WO2016207894A1

WO2016207894A1 - Thermostat control system

Info

Publication number: WO2016207894A1
Application number: PCT/IL2016/050673
Authority: WO
Inventors: Uri ANSBACHER
Original assignee: Ansbacher Uri
Priority date: 2015-06-26
Filing date: 2016-06-23
Publication date: 2016-12-29

Abstract

The present invention relates to a thermostat control system, comprising: a thermostat controller adapted to obtain the operating state of an existing thermostat; a temperature sensor; and an appliance controller for controlling the operation of at least one appliance by processing information received from said thermostat controller in conjunction with readings received from said temperature sensor, thereby enabling to apply a plurality of control logics to operate said at least one appliance.

Description

THERMOSTAT CONTROL SYSTEM

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to the field of home automation systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for controlling appliance by utilizing existing thermostats.

Background of the invention

Many homes have programmable thermostats that allow a user to enter multiple settings for each home appliance, such as running the heat, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to match the expected occupancy patterns of the residents to save energy. Most homes also have multiple zones with dedicated HVAC units, each having a separate programmable thermostat. It is generally appropriate to heat or cool different zones on different schedules to save energy. In some homes, for example, it may be appropriate to heat and cool the main living zone during waking hours, while the bedroom zone can be heated and cooled during sleeping hours.

Moreover, even if a homeowner were to endeavor to set the thermostats daily to reflect the expected occupancy schedules of the residents, the thermostat settings might still turn out to be less then optimal, at least on some occasions, due to different operation modes of each different appliance.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a system which is capable of integrating an existing thermostat with a home automation system.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a system which is capable of optimally managing a plurality of home appliances using a single controller. It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system which is capable of saving energy while enhancing the thermal comfort.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.

Summary of the Invention

According to an embodiment of the invention, the appliance controller is a virtual control configured by software, thereby enabling to control a plurality of appliances in an optimized manner.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the virtual control enables to control a plurality of appliances while using different communication protocols as required by each individual appliance.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the system further comprising a thermostat control application associated with a mobile unit configured to communicate with the appliance controller.

Brief Description of the Drawings

In the drawings: Fig. 1 schematically illustrates a block diagram of a home automation system, according to an embodiment of the present invention; and

Fig. 2 schematically illustrates state transitions of the home automation system, according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description of the Invention

Reference will now be made to several embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying figures. Wherever practicable similar or like reference numbers may be used in the figures and may indicate similar or like functionality. The figures depict embodiments of the present invention for purposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the following description that alternative embodiments of the structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principles of the invention described herein.

Embodiments of the present invention may be realized in an intelligent thermostat control system for one or more home appliances. A typical home may have multiple independently controlled home appliances such as a water heater, heating system and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, each with separate thermostat. In addition, while the embodiments described below are directed to a residential home, the same principles may be applied to commercial, industrial and any other temperature controlled location.

With reference now to Fig. 1, a home automation system 100 includes a thermostat controller 11. In this particular example, the thermostat controller 11 utilizes a wired communication protocol (e.g., it may use power line wiring for signaling and control, i.e., Power-Line Communication (PLC)) to functionally connect with a home automation system 10 and/or an appliance controller 12. System 100 may include more than one appliance (e.g., as indicated by numerals 17, 18 and 19), wherein each appliance 17-19 can be controlled by a corresponding appliance controller as indicated by numerals 12, 13 and 14, respectively. Alternatively or in addition, thermostat controller 11 may utilize a wireless data network to wirelessly connect with home automation system 10 and/or each of the appliance controllers 12-14. In some embodiments, home automation system 10 and/or the appliance controllers 12-14 may utilize a mobile data network to communicate directly with a mobile unit 15 (e.g., a smartphone).

