JP5368629B2 - Home appliances and home appliance systems - Google Patents

Abstract

A home appliance and home appliance system are provided which enable a portable terminal not to recognize an acoustic signal sound corresponding to product information output by the home appliance as noise. Thus, the acoustic signal corresponding to product information output by the home appliance may be transmitted to a service center through the portable terminal. The home appliance may include a controller that sets a dead time at a predetermined interval of time with respect to a signal corresponding to product information to avoid a noise detection section of a portable terminal, a converter that converts the signal into an acoustic signal of a predetermined band, and a sound output device that outputs the acoustic signal as sound.

Description

  The present invention relates to a home appliance and a home appliance system.

  Home appliances and home appliance systems are already known. However, the above-described home appliances and home appliance systems have various disadvantages.

  One object of an embodiment disclosed in the present specification is to provide a home appliance and a home appliance system that can provide product information such as the status and / or failure information of the home appliance via a portable terminal.

  The home appliance and the home appliance system according to the embodiments disclosed in the present specification convert product information that may include home appliance operation information and / or failure information into an acoustic signal, and set a dead time for the acoustic signal. As a result, the portable terminal can be prevented from recognizing the acoustic signal as noise, and the status check and the after-sales service of the corresponding home appliance can be facilitated.

  The home appliance according to the embodiment disclosed in the present specification controls to set a dead time at a predetermined time interval for a signal corresponding to product information in order to avoid a noise detection section of the mobile terminal. A conversion unit that converts the signal into an acoustic signal in a predetermined band, and an acoustic output unit that outputs the acoustic signal as sound.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the following drawings. In the drawings, like reference numerals indicate like elements.

It is a conceptual diagram which shows the household appliances and household appliances system which concern on embodiment which illustrates the method in which a household appliance is connected to a service center. It is a conceptual diagram which illustrates the noise removal of a portable terminal. It is a block diagram of the household appliances concerning an embodiment. It is a conceptual diagram which shows the structure of the signal area which concerns on embodiment, and the space | interval space | interval (IFS).

  Hereinafter, the embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  Embodiments disclosed in the present specification relate to home appliances and home appliance systems. Embodiments of the home appliance and the home appliance system are described with reference to, for example, a laundry processing device and a laundry processing device system. However, the present embodiment is not limited to the laundry processing device and the laundry processing device system, and can be applied as other home appliances and home appliance systems. Such home appliances may include, for example, a TV, an air conditioner, a washing machine, a refrigerator, an electric rice cooker, or a microwave oven or a conventional oven.

  The home appliance can store a value set for the operation during the operation, information generated during the operation, fixed information, and the like. At the time of failure, the home appliance can output a predetermined alarm so that the user can recognize the state of the home appliance. Such home appliances may output detailed failure information as well as operation completion information or information indicating the occurrence of failure via an output unit such as a display or a lamp.

  In the event of a malfunction of a household electrical appliance, the user may contact the service center for advice on the current state of the household electrical appliance or request the service center to promptly repair the household electrical appliance and provide after-sales service. Can receive. In this case, the failure information may be output from the home appliance as, for example, a code that the user cannot understand, and thus it is difficult for the user to deal with the failure. Furthermore, even if the user can connect to the service center, the user may not be able to inform the service center of the correct state of the home appliance. Therefore, when a repair engineer visits a user's home, it does not know the exact condition of the home appliance before the repair engineer visits the home, so it takes a lot of time and money to repair the corresponding home appliance. It may take. For example, if the repair engineer does not have the necessary parts to repair the home appliance, the repair engineer must revisit the home, thereby requiring time and effort.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the home appliance may be connected to the server of the service center via a predetermined communication unit. For this purpose, a dedicated communication network must be constructed.

  FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a home appliance and a home appliance system according to an embodiment illustrating a method of connecting a home appliance to a service center. As shown in FIG. 1, a household electrical appliance system 100 including a household electrical appliance 1 is shown. The home appliance 1 can include an output unit 70 that outputs product information that may include the state of the home appliance and / or failure information. The output unit 70 may include a display 71 and a sound output unit 72.

  The display 71 can visually display product information such as home appliance status information and / or failure information, for example, light emission such as a light emitting diode (LED), a liquid crystal display (LCD), or an organic light emitting diode (OLED). It may be a device. The sound output unit 72 may audibly output sound corresponding to product information such as home appliance state information and / or failure information.

