JP2018205855A - Home electric appliance system, method of diagnosing home electric appliance and terminal device - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide a home electric appliance system in which information to be held in a communication device, out of many kinds of type information is reduced.SOLUTION: The home electric appliance system has: a home electric appliance having a storage unit in which operation history data is stored; a server in which a plurality of pieces of definition information corresponding to type information are stored; and a communication device capable of exchanging information with the home electric appliance and the server. The communication device acquires definition information corresponding to type information of the home electric appliance from the server and acquires the operation history data of the home electric appliance from the home electric appliance.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a home appliance system, a home appliance diagnosis method, and a terminal device.

  When a user of a home electric appliance finds an abnormality in his home electric appliance, he or she may call a service person to determine whether a failure has occurred or whether repair is necessary. Patent Document 1 discloses a configuration in which various analyzes of the home appliance 10 are performed by the communication terminal 1.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-95601

  When a service person uses the communication terminal 1, such a service person does not always diagnose a small number of types of home appliances but may diagnose a large number of types of home appliances. However, in order to diagnose home appliances, it is desirable to know the past operating state of the home appliances, and data related to such information is usually stored as operation history data in a memory in the home appliance. However, what kind of meaning the driving history data is stored at which address of the memory (storage unit) may vary depending on the type and model of the home appliance, so it is useful to simply read the driving history data from the memory. Information cannot be created.

  In order to create useful information, it is necessary to obtain the definition information of the driving history data stored in the memory together with the driving history data, which may be different for each home appliance. . That is, for example, useful information (driving history) can be created only by combining driving history data itself as a list of numerical values and the meaning of the numerical values. However, since the definition information may differ depending on the type and type of home appliance, it is difficult to store, for example, almost all of the definition information that can have many types in the communication terminal 1 in advance.

  1st this invention made | formed in view of the said situation, the household appliances which have a memory | storage part which preserve | saves driving history data, the server which preserve | saves the several definition information corresponding to format information, the said household appliances, and the said A communication device capable of exchanging information with a server, wherein the communication device obtains definition information corresponding to the format information of the home appliance from the server, and the operation history of the home appliance Data is obtained from the home appliance.

  Moreover, the 2nd this invention made | formed in view of the said situation WHEREIN: The step which preserve | saves operation history data in a household appliance, The step which prepares the communication apparatus which can exchange information between the said household appliance and a server, A step of preparing format information of the home appliance, a step of notifying the server of the format information, a step of transmitting definition information corresponding to the format information to the communication device, and the communication device The operation history data is obtained from the home appliance, the communication device or the server creates an operation history from the definition information and the operation history data, and the communication device is created based on the operation history. A step of displaying a table or a graph, or a step of displaying the presence / absence of the failure of the home appliance or the cause of the failure , It is a diagnostic method of home appliances, including.

  Furthermore, the third aspect of the present invention made in view of the above circumstances acquires a part of definition information from a server storing a plurality of definition information corresponding to each format information, and the definition information and the home appliance It is a terminal device having a function of creating a driving history of a home appliance using driving history data.

Block diagram of the home appliance system of the first embodiment The block diagram of the refrigerator as an example of the household appliances of Example 1 The figure which shows an example of the value preserve | saved at a certain address of the memory | storage part of the household appliances of Example 1 The flowchart which concerns especially on the definition information and driving history data of the household appliances system of Example 1 The flowchart which concerns especially on the control data of the household appliance system of Example 1 The figure which shows the graph which the communication apparatus of the household appliances system of Example 1 displays. The figure which shows the table | surface which the communication apparatus of the household appliances system of Example 1 displays.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Similar components are denoted by the same reference numerals, and the same description will not be repeated.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the home appliance system of the present embodiment. The home appliance system includes a home appliance 1, an I / F board 2, a communication device 3, and a service center 5. The communication device 3 can communicate information with the service center 5 via a wide area network 4 (for example, the Internet).

