Communicating Through a Server Between Appliances and Applications
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- receiving by a server a communication from an electrical appliance, the electrical appliance being one of a plurality of electrical appliances, the communication being in a protocol that is for communicating between the server and the plurality of electrical appliances;
selecting by the server from a plurality of cloud-based applications a target cloud-based application that can service the electrical appliance;
translating by the server the communication into a protocol that is for communicating with the target cloud-based application selected to service the electrical appliance; and
transmitting by the server the translated communication to the target cloud-based application.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus for communicating between electrical appliances (e.g. smoke detectors, thermostats, refrigerators, TV program recorders, lawn/garden sprinkler systems, irrigation control systems, etc.) and cloud-based applications (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, email, SMS, etc.) includes a server that translates communications between the communication protocols used by the appliances and applications. The electrical appliances include a minimum complexity necessary to perform their primary functions and to communicate with the server. Additional complexity necessary for the electrical appliances to communicate with the cloud-based applications is enabled by the server remote from the electrical appliances.
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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receiving by a server a communication from an electrical appliance, the electrical appliance being one of a plurality of electrical appliances, the communication being in a protocol that is for communicating between the server and the plurality of electrical appliances; selecting by the server from a plurality of cloud-based applications a target cloud-based application that can service the electrical appliance; translating by the server the communication into a protocol that is for communicating with the target cloud-based application selected to service the electrical appliance; and transmitting by the server the translated communication to the target cloud-based application. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A server comprising:
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an electrical appliance interface that sends and receives communications to and from a plurality of electrical appliances, the communications between the server and the electrical appliances being in an appliance communication protocol; an application interface that sends and receives communications to and from a plurality of cloud-based applications, the communications between the server and the cloud-based applications being in a plurality of application communication protocols; a rules storage component that stores rules that determine, for each electrical appliance, which of the cloud-based applications services that electrical appliance; and a protocol translator that translates communications between the appliance communication protocol and the application communication protocols; and wherein; when the electrical appliance interface receives a communication from one of the electrical appliances, the server uses the rules storage component to select one or more of the cloud-based applications, the protocol translator translates the received communication into one or more translated communications, and the application interface transmits the one or more translated communications to the selected one or more cloud-based applications. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. An electrical appliance comprising:
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a control unit that manages primary functions of the electrical appliance; and a communication module connected to the control unit, the communication module sending and receiving communications to and from a server; and wherein; the control unit generates data for the communications that the communication module sends to the server; the control unit controls the primary functions of the electrical appliance in response to data in the communications that the communication module receives from the server; a single communication protocol is used for communications between the communication module and the server that involve cloud-based applications; the server enables the communication module to communicate with the cloud-based applications; the cloud-based applications require the use of other communication protocols; and the server translates the communications between the single communication protocol and the other communication protocols whenever the communications are passed between the communication module and the cloud-based applications. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21)
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Specification