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Appliance control method and apparatus for controlling a target appliance in a building to disguise the number of people in the building

  • US 10,082,775 B2
  • Filed: 03/06/2013
  • Issued: 09/25/2018
  • Est. Priority Date: 03/09/2012
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. An appliance control method for controlling a target appliance located in a building to disguise the number of people in the building, the appliance control method controlling the target appliance by performing, with a microprocessor, processing comprising:

  • obtaining, from a memory, an operation history of the target appliance;

    determining a change in the number of people in the building;

    creating, based on the operation history and the change in the number of people in the building, control patterns each of which is for controlling the target appliance and corresponds to a different one of the numbers of people including the number of people;

    receiving an instruction for disguise of the number of people in the building;

    selecting, from among the created control patterns each of which corresponds to a different one of the numbers of the people, a control pattern which corresponds to a predetermined virtual number of people, based on the instruction for disguise;

    determining whether a current number of people in the building is smaller than the predetermined virtual number of people; and

    controlling the target appliance according to the selected control pattern when the current number of people in the building is determined to be smaller than the predetermined virtual number of people.

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