  When a failure occurs during operation of the home appliance 1, the home appliance 1 can notify the user of the occurrence of the failure via the display unit 71 or the sound output unit 72. At this time, the user can report the occurrence of the failure to the service center 90 and request the service center 90 to diagnose the electronic device. At the same time, the user can provide product information to the service center 90 by notifying the service center 90 of product information including, for example, the model number and failure state of the home appliance 1 in the form of an acoustic signal output by the home appliance 1. Then, the service center 90 can provide the user with necessary and appropriate after-sales service.

  The home appliance 1 generates an acoustic signal corresponding to product information that may include status information and / or failure information of the home appliance 1, and the mobile terminal 5 sends the acoustic signal generated by the home appliance 1 to the service center 90. The service center 90 can provide an appropriate measure for analyzing a sound signal and processing a failure of the home appliance 1 corresponding to the product information provided by the user.

  The acoustic signal output from the home appliance 1 to the portable terminal 5 can be controlled at a predetermined time interval. That is, the acoustic information output from the home appliance 10 may be recognized as noise by the other mobile terminal 5, unlike the audio signal. When an acoustic signal having a certain magnitude and frequency is continuously applied, the mobile terminal 5 may recognize the acoustic signal as noise and perform noise removal.

  Hereinafter, noise removal of the mobile terminal will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram illustrating noise removal of a mobile terminal.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the mobile terminal 5 recognizes a signal A that changes in the audible frequency band as data, and recognizes a signal B having a certain pattern as noise over time. Also good. The portable terminal 5 generates the waveform C by reducing the gain of the signal B recognized as noise. Therefore, a beep sound and a mechanical sound for expressing an error code generated from the home appliance 1 may be recognized as noise by the mobile terminal device 5.

  According to the embodiment disclosed in the present specification, when an acoustic signal corresponding to product information is generated by the home appliance 1 and transmitted to the service center 90 via the portable terminal 50, the acoustic signal is The acoustic signal corresponding to the product information may be converted into an intermittent signal so that it is not recognized as noise. The acoustic signal converted into the intermittent signal is not recognized as noise by the mobile terminal 5, but is usually recognized as an audio signal and may be provided to the service center 90.

  The user may set a call connection in the service center 90 using the portable terminal 5 in order to transmit product information to the service center 90 by a consultant or an automatic response system (ARS). While connected to the service center 90, the user moves the mobile terminal 5 near the home appliance 1 so that the mobile terminal 5 can provide the service center 90 with an acoustic signal corresponding to product information. Also good.

  The service center 90 can determine the product information that may include the failure state of the home appliance 1 by analyzing the acoustic signal received via the mobile terminal 5. Further, the service center 90 determines essential parts and necessary service types necessary for repairing the home appliance 1 based on the analysis result, and dispatches a repair engineer 93 to the place where the home appliance 1 is located, thereby quickly. And an accurate after-sales service can be provided.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the home appliance according to the embodiment disclosed in the present specification. As shown in FIG. 3, the home appliance 1 includes an input unit 20, a detection unit 30, a drive unit 40, a storage unit 50, a conversion unit 60, an output unit 70, and a microcontroller or control unit that controls the overall operation of the home appliance 1. 10 may be included. The output unit 70 may include a display unit 71 and a sound output unit 72.

  The operation of the drive unit 40 may be controlled in response to a control signal applied from the control unit 40 so that the home appliance 1 can perform an operation corresponding to the control signal. For example, in the case of a laundry processing apparatus, the drive unit 40 may rotate a laundry tub or drum to remove contamination of the laundry by driving a motor that rotates the laundry tub or drum, for example. In addition, the drive unit 40 may control a valve that supplies or drains wash water in response to the control signal.

  The detection unit 30 includes at least one sensor that measures data on the operation state of the home appliance 1, and applies the measured data to the control unit 10 while the home appliance 1 performs the operation specified by the drive unit 40. May be. For example, in the case of a laundry processing device, the detection unit 30 may measure the water level when supplying or draining the washing water, and may measure the temperature of the supplied water and the rotation speed of the washing tub or drum.

  The storage unit 50 includes, for example, operation state data generated during the operation of the home appliance 1, operation information such as setting data input by the input unit 20, and information on the cause and the failure part of the home appliance 1 when a failure occurs Failure information including may be stored. Moreover, the memory | storage part 50 may memorize | store the control data for controlling operation | movement of the household appliances 1, and the reference data utilized during operation control.

