JP2988351B2 - Air conditioner - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an air conditioner having a function of generating a sound from an indoor unit every time various control signals are received from a remote controller to notify that the reception has been confirmed.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Today's air conditioners are provided with a remote controller for remotely controlling an indoor unit. The remote controller is used to turn on / off operation, heating operation, cooling operation, dehumidifying operation, air volume control, and the like.
Various controls such as temperature setting can be performed. The indoor unit has a light emitting diode (LE
D) is provided, and when the operation is switched from off to on, the operation indicator changes from the unlit state to the lit state. When the operation is turned off from the operation on, the operation indicator light is turned off from the on state. Therefore, the operator of the remote controller can confirm the switching of the operation on and off by visually checking the on / off state of the operation indicator lamp.

[0003]

However, when the operation is on and the operation mode such as the heating operation or the cooling operation or the setting temperature or the air volume mode is changed, the operation indicator remains lit. For this reason, while the operation is on, it is not possible to confirm whether or not the control signal of the remote controller has been received by the indoor unit or not by looking at the operation indicator light. On the other hand, in order to solve this, every time the indoor unit receives a control signal from the remote controller, a beep or a beeping sound is generated, and the operator of the remote controller is notified that the indoor unit has received the control signal. There are things that let you know. According to this, the operator of the remote control can confirm reception on the indoor unit side by hearing this sound. However, since this is intended to supplement visual indications by hearing, those who are not deaf can confirm the sound with a beeping sound when the indoor unit receives a control signal from the remote control. There is a problem that a person with a disability cannot hear the sound, and a person with a hearing impairment cannot confirm it.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional disadvantages, and an object of the present invention is to make it easy for a person with hearing impairment to easily confirm when a control signal from a remote controller is received by an indoor unit. It is an object of the present invention to provide an air conditioner capable of performing such operations.

[0005]

According to the air conditioner of the present invention, a remote controller 21 for transmitting various control signals is provided.
An indoor unit 1 having an operation indicator light 6 for illuminating that the vehicle is in operation , receiving a control signal from the remote controller 21 and operating on / off, heating operation, or cooling operation according to the control signal. In the air conditioner that performs air conditioning control, the indoor unit 1 is provided with a control means 10 for blinking the operation indicator light 6 for a predetermined period every time a control signal is received from the remote controller 21. I have.

According to the air conditioner, when the control signal from the remote controller 21 is received, the indicator lamp 6 flashes, so that it is easy to visually confirm that the indoor unit 1 has received the control signal. it can.

In the air conditioner, since the operation indicator lamp 6 is used for display, the configuration can be simplified and the cost can be reduced as compared with the case where the indicator lamp 6 is separately provided.

[0008] As further claims 2, if features a display by a sound, perform the acknowledgment of the control signal more reliably.

[0009]

Next, an embodiment of an air conditioner according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the indoor unit 1 and the remote controller 21. A suction port 2, an air outlet 3, a rotatable flap 4, and a light receiving window for receiving a wireless signal from the remote controller 21 are provided on the front surface of the indoor unit 1. 5, an operation indicator lamp 6 that lights up when the operation is on and goes off when the operation is off is provided.

On the other hand, a remote controller 21 for remotely controlling the indoor unit 1 includes on / off operation, heating operation, cooling operation,
Various operation buttons 22 such as switching operation modes such as dehumidification operation, temperature setting, air volume setting, and timer setting, and a display unit 23 for displaying various setting contents are provided. The remote controller 21 is provided with a light emitting element such as a light emitting diode, and transmits a control signal from the light emitting element to the light receiving window 5 of the indoor unit 1.
To be sent to. As the wireless signal, an electromagnetic wave, an ultrasonic wave, or the like may be used in addition to the optical signal.

FIG. 2 is a control block diagram of the indoor unit 1.
A central controller 10 that controls the entire indoor unit 1; a receiver 11 that processes a control signal received from the remote controller 21 via the light receiving window 5; a heating operation, a cooling operation, a dehumidifying operation, a temperature setting, An air-conditioning control unit 12 that performs various types of air-conditioning control such as air volume setting, flap control, and timer control, and a display control unit 1 that controls turning on, off, and blinking of the operation indicator lamp 6.
3. A sound generation control unit 14 for generating a sound such as "beep" or "beep" every time a control signal is received from the remote controller 21.

