NZ540752A - Transmission of data in a local home appliance network - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for transmitting data on a local home appliance network is disclosed. Included is a network-capable home appliance (2) and a gateway (3) to at least one additional network (15), where the additional network (15) may be a wireless network. The home appliance includes a testing device (6) in which a predefined criterion of the home appliance (2) is tested whereby data is transmitted from the home appliance (2) to the gateway (3) when the predefined criterion is met. The predefined criterion includes a change of state and/or a change of values of the home appliance (2) in order to avoid cyclical interrogation by the gateway (3).

Description

540752 Transmission of Data in a Local Home Appliance Network [Description:] The invention relates to a method for transmitting data on a local home appliance network comprising at least one network-capable home appliance and at least one gateway to at least one additional network. Furthermore, the invention relates to a network-capable home appliance, which can be integrated into a local home appliance network, the local home appliance network having at least one gateway to at least one additional network.

Home appliances can be understood to include a heating system, a room monitoring system, a refrigerator, a washing machine or a cooker, for example. When applying the European Home Systems Standard (EHS standard) in the area of home appliance control, it is known to design the particular home appliances to be controlled in such a way that they can be controlled from a central instance in accordance with the EHS communications protocol, i.e. the algorithmic sequence of data transmissions between the central instance and the home appliances is defined by the EHS communications protocol.

In this regard, it is known that all services required or desired for control, for example applications such as an Internet browser, an electronic mail system or the like, are implemented directly as a service of the application layer in the home appliance itself.

A washing machine with an Internet connection is known from [1]. This washing machine includes a multifunction module with an http server and interface cards. intellectual property office of n.z. 2 9 SEP 2006 RECEIVED Such technology makes a home appliance, such as a washing machine, for example, considerably more expensive. This is particularly unfavourable when several home appliances are connected to an external network such as the Internet, as, in this case, each one of these home appliances has to be equipped with appropriate high-performance, and thus expensive, hardware.

A more favourable way of linking several home appliances to an external network, such as the Internet, is to use a central communications interface, a so-called gateway, between a local home appliance network and the external network. In this case, the individual home appliances are connected to the gateway by means of the local home appliance network, and the gateway to the external network, i.e. the large number of communications connections from the individual home appliances to the external network is reduced to the gateway.

In order to create as smooth an exchange of data between an external user and the home appliances as possible, home appliance data are held ready in the gateway in order to guarantee rapid access by an external user via the external network. The gateway continuously updates the home appliance data by cyclically interrogating the data from the home appliances at very short intervals via the local home appliance network.

As any number of home appliances can be connected to the local home appliance network, this leads to a high level of data traffic on the local home appliance network. As a result of this, in particular on local home appliance networks such as radio networks or supply voltage networks, for example, the quality of data transmission, and thus also the stability of these systems, is reduced. intellectual property office of n.z. 2 9 SEP 2006 RECEIVED The invention is based on the problem of improving the system stability of local home appliance networks.

This problem is solved by means of a method of the type described in the introduction in that the home appliance includes a testing device in which a predefined criterion of the home appliance is tested, and the data from the home appliance are transmitted to the gateway when the predefined criterion is met. In addition, the problem is solved by a home appliance of the type described in the introduction in that the home appliance includes a testing device, which is equipped in such a way that a predefined criterion of the home appliance can be tested with the testing device, and the data from the home appliance to the gateway are transmitted when the predefined criterion is met.

Advantageously a check is carried out in the home appliance as to whether the predefined criterion, such as a change of state and/or change of values of the home appliance, for example, is met, which is a simple way of ensuring that the system stability is improved, as cyclical interrogation by the gateway is avoided, as a result of which the data traffic in the home appliance network is considerably reduced.

This is particularly advantageous when the home appliance only changes its state and/or values infrequently, such as a refrigerator its actual temperature or a washing machine or a dishwasher its programme phases.

It is especially advantageous if the predefined criterion includes, in particular, an error signal from the home appliance as, by this means, the data traffic is reduced to the important cases of faults in the operation of the home appliance.

According to a favourable variant of the invention, the local home appliance network is a supply voltage network. intellectual property office of n.z. 2 9 SEP 2006 In this case, the invention is especially advantageous, since in supply voltage networks such as power lines, the data traffic can, for example, be easily disturbed by inadequately suppressed equipment. The reduction of data traffic according to the invention therefore has a particularly stabilising effect in supply voltage networks.

Preferably, the testing device is a microcontroller.

The use of a microcontroller, in particular a microcontroller of the home appliance, as a testing device is especially advantageous, as, in this way, the testing of the predefined criterion can be carried out cost-effectively by a software programme.

In a next embodiment, the additional network is a wireless network.

A mobile monitoring station, e.g. a Webpad, can be connected to the gateway via the wireless network, such as a local radio network, for example, so that, in this way, the home appliances of the local home appliance network can be both monitored and controlled by means of this mobile monitoring station. However, with a wireless network, the reception range can also include devices in neighbouring households, as a result of which the data traffic can be disturbed. The reduction of data traffic according to the invention therefore has a particularly stabilising effect in wireless networks.