[Household appliances 1]
The home appliance 1 includes a storage unit (memory) 11 that stores operation history data and control data of the home appliance 1 itself.
The operation history data may correspond to, for example, the state of a device or member whose operation is controlled while referring to a detection value of a sensor provided in the home appliance 1 or a detection value of a sensor of the home appliance 1. . The type and number of sensors provided in the home appliance 1 and the position in the home appliance 1 may vary depending on the type and type of the home appliance 1. For example, in the case where the home appliance 1 is a refrigerator and an air conditioner, the number, type, and position of sensors mounted on the same refrigerator can be different as long as they are different types. The household appliance 1 can memorize | store the detection value, state, etc. of these sensors for every predetermined time. This predetermined time may also differ depending on the type and type of the home appliance 1. Hereinafter, the information indicating the type and type of the home appliance 1 is referred to as “format information”. For example, information indicating that the home appliance 1 is “refrigerator” and the model number “A” is an example of the format information.

  As a sensor, for example, if it is a refrigerator, the temperature or humidity sensor outside the refrigerator, the temperature or humidity sensor in the refrigerator compartment, the temperature or humidity sensor in the freezer compartment, the temperature or humidity sensor in the vegetable compartment, the temperature or humidity sensor in the ice making compartment, A temperature or humidity sensor in the chilled room, a temperature sensor at the partition of the refrigerator compartment opening edge, an illuminance sensor outside the warehouse, a human sensor, a door opening / closing sensor of each storage room, and the like.

  In addition, as the state of equipment and members, for example, when considering a refrigerator as the home appliance 1, the number of revolutions of the compressor, the number of revolutions of the fan that sends air to the condenser, the opening degree of the expansion valve, the current amount of the evaporator heater, and evaporation The number of rotations of the fan that sends the cool air of the cooler (cooler) to each storage room, the opening / closing or opening of the damper, the current amount of the vegetable room heater, ON / OFF of the interior lighting, and the like.

  The control data includes rules and the like related to driving of devices and members of the home appliance 1. For example, when the home appliance 1 is a refrigerator, the data relates to a function or a condition (table) that determines the rotation speed of the compressor of the refrigerator. For example, it is a method (rule) which determines the rotation speed of a compressor based on the outside temperature and the temperature of each storage room.

  Thus, the above-described operation history data is stored in the storage unit 11. That is, the storage unit 11 has an address area in which detection values of various sensors and states of various devices and members are stored, and which operation history data is stored at which address. It may vary depending on the type and type of the home appliance 1.

[I / F board 2]
The I / F board 2 can convert the operation history data stored in the storage unit 11 of the home appliance 1 into a format that can be read by the communication device 3, and can write control data to the storage unit 11 of the home appliance 1. It has a function to convert to a format. When the home appliance 1 and the communication device 3 can directly exchange data, it is not always necessary. For example, when the home appliance 1 needs to exchange data by serial communication and the communication device needs to exchange data according to the USB standard, these can be relayed. Further, the area in which the control data is written is not necessarily the same as the component storing the operation history data. That is, instead of the storage unit 11, another storage unit may be used.

[Communication equipment 3]
The communication device 3 includes a home appliance communication unit capable of exchanging information directly with the home appliance 1 or indirectly through the I / F board 2, and a remote service center 5 via the wide area network 4 by wire or wireless. This is a device having a center communication unit capable of exchange. The communication device 3 includes, in addition, a display unit that displays a graph created based on operation history data and definition information described later, a failure cause estimation result of the home appliance 1, data received from the service center 5, and the home appliance 1. And an arithmetic unit capable of performing arithmetic processing on the data read from. The communication device 3 can be preferably a portable terminal such as a smartphone or a tablet terminal that can be easily transported.

[Service Center 5]
The service center 5 includes a server 51 that stores information (master data) of multiple types and types of home appliances 1. The server 51 includes control data and definition information corresponding to the type of the home appliance 1 (refrigerator, air conditioner, washing machine, cooking heater, etc.) and type (refrigerator model number A, model number B,...). Is remembered.

  The definition information includes information indicating what data is stored at what address in the storage unit 11 and in what sense. A specific example will be described later.

[Refrigerator 10 as an example of home appliance 1]
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a refrigerator 10 corresponding to certain format information as an example of the home appliance 1. The refrigerator 10 includes a control unit 101 that controls the entire refrigerator, a control panel 102, a storage unit 11, and a sensor that generates operation history data.