Next, the control operation will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, when the operation button 22 for operating the remote controller 21 is pressed, a control signal for operating the remote controller 21 is transmitted from the remote controller 21, and the control signal is transmitted to the receiving unit 11 shown in FIG. Received.
The control signal from the receiving unit 11 is determined by the central control unit 10. When the control signal from the remote controller 21 is received as shown in step S1, the process proceeds to step S2 and the display control unit 13 operates the indoor unit 1 The indicator light 6 flashes several times. At the same time, as shown in step S3, the sound generation control unit 1
4 generates a sound such as “beep” or “beep”. At the same time, as shown in step S4, processing is performed according to the content of the received control signal. In this case, the operation of the indoor unit 1 is turned on because the operation is an ON signal. After the operation indicator light 6 has blinked several times, the process proceeds to step S5, where the operation indicator light 6 is turned on.
The blinking of the operation indicator 6 may be performed several times as described above, or may be performed only for a certain period of time, such as five seconds. Further, the number and the period of the blinking are not limited to those described above, but may be any number and the period that the operator can easily visually recognize after operating the remote controller 21.

Next, after the operation is turned on, the operation is performed in the initially set operation mode.
To change the operation mode, change the set temperature, change the air volume mode, change the position of the flap swing to a predetermined angle, change the flap control such as stopping the swing, set the timer, etc., operate the remote controller 21. Will be.
Then, when an arbitrary operation button 22 is pressed, in step S6, if the operation signal is other than the operation-off signal, the process returns to step S1 to determine whether various control signals have been received. Then, for example, when a control signal for changing the set temperature is transmitted from the remote controller 21, the indoor unit 1 receives the control signal, blinks the operation indicator light 6 and generates a sound as shown in step S2 ( Then, the set temperature is changed (see step S4). Then, after the operation indicator light 6 flashes several times, the operation indicator light 6 is turned on as shown in step S5. Thus, the deaf person can easily confirm that the indoor unit 1 has received the control signal corresponding to the content of the operation by seeing the blinking state of the operation indicator light 6. Of course, a person who is not deaf can confirm by sound, and can easily confirm the reception by watching the blinking of the operation indicator light 6. In step S1, the operation of steps S1 to S5 is repeated no matter what control signal is received from the remote controller 21.

Next, when the operation-off signal is received,
The process proceeds from step S6 to step S7 to generate a sound and further stop the operation (see step S8). Then, as shown in step S9, the operation indicator light 6 is turned off,
The reception or operation of the indoor unit 1 can be visually confirmed by the light-off or the blinking operation.

In the above-described embodiment, the operation indicator lamp 6 is turned on or off after the operation indicator lamp 6 is turned on and off for all of the operation signals during operation on, various control signals during operation, and operation off. (In the case of the operation off signal), but it does not blink when the operation is on or off, but performs the operation of blinking the operation indicator 6 → lighting only when the control signal is received during the operation. Is also good. Further, only in the case of the operation-off signal, the operation indicator 6 may be turned off immediately without blinking. This is a signal indicating that the operation is off, so that if the operation indicator lamp 6 is turned off, the operator can easily judge it.

In addition to the operation of blinking the operation indicator light 6 and turning on the light, when an indicator light other than the operation indicator light 6 is provided according to various control contents, the indicator light is blinked. You may make it light up later. In this case, the indicator light flashes according to the control content, so that the control content and reception confirmation can be performed simultaneously. When the indoor unit 1 receives a control signal from the remote controller 21, a dedicated indicator light for blinking may be provided. In this case, the operation indicator light 6 remains lit and the dedicated indicator light flashes, so that no confusion is caused.
However, when the operation indicator light 6 is made to blink, an additional indicator light is not required, so that an increase in cost can be suppressed.

[0017]

According to the air conditioner of the first aspect, when the control signal is received from the remote controller, the indicator lamp flashes, and it is visually confirmed that the indoor unit has received the control signal. Easy. Therefore, the reception of the control signal can be easily confirmed even for a hearing-impaired person, which is very good news for a hearing-impaired person.

In the air conditioner, since the operation indicator lamp 6 is used for display, the configuration can be simplified and the cost can be reduced as compared with the case where the indicator lamp is separately provided.

Furthermore, as according to claim 2, if features a display by a sound, it performs the acknowledgment of the control signal more reliably.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing a control operation according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a control block diagram according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Indoor unit 6 Operation indicator lamp 10 Central control unit 14 Sound generation control unit 21 Remote control

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) F24F 11/02

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] A remote controller (2) for transmitting various control signals.
1) and an indoor unit (1) having an operation indicator light (6) for illuminating that the vehicle is being driven, and receiving a control signal from the remote controller (21) and responding to the control signal. In an air conditioner that performs air conditioning control such as operation on / off, heating operation, and cooling operation, control means for causing the operation indicator (6) to blink for a predetermined period each time a control signal is received from the remote controller (21). (10) is replaced with the indoor unit (1)
An air conditioner, characterized in that the air conditioner is provided for a vehicle. 2. A sound generation control unit (1) for generating a sound each time a control signal is received from a remote controller (21).
The air conditioner according to claim 1, further comprising ( 4).