  The input unit 20 may include at least one input mechanism so that the user can input a control signal so that the home appliance 1 performs a function desired by the user. When the household electrical appliance 1 is a laundry processing device, the input unit 20 includes, for example, a series of keys (or buttons). For example, the temperature of water supplied to the laundry, the amount of water, the drum rotation method, the drum The user may be able to set the rotation time of the item and whether or not the laundry is dried.

  The input result via the input unit 20 may be applied to the control unit 10, and the control unit 10 may drive the home appliance 1 with reference to the state set via the input unit 20. The input unit 20 is, for example, a button, a dome switch, a touch pad (resistive film type / capacitance type), a jog wheel, a jog switch, a finger mouse, a rotary switch, a jog dial, or input data determined in advance by a user operation. You may comprise as all the apparatuses which can generate | occur | produce.

  The control unit 10 may control the overall operation of the home appliance 1 based on a set value set by the user via the input unit 20. When there is a failure during the operation of the home appliance 1, the control unit 10 processes product information that may include failure information of the corresponding home appliance 1, and provides the processed packet data to the conversion unit 60. Also good. The control unit 10 may generate packet data related to product information so that the mobile terminal 5 does not recognize it as noise.

  The control unit 10 may include an error determination unit 11, a dead time setting unit 12, and a packet processing unit 13. The error determination unit 11 may detect an error of the home appliance 1 via the detection unit 30 or may determine an uncontrollable component among the components constituting the home appliance 1. After determining the form of an error that has occurred from the home appliance 1, the error determination unit 11 may select an error code corresponding to the form of the error and provide the selected error code to the dead time setting unit 12.

  When converting the error code into an acoustic signal, the dead time setting unit 12 may repeat the signal section of the error code and the inter-frame blank IFS so that the acoustic signal is not recognized as noise by the mobile terminal 5. When an acoustic signal having the same frequency is detected for about 2.5 to 3 seconds or more, most portable terminals determine the acoustic signal as noise, and in particular, the same frequency for a maximum of about 10 seconds or more. Most of the terminals determine the sound signal as noise. The dead time setting unit 12 detects the error code signal within about 2.5 to 3 seconds so that the portable terminal 50 does not recognize the acoustic signal as noise and the signal interval does not exceed about 10 seconds at the maximum. A section may be set.

  The IFS may be repeatedly inserted in the middle of the acoustic signal for the error code. Hereinafter, the IFS and the signal section will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram showing the structure of the signal interval and the inter-frame space IFS. As shown in FIG. 4, the dead time setting unit 12 may divide the acoustic signal corresponding to the error code into a signal section (data) and an IFS, and the IFS is repeated at a predetermined time interval.

  When the IFS is repeated at predetermined time intervals, the acoustic signal may be reproduced in the form of an intermittent tone. Since the intermittent sound is not recognized as noise by the portable terminal 15, an acoustic signal corresponding to product information can be provided to the service center 90 via the portable terminal 5. The acoustic signal generated by the dead time setting unit 12 may not be a signal in the audible frequency band, but is converted into one signal in the audible frequency band by the conversion unit 60 described later, and then the acoustic output unit. It may correspond to the signal reproduced by 72.

  The smaller the IFS size, the greater the amount of signal that can be transmitted per unit time (eg, about 1 second). However, the acoustic signal may be recognized as noise by the mobile terminal 5. On the other hand, as the size of the IFS is larger, the acoustic signal is not recognized as noise by the mobile terminal 5, but the amount of signal that can be transmitted per unit time (for example, about 1 second) decreases. Accordingly, the IFS may be a value in the range of about 0.1 to 1 second.

  The packet processing unit 13 may convert the acoustic signal having the IFS set by the dead time setting unit 12 into a packet form. The packet processing unit 13 may convert the acoustic signal corresponding to the product information into a combination of a signal and a cyclic redundancy code (CRC). The CRC may be used to correct an error in the acoustic signal received by the service center 90.

  The conversion unit 60 may convert the acoustic signal provided by the control unit 10 into an analog signal in a predetermined frequency band. The converter 60 may convert the acoustic signal by, for example, frequency shift keying, amplitude shift keying, or phase shift keying. The conversion unit 60 may stop the signal conversion during the IFS for which the dead time is set.

  The sound output unit 72 may be activated and stopped by a control signal from the control unit 10, receive the sound signal output from the conversion unit 60, and output a predetermined signal sound. Here, the sound output unit 72 may be a means for outputting sound such as a speaker, a buzzer, or a similar device.