System 100 may include an existing thermostat 22, thermostat controller 11, a temperature sensor 16, one or more appliances (as indicated by numerals 17-19) and the home automation system 10 which may be connected to a local home-area network. Thermostat controller 11 obtains the operating state of thermostat 22 based on its actual on/off switching state. To do so, thermostat controller 11 saves information of the actual switching state and communicates this state information to the home automation system 10. In some embodiments, home automation system 10 may include schedule information as directly provided by a user (e.g., via a control panel of home automation system 10) or as wirelessly received from mobile unit 15. A swill be appreciated by a person skilled in the art mobile unit 15 may include a dedicated software application (herein app) that will enable the user to easily interact with home automation system 10.

According to some embodiments of the present invention, thermostat controller 11 may directly access an appliance controller (such as appliance controller 12) associated with an appliance (such as appliance 17).

According to an embodiment of the invention, home automation system 10 may include an interface configured to communicate via the mobile data network with mobile unit 15 via the dedicated app. Depending on the mode of operation and configurations, home automation system 10 may request data downloads from the app and/or the app may control when to send data to the home automation system 10.

According to an embodiment of the invention, system 100 may comprise a thermostat interface (not shown) that controls an appliance controller, and which may represent multiple thermostats controlling separate controllers for different appliances. Although any type of connection may be utilized, a wireless communication means may be suitable for connecting the thermostat interface with each appliance controller. A local network interface may also be provided to integrate each appliance controller with a home area network or other local network, which may provide connectivity to the home automation system 10.

According to an embodiment of the invention, controlling several appliances is obtained by providing a "virtual controller" that resides in home automation system 10 (e.g., it may be implemented as a controller module in the home automation system 10), such that several appliances can be assigned to a single appliance controller module and several physical appliance controller modules (i.e., real modules) can be virtually combined into a single device. The virtual controller enables to manage the relationships between the appliances and the real modules. This is particularly useful for regrouping temperature sensors or heaters under the same control system of a thermostat, or for heating systems having several parameters such as speeds, modes, and one wish to control them in a logical manner. The virtual controller enables to optimally manage a plurality of home appliances using a single controller module. In addition, it may save energy while allowing improving the thermal comfort for the user.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the virtual controller can be configured by software, hardware or combination thereof. The virtual controller enables to control a plurality of appliances in an optimized manner as it allows handling each appliance individually in terms of saving energy. For example, for some appliances the most efficient way is not to reduce the temperature but to decrease the fan speed, for other appliances to decrease the working power by 20% while letting it operate for 24 hours, etc. Additional advantage of the virtual controller is the ability to communicate with each appliance while using different communication protocols as required by each individual appliance.

In some embodiments, home automation system 10 may include a user interface for allowing a user to interact, control and obtain information from each appliance controller 12-14, such as temperature related parameters in heating or cooling operating modes.

The temperature sensor may utilize ambient and building temperatures to predict the heating/cooling times required to bring HVAC zones to desired temperatures.

While many thermostat adjustment triggers may be defined, the combination of thermostat controller information indicating that a thermostat activity has ended/started together with temperature sensor readings indicating the current ambient temperature will ordinarily trigger heating or cooling one or more temperature controlled zones (e.g., as pre-defined by the user). According to an embodiment of the invention, processing the information obtained by the thermostat controller 11 and the temperature sensor 16 enables the home automation system 10 to automatically determine settings for the operation of the different appliances. For example, over time, home automation system 10 may adapt to reflect learned parameters gained by monitoring the schedules, and heating/cooling response of the various temperature controlled zones to provide automatic temperature control while minimizing energy usage. Upon demand, a user may manually change the setting of each appliance.

The system of the present invention integrates an existing thermostat with a home automation system and therefore it enables to automatically adjust the thermostat setting based on real-time temperature readings. This allows the home automation system to control an existing thermostat.

As an option, the thermostat controller, the temperature sensor and the appliance controller may be implemented as part of a home area network, which may provide connectivity to the home automation system. Whether deployed independently or as part of a larger computer network, the home automation system may be configured to intelligently control the settings of existing thermostat.

The system of the present invention achieves advantages not realized by prior thermostats by intelligently adjusting the thermostat settings based on real-time monitored data.

