Maintenance service system for home electric appliances

• US 20020130784A1
• Filed: 02/22/2002
• Published: 09/19/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Appliances Incorporated (Hitachi, Ltd.), Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Suzuki, Hideaki, Fukui, Chihiro, Tani, Masayuki
• Granted Patent: US 6,870,480 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/635
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/2642 Domotique, domestic, home control, automation, smart house
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0283 Predictive maintenance, e.g. involving the monitoring of a system and, based on the monitoring results, taking decisions on the maintenance schedule of the monitored system; Estimating remaining useful life [RUL] preventive maintenance, i.e. planning maintenance according to the available resources without monitoring the system G06Q10/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2825 Reporting to a device located outside the home and the home network access arrangements H04L12/2856; for remote control or remote monitoring of applications H04L67/025; telephonic communication systems adapted for combination with telemetering systems H04M11/002
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/285 Generic home appliances, e.g. refrigerators

Abstract

A maintenance service system for home electric appliances is disclosed which comprises a home electric appliance, a portable terminal which can communicate with said home electric appliance and an information providing server which can communicate with said portable terminal.

Claims

1. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances comprising:

a home electric appliance, a portable terminal which can communicate with said home electric appliance and an information providing server which can communicate with said portable terminal.

2. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 1 wherein said home electric appliance notifies said portable terminal a malfunction at the time of malfunction detection.

3. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 1 wherein said portable terminal, when it is notified the malfunction from said home electric appliance or the operator of said portable terminal requests, receives an abnormality diagnosing program executed in said portable terminal from said information providing server, and, as a result, executes said abnormality diagnosing of said home electric appliances, whereby the result of the abnormality diagnosing is displayed in the portable terminal.

4. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 3 wherein said abnormality diagnosing program carries out a question concerning the malfunction judgment of said home electric appliance to the operator of said portable terminal and notify the information providing server the response result from said operator or maintain said response result in the said portable terminal.

5. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 4 wherein said abnormality diagnosing program, according to the response result from said operator, transmits a control signal to continue the interrupted processing to said home electric appliance.

6. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 3 wherein according to the result of the abnormality diagnosing of the abnormality diagnosing program, when repair is needed for said home electric appliance, the estimate of the content of the repair and repair cost is displayed on said portable terminal.

7. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 6 wherein, when the estimated amount of said repair cost is larger than the specified value specified by the operator of said portable terminal or the administrator of or said information providing server or the developer of said abnormality diagnosing program, information on buying said home electric appliance can be acquired according to the demand of the operator of said portable terminal.

8. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 6 wherein by comparing the repair fee and the market value of said home electric appliance with the market value of a new home electric appliance having the similar function to said home electric appliance, information on the buying of said new home electric appliance can be acquired.

9. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 3 wherein depending upon the result of the abnormality diagnosis by said abnormality diagnosing program, in case where a repair should be needed for said home electric appliance, the date when said home electric appliance is repaired is specified by the operator of said portable terminal and it is notified to said information providing server.

10. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 3, wherein said home electric appliance has a standby power source as used to notify said portable terminal a malfunction.

11. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 3, wherein when the failure diagnosis of said home electric appliance is carried out by the failure diagnosis program according to the demand of the operator of said portable terminal, the candidate of a home electric appliance which becomes an object is displayed on said portable terminal, said candidate being selected by priority from the near one to the operator of said portable terminal spatially.

12. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 3, wherein after the malfunction of said home electric appliance is detected, the return method for it is displayed on said portable terminal.

13. A maintenance service system for home electric appliances according to claim 3, wherein said portable terminal receives the failure diagnosis program from said home electric appliance.