TWI681686B - Judgment method of connecting router and machine control system - Google Patents

Abstract

[Problem] When a communication device of a communication target is connected to any one of a plurality of routers, it supports the connection of the own device to the router of the connection end of the communication target. [Solution] The machine control system includes: a smartphone (1) with a wireless communication function and a display unit; home appliances (4) with a wireless communication function; and multiple wireless LAN routers (2); and home appliances (4) The wireless communication function maintains the connection with any one of the plurality of wireless LAN routers (2), the wireless communication function maintains the connection with any one of the plurality of wireless LAN routers (2), the smartphone The display unit of (1) outputs a warning when the wireless LAN router (2) connected to itself and the wireless LAN router (2) connected to the home appliance (4) do not match.

Description

Judgment method of connecting router and machine control system

The invention relates to a judging method for connecting a router and a machine control system.

In recent years, home appliances such as vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators, and air conditioners that can be connected to the Internet have become popular as IoT (Internet of Things). In this way, information on household electrical appliances can be obtained or operated from outside. Compared with the communication function of directly connecting to the Internet, this kind of household electrical appliances is mostly connected to the indoor wireless network area, and connected to the Internet through the wireless network. Patent Document 1 describes a projector connected to a wireless network through an access point. Patent Document 2 describes a printer corresponding to a wireless network.

It is common for household appliances to be connected to multiple wireless LAN (Local Area Network) routers or networks in general households. Patent Document 3 describes a method of defining the existence area of a wireless LAN terminal device. [Prior Art Literature] [Patent Literature]

[Patent Literature 1] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-219853 [Patent Literature 2] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-333083 [Patent Literature 3] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-328524

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

When operating household electrical appliances from a terminal device such as a smart phone, in order to avoid incorrect operations, etc., so-called pairing operations are generally performed, and only devices that have completed pairing can be operated. When there are multiple wireless LAN routers indoors, by pairing one wireless LAN router to become the connection end of home appliances when pairing, through this wireless LAN router, smartphones and home appliances can communicate after pairing.

However, the wireless LAN router that is usually connected after the smartphone is paired may be a different router from the wireless LAN router at the connection end of the home appliance. Because the wireless LAN router that is usually connected, for example, it is decided to select the same router as the previous connection terminal based on a simple method. At this time, when the wireless LAN router, which is the connection end to the home appliance, is a different wireless LAN router and the smartphone becomes the normal connection, even if the pairing is successful, the smartphone and the home appliance cannot communicate.

In this way, when the connection to the wireless LAN is switched from the paired home appliances, the wireless LAN router to which the smartphone is automatically connected may not be what the user expects. Therefore, when operating a home appliance through a local area network via a wireless LAN from an operation terminal device, if there are multiple wireless LAN routers indoors, communication cannot be performed within the local area network without special measures.

The main subject of the present invention is to support the connection of the router of the own device to the connection end of the communication object when the communication device of the communication object is connected to any one of the plurality of routers. [Means to solve the problem]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides a method for judging a connected router in an environment equipped with a first communication device having a wireless communication function and a display unit, a second communication device having a wireless communication function, and a plurality of wireless routers The executor, the wireless communication function of the above-mentioned second communication device, is the step of maintaining the connection with any one of the plurality of wireless routers; the wireless communication function of the above-mentioned first communication device is any of the plurality of wireless routers. A connection procedure; when the display unit of the first communication device, when the wireless router to which it is connected and the wireless router that the second communication device maintains the connection are not consistent, it executes the step of outputting a warning. Other methods are described below. [Effect of invention]

According to the present invention, when a communication device of a communication target is connected to any one of a plurality of routers, it can support the connection of its own device to the router of the connection end of the communication target.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

