In FIG. 6, the TOP screen 12 includes a common title screen 13, home appliance list screen (hereinafter, operation screen) 14, news screen 15, commercial screen 16, and topics screen 17. In this case, the operation screen 14 displays icons indicating the Internet home appliances 5 owned by the user (in the example shown in FIG. 6, an “air conditioner” icon 14 a, a “refrigerator” icon 14 b, and an “illumination” icon 14 c. In addition, as the icon of the internet home appliance 5 displayed on the operation screen 14, all the internet home appliances 5 owned by the user are displayed.

  The user can remotely control the desired home appliance 5 by operating the operation screen 14 of the TOP screen 12 displayed on the operation terminal 6. For example, when the user wants to operate an air conditioner on the operation terminal 6, for example, the “air conditioner” icon 14 a displayed on the operation screen 14 is selected.

  Here, in the icons 14a to 14c of each net home appliance 5 on the operation screen 14, a link necessary for creating the operation screen of each net home appliance 5 is specified as a link destination at the time of selection. For example, the “aircon” icon 14 a has a link to “aircon.html” stored in the ASP server 7.

  When the “air conditioner” icon 14 a displayed on the operation screen 14 of the operation terminal 6 is selected, the operation terminal 6 accesses the ASP server 7 via the home gateway 3 and requests “aircon.html”.

In response to a request from the home gateway 3, the ASP server 7 transmits “aircon.html” held by the ASP server 7 to the operation terminal 6 via the home gateway 3.
When the web browser 8 of the operation terminal 6 receives “aircon.html” from the ASP server 7, the web browser 8 executes the “aircon.html”. That is, the ASP server 7 is requested to the ASP server 7 for an air conditioner operation screen.

  By the operation as described above, information necessary for creating an air conditioner operation screen is transmitted from the ASP server 7 to the operation terminal 6 via the home gateway 3. The operation screen is displayed. When the operation is performed on the operation screen of the air conditioner, the ASP server 7 controls the air conditioner via the home gateway 3, so that the desired network appliance 5 is remotely controlled by operating the operation terminal 6. be able to.

  Now, when the air conditioner is used for a long time, the air conditioner filter becomes clogged. When the filter is clogged in this way, the rotational speed of the motor is lower than normal, so the air conditioner transmits an error notification indicating the filter abnormality to the ASP server 7 via the home gateway 3.

  Here, the ASP server 7 creates the error history information 11 shown in FIG. The example illustrated in FIG. 4 indicates that the error notification has been received once from the lighting 1 owned by the user with the user ID “00001” and twice from the air conditioner.

  In the flowchart shown in FIG. 5, when the latest error history information is unread as shown in FIG. 4 when the ASP server URL is accessed in the flowchart shown in FIG. 5 (S <b> 6: NO), the error history information exists. After selecting the error icon (S10), the TOP screen 12 is displayed (S8).

  Through the above operation, an error icon and a message indicating that an error has occurred are additionally displayed on the TOP screen 12 of the operation terminal 6 as an “air conditioner” icon 14a as shown in FIG. 15 indicates that there is important information. Accordingly, when the TOP screen 12 is displayed on the operation terminal 6, the user can confirm at a glance that an abnormality has occurred in the network home appliance 5. The “read notification” button 18 is selected. When the “read notification” button 18 is selected, the operation terminal 6 accesses the URL linked to the “read notification” button 18.

When the URL corresponding to the “read notification” button 18 is selected, the ASP server 7 displays the stored error history information on the operation terminal 6.
The ASP server 7 displays the end history information at the same time in addition to the error history information when the “read notification” button 18 is selected, and the combined history is referred to as “notification history”. It is called. The end history information is information storing that the operation of the washing machine or the microwave oven has ended.

  FIG. 8 shows an example of the notification history displayed on the operation terminal 6. In FIG. 8, the history display section 20 of the notification history screen 19 includes a display 20a indicating the date and time when the error notification is received, a display 20b indicating the time, a display 20c indicating the Internet home appliance 5 that has transmitted the error notification, A display 20d indicating the installation location of the home appliance, a notification image 20e, a “detailed display” button 20f, and a “delete history” button 20g are displayed. The notification image 20e is an image indicating whether the notification is an error notification or an end notification. The “detail display” button 20f is a button for viewing the details of the notification, and the “delete history” button 20g is a button for deleting the corresponding notification. Further, at the head of each piece of notification information, a “read” image 20h indicating that the information has been read is displayed.