  When the output operation is completed after the sound output unit 72 outputs the reproduced sound for the sound signal, the sound output unit 72 stops, and when the signal output command is input by the input unit 20, the sound output unit 72 is determined in advance. It may be operated again to output the signal sound.

  The display unit 71 may display information input by the input unit 20, such as information related to the operation state of the home appliance 1 and / or information related to completion of the operation of the home appliance 1, by control input of the control unit 10. . Moreover, the display part 71 may display failure information when the household appliances 1 break down. In this case, the output unit 70 may further include a lamp or vibration element that lights or flashes in addition to the sound output unit 72, but detailed description thereof will be omitted.

  As described above, the data or sound signal output as sound by the sound output unit 72 may be composed of a series of packets. Each packet is configured to be analyzed separately, thereby designing to contain all the information necessary for these extractions, and any information to recover the original packet from the analog signal. It should be noted that it is not used from other packets.

  The packet is edited into a digital form by the control unit 10, converted into an analog signal by the conversion unit 60, and output as a sound by the sound output unit 72.

  For example, a packet according to an embodiment may include 82 fields of data (another kind of data) and about 1000 symbols. The transmission of the entire packet may take about 12 to about 13 seconds. The dead time setting unit 12 may divide the data frame into several groups of data frames each having a transmission time of less than about 3 seconds, and insert an IFS between each group of data frames. For example, a group of data frames may each include, for example, about 250 symbols and have a transmission time of about 3 seconds. The IFS may include, for example, about 16 symbols and have a transmission time of about 192 ms. The IFS allows the mobile terminal 5 to process the packet as data instead of noise.

  References made herein to "one embodiment," "one embodiment," "exemplary embodiment," and the like refer to specific functions, structures, or features described in connection with this embodiment. Is included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of such phrases in multiple places throughout this specification are not necessarily all cited in the same embodiment. Also, when described in connection with embodiments with such specific functions, structures or features, such functions, features or features may be applied in connection with other embodiments of the various embodiments. It is within a range that can be predicted by those skilled in the art.

  While embodiments of the present invention have been described with reference to various exemplary embodiments, those skilled in the art can derive various other modifications and embodiments within the spirit and scope of the presently disclosed principles. It should be understood that it can be done. More specifically, various changes and modifications may be made to the components and / or devices of the combination device of the inventive subject matter within the specification, drawings and claims. Also, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that there may be alternatives as well as changes and modifications in the components and / or apparatus.

  As described above, the home appliance according to the embodiment disclosed in the present application can prevent the mobile terminal from recognizing the product information signal sound as noise, and thus the product information signal sound can be transmitted via the mobile terminal. It can be sent to the service center.

Claims (12)

A control unit for outputting a digital signal corresponding to the product information packet form, wherein the packet comprises a plurality of frames, each of the plurality of frames are separated by predetermined time intervals, the control unit When,
A conversion unit that receives a digital signal from the control unit and converts the digital signal into a modulation signal;
Receiving a modulated signal from the converter, and outputting the modulated signal as a predetermined sound from the home appliance, and
Said predetermined time interval, Ri spacing (IFS) der between frames,
The product information includes home appliance state information and home appliance failure information .   The household electrical appliance according to claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of frames has a transmission time of about 1 second to about 10 seconds.   The household electrical appliance of claim 1, wherein the predetermined time interval has a transmission time of about 0.1 second to about 1 second.   The household electrical appliance according to claim 1, wherein the conversion unit converts the digital signal into a modulated signal by frequency shift keying, amplitude shift keying, or phase shift keying.   The household electrical appliance according to claim 1, wherein the digital information corresponding to the product information is in the form of a packet. The household electrical appliance according to claim 5 , wherein a total transmission time of the packet is about 12 seconds to about 13 seconds. The household electrical appliance according to claim 6 , wherein the packet includes about 1000 symbols. The household electrical appliance according to claim 7 , wherein each of the plurality of frames includes about 250 symbols. The household electrical appliance according to claim 7 , wherein each of the plurality of frames has a transmission time of about 3 seconds. The household electrical appliance according to claim 7 , wherein the inter-frame spacing (IFS) includes about 16 symbols. The household electrical appliance according to claim 7 , wherein the inter-frame interval (IFS) has a transmission time of about 192 ms.   A home appliance system comprising the home appliance according to claim 1.

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