Figure 1 is a block diagram of the machine control system. The device control system is composed of a smartphone (first communication device) 1, wireless LAN routers 2a, 2b (plural wireless routers), and home appliances (second communication device) 4a. In this machine control system, a plurality of wireless LAN routers 2a, 2b are arranged in the same room or the same home. Thus, radio waves can cover every corner of the space. The smartphone 1 has a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a memory, a memory device, and a touch panel, a mobile computer that executes a program that reads memory from the memory device.　　Household appliances 4a are household appliances such as washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, and self-propelled vacuum cleaners with wheels. In the following description, when not dependent on the description of the individual home appliance 4a, it is marked as "home appliance 4". The wireless LAN routers 2a and 2b serve as relay devices when the smartphone 1 or the home appliance 4 is connected to an external network (not shown) such as a server on the Internet, and also relay the smartphone 1 and the home appliance 4 Communication (regional communication). In the following description, when the description of the individual wireless LAN routers 2a and 2b is not dependent, it is marked as "wireless LAN router 2".

In this embodiment, for easy understanding of the description, the wireless LAN at the connection end of the smartphone 1 simultaneously has a plurality of situations, as an example in which a plurality of wireless LAN routers 2 are physically arranged. On the other hand, the situation where there are multiple wireless LANs at the same time is also applicable to an example in which multiple wireless LANs (wireless LAN in the 5 GHz band, wireless LAN in the 2.4 GHz band, etc.) are formed on one wireless LAN router 2.

Hereinafter, the wireless connections 71 to 74 formed according to the wireless LAN specifications such as Wi-Fi (registered trademark) will be described. The smartphone 1 is connected to the wireless LAN router 2a through the wireless connection 74, whereby the wireless LAN router 2a can be connected to the Internet as a relay device. Moreover, if the smartphone 1 is connected to the wireless LAN router 2b through the wireless connection 73, the wireless LAN router 2b can also be connected to the Internet as a relay device. That is, the smartphone 1 is connected to a wireless LAN router 2 using either the wireless connection 74 or the wireless connection 73.

On the other hand, in order for the home appliance 4a to connect to the Internet through the wireless LAN router 2, it is necessary to notify the smartphone 1 of the setting information for connecting to the wireless LAN router 2. Therefore, the smartphone 1 is directly connected to the home appliance 4a through the wireless connection 71, and exchanges information between the devices of the other device via the wireless connection 71. Hereinafter, this information exchange process is referred to as "pairing". The home appliance 4a receives the setting information of the wireless LAN router 2a by pairing with the smartphone 1 through the wireless connection 71. After pairing, the home appliance 4a uses the received setting information to determine the wireless connection 72 with the wireless LAN router 2a, and can connect to the Internet through the wireless connection 72. Further, after pairing, the wireless connection 74 based on the smart phone 1 and the wireless connection 72 of the home appliance 4a are the same connection terminal (= wireless LAN router 2a), so the smart phone 1 and the home appliance 4a can be performed through the wireless LAN router 2a Regional communications.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a machine control system when there are plural household electrical appliances. As the household electrical appliance 4, there is a household electrical appliance 4b in addition to the household electrical appliance 4a of FIG. The home appliance 4b receives the setting information of the wireless LAN router 2b by pairing with the smartphone 1 through the wireless connection 75. After pairing, the home appliance 4b uses the received setting information to determine the wireless connection 76 with the wireless LAN router 2b. Thus, the smartphone 1 can transmit an operation signal to the home appliance 4a through the wireless connection 74→the wireless LAN router 2a→the wireless connection 72. On the other hand, the smart phone 1 can transmit an operation signal to the home appliance 4b through the wireless connection 73→the wireless LAN router 2b→the wireless connection 76. However, in a state where the smartphone 1 uses the wireless connection 74, it is impossible to transmit an operation signal to the home appliance 4b that is not connected to the wireless LAN router 2a. Therefore, the connection end of the smartphone 1 must be a wireless LAN router 2 facing the home appliance 4 to be operated.

FIG. 3 is a detailed configuration diagram of the smartphone 1 and the home appliance 4a of the machine control system of FIG. 1. The flow of the signal indicated by the arrow in the smartphone 1 is the flow of pairing. The smartphone 1 includes an application unit 10 and a wireless LAN connection unit 11. The wireless LAN connection unit 11 is connected to the household electrical appliance 4 during pairing. The application unit 10 includes a determination unit 101, a display unit 102, connection information 103, an operation unit 104, and a transmission/reception unit 105.