The following discussion is intended to provide a brief, general description of a suitable computing environment in which the invention may be implemented. While the invention is described in the general context of program modules that execute in conjunction with an application program that runs on an operating system on a computer system (e.g., a personal computer that is implemented as a home automation system), those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention may also be implemented in combination with other program modules and computer systems.

Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including handheld devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

Unless otherwise indicated, the functions described herein may be performed by executable code and instructions stored in computer readable medium and running on one or more processor-based systems. However, state machines, and/or hardwired electronic circuits can also be utilized. Further, with respect to the example processes described hereinabove, not all the process states need to be reached, nor do the states have to be performed in the illustrated order. Further, certain process states that are illustrated as being serially performed can be performed in parallel.

As will be appreciated by the skilled person the arrangement described in the figures results in a system that connects an existing thermostat or other existing home appliance control element to a home automation system. Moreover, the embodiments of the present invention provide a system which is capable of optimally managing a plurality of home appliances using a virtual controller.

Although the embodiments described hereinabove refer to heating and ventilation systems, the home automation system and in particular the virtual controller may handle other appliances and elements such as lighting systems, gates, electric operated shutters, etc.

All the above will be better understood through the following illustrative and non-limitative examples of operating principles.

In its application the user sets the relationship between probes, sensors, heaters and thermostats, and adjusts the temperatures and scenarios.

The home automation system follows the activity of the thermostat, according to the information provided by the thermostat controller, and as soon as the home automation system receives data which is in contradiction with its parameters, and the home automation system is set as having the priority (e.g., updated information that was recently received by the mobile device application) it negates the effect of this order.

If it is set so that the thermostat has the priority, the home automation system will not act. The home automation system learns the temperature settings of the thermostat, when the thermostat has been physically set to a given temperature the home automation system deduces that it is the intention of the user and sets its own settings to this temperature. For example, the information is derived from the action of opening or closing the heater at a given temperature.

If the user later changes the temperature parameters in the application, the last settings are taken into account and the actions made by thermostat are canceled.

If the home automation systems notes an action required at a temperature which is different from the one previously recorded, it will automatically deduces that it is a new setting request by the user.

When the programmed scenario or a sensor should cause an event, it overrides the setting.

Taking E(n) = (a_n, b_n, control) which describes the state of the home automation system at time n, with a_n being the last order known from the thermostat, b_n being the last order known from the controller and control being a Boolean parameter indicating whether the control is assigned to the thermostat or to the controller, then we can define A = (a_n, b_n, 0) the state in which the thermostat has the control and B = (a_n, b_n, 1) the state in which the controller has the control. The state transitions of the system can is shown in Fig. 2.

In the second possible mode of operation, the user decides in its application which means has the control, Physical control / Virtual control / Off. And the priority is then independent from settings modifications.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising," when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one more other features, integers, steps, operations, element components, and/or groups thereof.

The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of all means or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended to include any structure, material, or act for performing the function in combination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.

The diagrams depicted herein illustrate just one example. There may be many variations to these diagrams or the steps (or operations) described therein without departing from the spirit of the invention. For instance, the steps may be performed in a differing order or steps may be added, deleted or modified. All of these variations are considered a part of the claimed invention.

While the preferred embodiment to the invention had been described, it will be understood that those skilled in the art, both now and in the future, may make various improvements and enhancements which fall within the scope of the claims which follow. These claims should be construed to maintain the proper protection for the invention first described.

Claims

1. A thermostat control system, comprising:

a) a thermostat controller adapted to obtain the operating state of an existing thermostat;

b) a temperature sensor; and

c) an appliance controller for controlling the operation of at least one appliance by processing information received from said thermostat controller in conjunction with readings received from said temperature sensor, thereby enabling to apply a plurality of control logics to operate each of said appliance.

2. A system according to claim 1, in which the appliance controller is a virtual control configured by software, thereby enabling to control a plurality of appliances in an optimized manner.

3. A system according to claim 2, in which the virtual control enables to control a plurality of appliances while using different communication protocols as required by each individual appliance.

4. A system according to claim 1, further comprising a thermostat control application associated with a mobile unit configured to communicate with the appliance controller.