In addition to the description of each image displayed in the display history, an “error lamp clear” button 21 and a “collective deletion” button 22 are displayed in the upper part of the history display unit 20.
Here, when the user wants to know the details of the unread error, the user selects the “detail display” button 20f of the desired error information. As a result, the error details screen received from the ASP server 7 is displayed on the operation terminal 6.

  FIG. 9 shows an example of an error details screen displayed on the operation terminal 6. In FIG. 9, the error detail screen 23 displays an error code number and the details of the error, as well as a “support” button 24 and an “OK” button 25. In the example shown in FIG. 9, a method for coping with clogging of a filter of an air conditioner is displayed. Therefore, when the user confirms the error detail screen 23, the user appropriately deals with the error according to the content. If the error cannot be dealt with, the “support” button 24 is selected to access the support center to teach the coping method.

  When the user browses the details of the unread error history information as described above, the ASP server 7 sets the read date by writing the browse date in the error history information 11 shown in FIG. Accordingly, the ASP server 7 does not display an error image on the operation terminal 6 because the latest error history information has already been read when a user with a user ID “00001” accesses the ASP server 7 thereafter.

According to this embodiment, when an error notification is transmitted from the network home appliance 5 when the network home appliance 5 is remotely controlled by an operation on the operation screen of the operation terminal 6, the network home appliance 5 that has transmitted the error notification Correspondingly, since the error image is displayed on the operation screen, it is possible to confirm at a glance that an abnormality has occurred in the Internet home appliance 5. Therefore, compared with the configuration in which the user is notified of the abnormality of the internet home appliance 5 by e-mail, the abnormality of the internet home appliance 5 can be notified even if the user is not in an environment capable of receiving e-mail. Can be dealt with reliably.
In addition, since the error image is displayed on the operation screen of the operation terminal 6 only when the latest error history information is unread, it is possible to prevent the error recognized by the user from being displayed repeatedly.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, but can be modified or expanded as follows.
As a means for indicating that an abnormality has occurred in the network home appliance 5 on the operation screen of the operation terminal 6, an icon of the network home appliance may be blinked, displayed in a different color, or the details of the error may be displayed. .

When the internet home appliance 5 in which an abnormality has occurred on the operation screen of the operation terminal 6 is selected, error history information may be displayed.
In the present embodiment, the case where the operation terminal 6 is used as a remote controller for home appliance control is described. For example, the home gateway 3 itself includes a Web browser function (and a display function), and the home gateway 3 itself is used. You may make it utilize as a remote control for household appliance control.

1 is a schematic diagram showing the configuration of the entire system in one embodiment of the present invention The figure which shows the personal information of the ASP server The figure which shows the possession apparatus information of an ASP server The figure which shows the error history information of ASP server Flowchart showing TOP screen display operation of ASP server The figure which shows the TOP screen of the operation terminal FIG. 6 equivalent view showing the display state of the error image The figure which shows the error history screen of the operation terminal The figure which shows the details screen of the operation terminal

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, 6 is an operation terminal, 7 is an ASP server (storage means), and 14 is a home appliance list screen ( Operation screen).

Claims (4)

Network home appliances to be controlled,
An operation terminal connected to the network home appliance via a home network and displaying an operation screen for controlling the network home appliance,
A control device that outputs control information to the network home appliance in response to an operation on the operation screen displayed on the operation terminal;
When an error notification indicating failure, abnormality, etc. is received from the network home appliance, the storage device stores the fact,
If the storage means stores an error notification when displaying the operation screen, the operation terminal displays a predetermined error notification image indicating that the error notification has been received on the operation screen. A network home appliance control system. The storage means, when receiving the error notification from the network home appliance, creates and stores error history information indicating the network home appliance that sent the error notification and the date and time,
The operation terminal displays the error history information when a predetermined browsing operation is performed, and displays the predetermined error notification image when the latest error history information is unread when the operation screen is displayed. The network home appliance control system according to claim 1, wherein the network home appliance control system is displayed on the operation screen.   The network home appliance control system according to claim 1, wherein the operation terminal displays the predetermined error notification image on the operation screen corresponding to each network home appliance. The network home appliance control system according to claim 2, wherein the operation terminal sets the browsed error history information as read when the predetermined browsing operation is performed.

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