The connection information 103 is setting data such as an SSID (Service Set IDentifier) connected to the wireless LAN router 2 (for details, see FIGS. 5-7). The transmission/reception unit 105 transmits the SSID of the connection information 103 to the transmission/reception unit 41 of the household electrical appliance 4, and the transmission/reception unit 41 of the household electrical appliance 4 receives the unique number of the household electrical appliance 4 to execute the interaction with the household electrical appliance 4 Pairing. Depending on the authentication method of the wireless LAN accepted by the wireless LAN router 2, the authentication information such as the password (encryption key) for logging in the SSID may be required. At this time, the smartphone 1 can notify the home appliance 4 of its authentication information in addition to the SSID during pairing.

The home appliance 4 stores the SSID (and authentication information) received through the transmission/reception unit 41 as the connection information 42 and can then use the connection information 42 to connect to the wireless LAN router 2. The operation unit 104 accepts the operation at the time of pairing from the user and instructs the transmission/reception unit 105 to pair, and writes the unique number of the household electrical appliance 4 obtained as a result into the connection information 103. In the following, the determination unit 101 and the display unit 102 will be described with reference to FIG. 4.

FIG. 4 shows a configuration diagram of the signal flow of the smartphone 1 of FIG. 3 when connected after pairing. The wireless LAN connection unit 11 changes the connection end of the smartphone 1 from the home appliance 4 in the pairing in FIG. 3 to the wireless LAN router 2. The determination unit 101 compares the SSID of the wireless LAN router 2 which is the connection end of the wireless LAN connection unit 11 with the SSID connected to the home appliance 4 stored as the connection information 103 during pairing. Through this comparison process, the determination unit 101 determines whether the wireless LAN connection unit 11 is connected to the wireless LAN router 2 (in other words, the desired wireless LAN or the correct wireless LAN) of the home appliance 4 for the pairing target. The display unit 102 displays the judgment result of the judgment unit 101 so that the smartphone 1 can also be connected to the desired wireless LAN for support (see FIG. 11 for details). The transmission/reception unit 105 can transmit/receive data such as operation signals with the transmission/reception unit 41 of the home appliance 4 via the desired wireless LAN. Therefore, the operation unit 104 accepts an operation for the paired home appliance 4 from the user.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the initial data of the connection information 103. The connection information 103 associates and stores the unique number of the home appliance 4 with the connection information 42 (SSID) of the wireless LAN router 2 connected to the home appliance 4. There is no entry point in the initial data. FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing that the initial data of FIG. 5 has registered the connection information 103 at the entry point of the home appliance 4a of FIG. 1. The home appliance 4a establishes a wireless connection 72 with the wireless LAN router 2a. Therefore, the correspondence data between the unique number (=D001) of the household electrical appliance 4a and the SSID (=R001) of the wireless LAN router 2a is registered in the connection information 103. FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing that the connection information 103 of the entry point of the home appliance 4b of FIG. 2 is also registered with the data of FIG. 6. The home appliance 4b establishes a wireless connection 76 with the wireless LAN router 2b. Therefore, the correspondence data between the unique number (=D002) of the home appliance 4b and the SSID (=R002) of the wireless LAN router 2b is registered in the connection information 103.