  The control unit 101 acquires the states and detection values of various switches, sensors, devices, and members from the operation information output unit 103 that outputs part or all of the information corresponding to the operation history data. Specifically, the state of the storage room door switch 1031 for acquiring the opening / closing information of the door of each storage room, the state of various switches and sensors such as the storage room temperature sensor 1032, the cooler temperature sensor 1033, the outside temperature sensor 1034, or the like The detection value is acquired, and the number of rotations and the like of each device such as the compressor 1035 and the cooling fan 1036 are detected and controlled. The refrigerator 10 of the present embodiment can store, in the storage unit 11, the internal temperature target value specified by the user via the input unit 1022 of the control panel 102 as information corresponding to the operation history data. .

  The control panel 102 includes an input unit 1022 for switching a setting change of the cooling temperature, a quick freezing operation stop, and the like, and a display unit 1021 indicating the set cooling temperature, the quick freezing operation state, the open state of each door, and the like.

  As described above, the control unit 101 determines the door opening time length per unit time based on the information from the opening / closing information of the storage room door switch 1031, the temperature of each sensor such as the storage room temperature sensor 1032, the operation time and rotation of the compressor 1035. The operation history data such as the number, the operation time and the number of rotations of the cooling fan 1036, the target value of the internal temperature acquired from the control panel 102 are totaled in a time series for each unit time (for example, every hour), Can be stored.

[Information stored in the storage unit 11]
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of operation history data stored in the storage unit 11 of the home appliance 1. As described above, what information is stored at which address in the storage unit 11 may vary depending on the type and type of the home appliance 1, so only the operation history data stored in the storage unit 11 ( Even if the value 1 is stored in the address 100 and the value 7.2 is stored in the address 101, it is difficult to convert the information into meaningful information.

For example, the refrigerator 10 according to the present embodiment having the storage unit 11 storing the operation history data in FIG. 3 sequentially stores from the address 100, “1 if the door switch is opened and closed, and 0 if it is closed (address 100) "," Store the value of the refrigerated room temperature sensor at Celsius temperature (address 101) "," Store the value of the cooler temperature sensor at the Celsius temperature by reversing the sign of the sign (address 102) "," External “Save temperature sensor value as Celsius temperature (address 103)”, “Store compressor speed as min ⁻¹ as a dimension (address 104)”, “Save cooling fan speed as min ⁻¹ as a dimension” Address 105) ". The data from the address 106 is stored in the same order for 6 days and 23 hours ago. That is, information indicating that the door switch opening / closing information is stored every 60 minutes with five jumps from the address 100, and the refrigerator temperature value is stored every 60 minutes with the Celsius temperature by jumping five from the address 101. Significant information (operation history) cannot be created unless the operation history data is acquired from the storage unit 11 of this embodiment and analyzed together with (definition information).

  It should be apparent to those skilled in the art that numerical values such as “five skips” and “every 60 minutes” in the above example are examples and are not limited to these values.

[Create operation history in combination with definition information]
Usually, the definition information has a relatively large amount of data. For this reason, it is difficult to store the definition information in advance in the communication device 3 for almost all the products corresponding to the format information of each home appliance manufacturer. In addition, if the definition information and the information (operation history data) in the storage unit 11 are combined, there is a possibility that the operation history of the home appliance 1 can be created. It is not preferable to leave it. On the other hand, since the definition information is usually the same for each type and model of the home appliance 1, the definition information to be acquired is uniquely determined if the format information is known.

[Operation of home appliance system]
The communication device 3 of the home appliance system of the present embodiment transmits information related to the type and type (format information) of the home appliance 1 to the service center 5 via the wide area network 4. Based on the received format information, the service center 5 identifies the definition information of the home appliance 1 to be transmitted to the communication device 3, and communicates the definition information of the home appliance corresponding to this format information via the wide area network 4. Transmit to device 3. At this time, the latest control data of the home appliance 1 may be transmitted.

  Separately, the communication device 3 reads information including operation history data stored in the storage unit 11 of the home appliance 1. An operation history is created by combining the read information with the definition information. That is, the necessity of preliminarily storing definition information that is not particularly necessary for the communication device 3 in the home appliance system according to the present embodiment is reduced.

  Thereafter, the communication device 3 performs arithmetic processing on the operation history to estimate the presence or absence of the failure of the home appliance 1 and the cause thereof, or to display the operation history of the home appliance 1 in a table format or a graph format.