The invention and its embodiments are described in more detail below with reference to the drawings: In the figures intellectual property office of n.z. 2 9 SEP 2006 Fig. 1 shows a system sketch for transmitting data on a local home appliance network, Fig. 2 shows a sequence diagram of the method for transmitting data on the local home appliance network.

The local home appliance network 1 in Fig. 1 includes a network-capable home appliance 2, a gateway 3 and a local data transmission line 4 between the home appliance 2 and the gateway 3. The home appliance 2, which can be a refrigerator, a washing machine, a dishwasher, a cooker or a fume extraction hood, for example, includes a control system 5 with a microcontroller 6, a communications module 7 with an interface 8 to the data transmission line 4 and a connecting cable 9 between the control system 5 and communications module 7. The gateway 3 includes an interface 10 to the local data transmission line 4 of a data memory 11, and an interface 12 to an external transmission path 13 between the gateway 3 and a user 14 of an external network 15, such as, for example, an open network, such as the Internet or a wireless network, as well as a connection 16 to the interface 10 to the data transmission line 4 and the data memory 11, and a connection 17 between data memory 11 and interface 12 to the external data transmission path 13.

The home appliance 2 is controlled by means of the control system 5 and here, in particular, by a control programme of the microcontroller 6. In addition, the microcontroller 6 also acts as a testing device in which a predefined criterion of the home appliance 2 can be tested, as described in detail in Figure 2. If this criterion is met, then data are transmitted from the microcontroller 6 via the connecting cable 9 to the communications module 7. These data are transmitted from the communications module 7 by means of the interface 8 via the data transmission line 4 to the interface 10 of the gateway 3 where they are stored in the data memory 11 by means of the connection 16. Any change in the data format that takes place in intellectual property office of n.z. 2 9 SEP 2006 Rpr!CH/cn gateway 3 before storing is not shown here. The user 14, which can be a Webpad or an external service computer, for example, can now access the data in the data memory 11 via the external transmission path 13, the interface 12 of the gateway 3 and the connection 17.

As a general principle, the connecting cables 9, 16, 17 and the data transmission line 4 or the data transmission path 13 can also be wireless.

In a first method step 21 according to Fig. 2, a control programme in the microcontroller 6 is activated and status variables are initialised when the home appliance 2 is switched on. In a second method step 22, the data relating to the activation of the home appliance 2 are transmitted to the gateway 3, where they are stored in the data memory 11, as described with reference to Figure 1. The next step of the control programme is processed in a third method step 23. In the next method step 24, a check is carried out as to whether the predefined criterion, which can be a change to the status variables or an error signal, for example, is met. If this is not the case, then the method continues with method step 23. If the criterion is met, then data, which include the value of the status variables or the error signal, for example, are transmitted in the next method step 25 to the gateway 3, where they are stored in the data memory 11, as described in Figure 1. Any data related to the home appliance 2 already stored in the data memory of 11 are updated in this way. In the next method step 26, a check is carried out as to whether the control programme has ended. If this is not the case, then the method continues with method step 23. If the control programme has ended, then data relating to the ending of the control programme are transmitted in the next method step 27 to the gateway 3, where they are stored in the data memory 11, as described in Figure 1. In a last method step 28, the home appliance is then switched off or put into standby mode. intellectual property office of n.z. 2 9 SEP 2006 RECEIVED The method sketched in Figure 2 can be carried out by the microcontroller 6 with the help of a software programme. An alternative possibility is a circuit implementation, such as a flip-flop circuit, for example. In addition, as well as the serial processing of the individual method steps 21 to 28 shown in Figure 2, parallel processing of different method steps is also possible. intellectual property office of n.z. 2 9 SEP 2006 RECEIVED 8 Bibliography [1] "Talking washing machine with Internet connection", http://www.golem.de/9912/5441.html (internet address of 06.12.02) intellectual property office of n.z. 29 SEP 2008 R EC El VF n

Claims (7)

9 What is claimed is:

1. Method for transmitting data on a local home appliance network comprising a network-capable home appliance and a gateway to at least one additional network, wherein the home appliance includes a testing device, in which a predefined criterion of the home appliance is tested, and wherein the data are transmitted from the home appliance to the gateway when the predefined criterion is met, the predefined criterion including a change of state and/or a change of values of the home appliance in order to avoid cyclical interrogation by the gateway.

2. Method according to Claim 1, wherein the predefined criterion includes an error signal of the home appliance.

3. Method according to Claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein the local home appliance network is a supply voltage network.

4. Method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the testing device is a microcontroller.

5. Method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the additional network is a wireless network.

6. Method substantially as herein described with reference to the Figures.

7. Method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, substantially as herein described. END OF CLAIMS intellectual property office of n.z. 2 9 SEP 2006 RECEIVED