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of the operation of the application unit 10 during pairing. In S101, the wireless LAN connection unit 11 is connected to the home appliance 4. The connection process of S101 is to directly connect the smartphone 1 and the home appliance 4 without going through the wireless LAN router 2 as explained in the wireless connection 71 of FIG. 1. Therefore, the user of the smartphone 1 refers to the instruction manual of the smartphone 1 and the like while inputting an operation to start the pairing start process of S101 to the wireless LAN connection unit 11. In S102, the transmission/reception unit 105 transmits the wireless LAN connection information to the home appliance 4 in S101. This connection information is used when the home appliance 4 is normally connected. In S103, the transmission/reception unit 105 receives the unique number from the household electrical appliance 4 in response to S102. In S104, the transmission/reception unit 105 disconnects the connection from the transmission/reception unit 41 of the household electrical appliance 4. After the disconnection, the wireless LAN connection unit 11 automatically connects to any wireless LAN router 2 among the SSIDs connected in the past. The SSID that has been connected in the past is associated with its password and is kept in the smartphone 1 as a history. In S105, the operation unit 104 associates the connection information transmitted to the home appliance 4 in S102 with the unique number received by the home appliance 4 in S103, and stores it as the connection information 103.

FIG. 9 shows a flowchart of the connection confirmation operation after the pairing operation of FIG. 8. In S111, the determination unit 101 obtains the SSID of the connection information 103 of the home appliance 4 stored in S105. In S112, the judgment unit 101 obtains the current connection information of the smartphone 1 (wireless LAN connection unit 11). The connection information, as described above in S104, refers to the SSID of the wireless LAN router 2 that is automatically connected after being disconnected from the household electrical appliance 4. In S113, the determination unit 101 determines whether the SSID of S111 matches the SSID of S112. The coincidence of the two connection information (SSID) (S113: Yes) means that the wireless connection 74 and the wireless connection 72 of FIG. 1 are connected to the same wireless LAN router 2a, and the smartphone 1 can be connected to the wireless LAN router 2a for the home appliance 4 that is expected . On the other hand, when the two connection information are inconsistent (S113: No), the judgment unit 101 displays to the display unit 102 that the connection terminal at the present point of the smartphone 1 is an error notice message (S119).

FIG. 10 shows a flowchart of the connection operation when the paired home electric appliance 4 is selected as the operation target from the application unit 10. Hereinafter, the home appliance 4 selected as the operation target is referred to as "selected product". The processing in S111 to S113 is the same as the processing shown in FIG. 9 for the selected product system. That is, the connection end of the current smart phone 1 becomes the wireless LAN router 2 that houses the selected product, so the smart phone 1 can be connected to the expected wireless LAN router 2.

On the other hand, when No in S113, it is different from FIG. 9, and the smartphone 1 autonomously searches for other connection terminals. In the following, the processing performed when No in S113 is described. In S114, the wireless LAN connection unit 11 acquires SSID information from the radio wave of the wireless LAN around the smartphone 1. In S115, the determination unit 101 determines from the SSID list of the surrounding wireless LAN acquired in S114 whether there is a person who matches the SSID of the home appliance 4 of S111. In S115, it is determined that the time shift is to S116, and when it is not, it is shifted to S117. In S116, the display unit 102 presents the connection information of the surrounding wireless LAN that matches the SSID of the selected product as the proposal information of the new connection end and presents it to the user. In S117, the display unit 102 presents a warning message to the user that the indoor operation of the selected product cannot be performed.

FIG. 11 is an example of a display screen of various information described in FIGS. 9 and 10. The screen example 201 shows the caution information displayed in S119. In addition to the notice that the current connection terminal is different, the correct connection terminal SSID=R001 stored in the connection information 103 is also displayed. The screen example 202 shows the proposal information displayed in S116. As the surrounding wireless LAN, the SSID=R001 of the correct connection end stored in the connection information 103 is also displayed. Further, the operation unit 104 accepts the click of the "switch connection to R001" button from the user, and the wireless LAN connection unit 11 switches the connection to the wireless LAN router 2a with SSID=R001. The screen example 203 shows the warning message displayed in S117. As a result, the user can grasp that there is no correct connection end for the wireless LAN that can be connected in the vicinity.