  FIG. 4: is a figure which shows operation | movement of the household appliances system of a present Example as an example when the household appliances 1 are refrigerators. The order of the operation of this system can be changed as appropriate unless there is a necessary relationship such that it is necessary to execute a pre-requisite step in order to execute a certain operation step.

  First, the refrigerator 10, which is an example of the home appliance 1, acquires the state and value of the operation information output unit 103, for example, every predetermined time (step S110). When the user of the household electrical appliance 1 thinks that some sort of failure has occurred in the household electrical appliance 1, the user can call the service person and request a diagnosis.

  The service person brings the communication device 3 and visits the user's home where the home appliance 1 is installed. If the definition information of the household electrical appliance 1 is not stored in the communication device 3 brought by the service person, the format information is input to the communication device 3 to request the definition information from the server 51 (step S210).

Upon receiving the request for definition information, the server 51 transmits definition information corresponding to the received format information to the communication device 3 (step S310). At this time, the latest control data of the home appliance 1 may be added and transmitted as necessary.
Steps S210 and S310 may not be performed when definition information corresponding to the communication device 3 is already stored. The definition information and control data stored in the communication device 3 are preferably stored in a state where the date when the communication device 3 obtains it and the creation date or version of the definition information and control data can be referred to. By doing so, it becomes easy to determine when the definition information and control data are versions.

  Next, the service person connects the communication device 3 to the home appliance 1 directly or via the I / F board 2 and causes the home appliance 1 to output a signal requesting operation history data (step S220). At this time, if the input of the format information of the home appliance 1 is requested via the communication device 3 and the input format information does not match the format information of the home appliance 1, the output of the driving history data is rejected. preferable. Moreover, it is preferable to configure so that the output of the driving history data is rejected even when the communication device 3 does not have definition information corresponding to the format information of the home appliance 1. By providing such a step, it is possible to suppress the creation of an operation history using incorrect definition information.

  Next, the household appliance 1 which received the request | requirement of driving history data outputs the driving history data preserve | saved at the memory | storage part 11 to the communication apparatus 3 (step S120).

  The communication device 3 that has obtained the operation history data performs a calculation process for creating an operation history in combination with the definition information, and displays a part or all of the operation history in a table format or a graph format (step S230). In addition, it is possible to analyze the operation history and display whether or not a failure has occurred in the home appliance 1 and if it has occurred, the cause can be estimated and displayed. This graph and table will be described later. The service person can easily answer the user's questions by showing the graph and table, the presence / absence of the failure and the estimated result of the cause to the user, and the user is also promoted to understand the problem.

  The operation history data obtained from the home appliance 1 is deleted by the service person operating the communication device 3 (step S240). Alternatively, the communication device 3 is set so as to be automatically deleted after a predetermined period from the acquisition of the operation history data, or the communication device 3 is set so as to notify that deletion is recommended after the predetermined period has elapsed. Also good. In order to prevent the definition information version from being left out of date, the communication device 3 is set so that the definition information is automatically deleted after a predetermined period from the acquisition of the definition information. The communication device 3 may be set so as to notify that deletion is recommended after a predetermined period.

  Note that part of step S230 may be executed by the server 51 instead of the communication device 3. Specifically, the communication device 3 may transmit the operation history data to the server 51, and the server 51 may perform a calculation process that creates the operation history by combining the operation history data and the definition information. In this case, the communication device 3 may acquire the calculation result and output a graph or a table, and may not receive definition information from the server 51 in advance.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating the operation of the home appliance system when the control data of the home appliance 1 is updated. Steps S110, S210, and S310 can be performed in the same manner as described above, but request control data instead of or in addition to a request for definition information. In step S310, control data is received.

  The service person inputs the format information of the household electrical appliance 1 to which control data is to be written, and then makes a control data write request to the household electrical appliance 1 (step S225). The household electrical appliance 1 receives the request and outputs format information (step S125). When the communication device 3 confirms that the format information input in step S225 matches the format information output in step S125, the communication device 3 executes a process of writing control data to the home appliance 1 (step S235). That is, if the format information of both does not match, the control data of the home appliance 1 cannot be rewritten. As a result, it is possible to prevent inappropriate control data from being written.

