POWER MANAGEMENT APPARATUS, AND DISPLAY METHOD

• US 20110185303A1
• Filed: 01/06/2011
• Published: 07/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/25/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: MATSUDA, Seiichi, YOSHIDA, Asami, KATAGI, Masanobu, MORIAI, Shiho, KAWAMOTO, Yohei, TANAKA, Yu, UKITA, Masakazu, ASANO, Tomoyuki
• Application Number:
  US12/985,630
• Publication Number:
  US 20110185303A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/771
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing

Abstract

There is provided a power management apparatus including an authentication processing unit that carries out an authentication process on each individual electronic appliance that is to be managed, a consumption amount acquiring unit that acquires information on power consumption from the electronic appliance, and an information display unit that displays an authentication state or an authentication result obtained from the authentication processing unit, together with the information on power consumption acquired by the consumption amount acquiring unit.

Claims

1. A power management apparatus comprising:

an authentication processing unit that carries out an authentication process on each individual electronic appliance that is to be managed;

a consumption amount acquiring unit that acquires information on power consumption from the electronic appliance; and

an information display unit that displays an authentication state or an authentication result obtained from the authentication processing unit, together with the information on power consumption acquired by the consumption amount acquiring unit.

2. The power management apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

an installation location acquiring unit that acquires information on an installation location from a power supply outlet or the each individual electronic appliance managed by the power management apparatus,

wherein the information display unit groups and displays power consumption and authentication states of electronic appliances installed at a same installation location or the power consumption and authentication results of the electronic appliances, based on the installation location acquired by the installation location acquiring unit.

3. The power management apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein, in a case an outlet expansion apparatus for expanding a power supply outlet is connected to the power supply outlet managed by the power management apparatus,

the authentication processing unit carries out the authentication process on the outlet expansion apparatus,

the consumption amount acquiring unit acquires, from the outlet expansion apparatus, the information on power consumption of all electronic appliances or each individual electronic appliance connected to the outlet expansion apparatus, and

the information display unit displays an authentication state or an authentication result of the outlet expansion apparatus in a higher level hierarchy, and displays the information on power consumption of all the electronic appliances or the each individual electronic appliance connected to the outlet expansion apparatus in a lower level hierarchy.

4. The power management apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising:

an external consumption amount acquiring unit that acquires, in a case the electronic appliance of its owner user is used by being connected to the power supply outlet managed by the power management apparatus of another user, the information on power consumption of the electronic appliance of the owner user from the power management apparatus of such other user or from a management server managing the power management apparatuses of the owner user and such other user,

wherein the information display unit displays the information on power consumption acquired by the consumption amount acquiring unit and the information on power consumption acquired by the external consumption amount acquiring unit together but in a distinguishable format.

5. The power management apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising:

an appliance display control unit that transmits information to be displayed by the information display unit to the electronic appliance and causes the electronic appliance or the power supply outlet to display the information.

6. A method of displaying power management information, comprising the steps of:

carrying out an authentication process on each individual electronic appliance that is to be managed;

acquiring information on power consumption from the electronic appliance; and

displaying an authentication state or an authentication result of the step of carrying out an authentication process together with the information on power consumption acquired in the step of acquiring information on power consumption.