FIG. 12 is a sequence diagram focusing on a plurality of devices constituting the machine control system of FIG. 1 and explained in order to easily understand the operations of FIGS. 8 to 10. In S211, the transmission/reception unit 41 of the home appliance 4a activates the pairing mode by long-pressing the physical button (pairing button) provided in the home appliance 4a, and the home appliance 4 itself becomes an access point of the wireless LAN. That is, the pairing mode is preparation for establishing the wireless connection 71 of FIG. 1. Therefore, the user of the household electrical appliance 4a inputs a long press operation or the like to perform the pairing mode on the household electrical appliance 4a while referring to the instruction manual of the household electrical appliance 4a. In S212, the smartphone 1 activates the application unit 10 that pairs the home appliance 4a by a user's icon click operation or the like. The application unit 10 sends a connection request to the home appliance 4a in the pairing mode (S213, S101 and S102 in FIG. 8). The connection request includes SSID=R001 of the wireless LAN router 2a connected to the household electrical appliance 4a and its password (PW).

The home appliance 4a saves the information included in the connection request in S213 as the connection information 42 and transmits its own unique number to the smartphone 1 in response to S213 (S214, S103 in FIG. 8). The application unit 10 associates the SSID of the connection request of S213 with the unique information of S214 and stores it as connection information 103 (S215, S105 in FIG. 8). The home appliance 4a starts the wireless connection 72 to the wireless LAN router 2a based on the connection information 42 (SSID=R001) stored in S213 (S216).

After the connection response of S214, the smartphone 1 cuts off the connection with the home appliance 4a from which the pairing mode has been released (S104 in FIG. 8). Therefore, the smartphone 1 forms the wireless connection 73 of the wireless LAN router 2b (SSID=R002) connected back and forth (S221). However, since the wireless LAN router 2b does not house the home appliance 4a, even if the home appliance operation signal is transmitted to the wireless LAN router 2b (S222), the home appliance operation signal cannot be transmitted to the home appliance 4a (failure of S223).

Therefore, the smartphone 1 acquires the current connection information of the wireless connection 73 (S231, S112 in FIG. 9), and displays the attention information that the obtained connection information does not match the connection information 103 of the home appliance 4a stored in S215 on the display unit 102 (S232, S119 in FIG. 9). Thus, by specifying a wireless connection 74 that is the correct connection terminal by the user, the smartphone 1 becomes connected to the wireless LAN router 2a (SSID=R001) connected to the home appliance 4a (S233). The smartphone 1 can transmit a home appliance operation signal (S234) to the home appliance 4a via the wireless LAN router 2a (S235).

In the present embodiment described above, the SSID transmitted to the household electrical appliance 4 is compared with the SSID automatically connected to the smartphone 1 (S113 in FIG. 9), and a warning message is presented to the user when an error occurs (S119), when the operation of the household electrical appliance 4 is prompted SSID information that smartphone 1 must connect. At the time of pairing, the smartphone 1 associates the unique number of the pairing device with the SSID of the wireless LAN router set at pairing as the connection information 103 and stores it in the operation terminal device (S105 in FIG. 8). Therefore, when the user selects the home appliance 4, the smartphone 1 determines whether the wireless LAN router currently connected to the operation terminal device is the one set during pairing (S113 in FIG. 10), and if it is wrong, it prompts the user easily (S117) ). Thus, the user can easily understand the connection terminal of the wireless LAN that must be connected when operating the home appliance 4.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiment, and includes various modifications. For example, the above-mentioned embodiment is described for easy understanding of the present invention, but it is not limited to having all the configurations described. In addition, part of the structure of a certain embodiment can be replaced with the structure of another embodiment, and the structure of a certain embodiment can be added with the structure of another embodiment. In addition, part of the configuration of each embodiment can be added/removed/replaced with other configurations. Regarding each of the above-mentioned configurations, functions, processing units, processing means, etc., part or all of them can be realized by hardware, for example, by integrated circuit design.　　Furthermore, regarding the above-mentioned constitutions, functions, etc., it may be realized by software by explaining and executing a program for the processor to realize various functions.

The information of programs, tables, files, etc. that realize each function can be stored in the memory or hard disk, SSD (Solid State Drive) and other recording devices, or IC (Integrated Circuit) card, SD card, DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) Etc. recording media. In addition, the control line or information line is shown for the sake of explanation, and the product is not limited to showing all control lines or information lines. Actually, it is considered that almost all the configurations may be connected to each other.