  FIGS. 6A and 6B are examples of graphs that the communication device 3 creates based on the operation history and displays on the display unit of the communication device 3. The created graph may be created using all information such as sensors of the household electrical appliance 1 or may be created using only information that the service person or user thinks necessary. 6 (a) and 6 (b) show the outside temperature, refrigerator temperature, cooler temperature, refrigerator door open time, refrigerator power supply reset, amount of water tank used for ice making, refrigerator cooling intensity The setting and the strength setting for cooling the freezer are shown for 7 days. The sampling time for the graphing does not necessarily match the sampling time of the storage unit 11. Through the visual inspection of this graph, the service person can determine whether or not the home appliance 1 has failed and the cause of the failure, and the user understands the explanation by having the user look at the graph. Can help. As shown in FIG. 6A, the vertical axis may have two or more dimensions. In this embodiment, the vertical axis indicates Celsius temperature and time. In this way, since operation histories of different dimensions can be displayed on the same horizontal axis (time axis), many types of operation histories can be viewed simultaneously, which is convenient for estimating the cause of failure.

  FIG. 7 is an example of a table created by the communication device 3 based on the operation history and displayed on the display unit of the communication device 3, and displays the cause of failure estimated based on the analysis of the operation history. Specifically, FIG. 7A is a table showing the presence / absence of the failure of the household electrical appliance 1, the cause of the failure, and the number of days elapsed since the failure occurred, and FIG. 7B is a table of storage rooms that affect the energy saving performance. It is a table | surface which shows the frequency | count of door opening.

  The “failure code” in FIG. 7A is defined in advance by the designer of the home appliance 1 and has a one-to-one correspondence with the “content”. “Content” describes the failure content of the home appliance 1, and it can be seen that the home appliance 1 of the present embodiment has an abnormality in the cooling fan motor and the outside temperature sensor. “Elapsed days” is a fixed value or an estimated value of the number of days since the abnormality described in “Content” has occurred. When “Content” is normal, “Elapsed Days” is not displayed.

  “Item” in FIG. 7B indicates how many times the door of the storage room of the refrigerator 10 which is an example of the home appliance 1 is opened within a predetermined period. This period can be specified by a service person or the like. By showing this value to the user, the user's awareness of energy saving can be increased.

1 Home Appliances 11 Storage Unit (Memory)
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Refrigerator 101 Control part 102 Control panel 1021 Display part 1022 Input part 103 Operation | movement information output part 1031 Storage room door switch 1032 Storage room temperature sensor 1033 Cooler temperature sensor 1034 External temperature sensor 1035 Compressor 1036 Cooling fan 2 I / F board 3 Communication equipment 4 Wide area network 5 Service center 51 Server

Claims (6)

Household appliances having a storage unit for storing driving history data;
A server storing multiple definition information corresponding to the format information;
A home appliance system having a communication device capable of exchanging information with the home appliance and the server,
The communication device is:
Obtaining definition information corresponding to the format information of the home appliance from the server,
A home appliance system, wherein operation history data of the home appliance is obtained from the home appliance. An operation history is created from the definition information and the operation history data,
The household electrical appliance system according to claim 1, wherein the communication device includes a display unit that displays a table or a graph created based on the operation history.   The home appliance system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the communication device obtains control data corresponding to the home appliance from the server, and outputs the control data to the home appliance. A step in which the home appliance stores driving history data;
Preparing a communication device capable of exchanging information with the home appliance and server;
Preparing format information of the home appliance;
Notifying the server of the format information;
The server transmitting definition information corresponding to the format information to the communication device;
The communication device acquiring the operation history data from the home appliance;
The communication device or the server creating an operation history from the definition information and the operation history data;
A step of displaying a table or graph created based on the operation history by the communication device, or a step of displaying the presence / absence of failure of the home appliance or the cause of the failure. . Before the step of acquiring the operation history data from the home appliance by the communication device, the step of inputting format information to the communication device,
When the input format information does not match the format information of the home appliance, the communication device cannot acquire the operation history data from the home appliance,
5. The home appliance according to claim 4, further comprising a step of notifying that the operation history data is automatically deleted or recommended to be deleted after a predetermined period from the acquisition when the operation history data has been acquired. Device diagnostic method. Get some definition information from the server that stores multiple definition information corresponding to each format information,
A terminal device having a function of creating an operation history of a home appliance using the definition information and operation history data of the home appliance.

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