1: Smart phone (first communication device) 2a, 2b: Wireless LAN router (wireless router) 4a, 4b: Home appliances (second communication device) 10: Application department 11: Wireless LAN connection department (wireless communication function) 41: Transmission/reception unit (wireless communication function) 42: connection information 71-76: wireless connection 101: judgment unit 102: display unit 103: connection information 104: operation unit 105: transmission/reception unit

[Fig. 1] A configuration diagram of a device control system according to an embodiment of the present invention. [FIG. 2] A configuration diagram of a device control system when there are a plurality of household electrical appliances according to an embodiment of the present invention. [FIG. 3] A detailed configuration diagram of a smartphone and a home appliance in the device control system of FIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. [FIG. 4] In the smartphone of FIG. 3 according to an embodiment of the present invention, a configuration diagram showing the signal flow at the time of connection after pairing. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing initial data of connection information according to an embodiment of the present invention. [FIG. 6] The initial data of FIG. 5 according to an embodiment of the present invention is an explanatory diagram showing connection information registered with entry points of the household electrical appliance of FIG. 1. [FIG. 7] Regarding the data of FIG. 6 according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the connection information in which entry points are registered for the household electrical appliances. [FIG. 8] A flowchart showing the operation of the application unit in the embodiment of the present invention during pairing. FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the connection confirmation operation after the pairing operation of FIG. 8 according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the connection operation when the paired home electric appliance according to an embodiment of the present invention is selected as the operation target via the application unit. [FIG. 11] shows an example of a display screen of various information described in FIGS. 9 and 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention. [FIG. 12] A sequence diagram focusing on a plurality of devices constituting the machine control system of FIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

1: Smart phone (first communication device) 4a: Home appliances (second communication device) 10: Application department 11: Wireless LAN connection unit (wireless communication function) 41: Transmission/reception unit (wireless communication function) 42: Connection information 101: Judgment department 102: Display department 103: Connection information 104: Operation department 105: Transmission/reception department

Claims (5)

A method for judging a connected router, which is performed in an environment equipped with: a first communication device with a wireless communication function and a display unit, a second communication device with a wireless communication function, and a plurality of wireless routers, characterized by: The wireless communication function of the second communication device is a step of maintaining a connection with any one of the plurality of wireless routers; the wireless communication function of the first communication device is a step of connecting with any one of the plurality of wireless routers When the display unit of the first communication device is inconsistent with the wireless router that the second communication device maintains connection with, the system performs the step of outputting a warning. For example, the method for judging the connected router according to item 1 of the patent application scope, wherein in the step of outputting the above warning, the display unit of the first communication device executes the information related to the wireless router that maintains the connection of the second communication device as Proceed to the correct connection for output steps. For example, the method for judging the connected router according to item 2 of the patent application scope, in the output step as the correct connection end, the display part of the first communication device performs the step of output operation part. The connection end of the first communication device is switched to the correct connection end, that is, a wireless router. The method for judging the connected router according to any one of the items 1 to 3 of the patent application scope, wherein the wireless communication function of the first communication device is the ID of the wireless router that maintains the connection of the wireless communication function of the second communication device The step of notifying the second communication device of information and storing it in the memory section of the first communication device; in the step of outputting the warning, the first communication device is executed by comparing the ID stored in the memory section of itself Information and the ID information of the wireless router to which it is connected to determine whether to output a warning. A machine control system with: a first communication device with a wireless communication function and a display unit; a second communication device with a wireless communication function; and a plurality of wireless routers; its characteristics are: the wireless communication function of the second communication device It is to maintain the connection with any one of the plurality of wireless routers. The wireless communication function of the first communication device is to connect with any of the plurality of wireless routers. The display portion of the first communication device is If the connected wireless router does not match the wireless router that the second communication device maintains the connection, a warning is output.

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