COMMUNICATION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION PRESENTED ON AN APPLIANCE DISPLAY

• US 20140170969A1
• Filed: 12/17/2012
• Published: 06/19/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Haier US Appliance Solutions, Inc. DBA GE Appliances (Haier Group Company)
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: DeVos, Richard
• Granted Patent: US 9,128,931 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/41.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/06 Authentication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/77 Graphical identity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

A system and method of communicating information associated with an appliance is provided. An appliance can present an optical machine-readable representation, such as a linear or matrix barcode, on a display of the appliance. The optical machine-readable representation can encode information associated with an event occurrence for the appliance. A client, such as a computer, smartphone, tablet, etc., can capture information indicative of the optical machine-readable representation. The client computing device can then access information, such as diagnostic information, responsive to the optical machine-readable representation.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of communicating information associated with an appliance, comprising:

capturing, at a computing device, information indicative of an optical machine-readable representation of information, the optical machine-readable representation presented on a display of the appliance; and

accessing, with the computing device, data associated with the appliance responsive to the optical machine-readable representation.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein accessing, with the computing device, data associated with the appliance responsive to the optical machine-readable representation comprises:

transmitting, from the computing device to a server, a signal indicative of the optical machine-readable representation of information displayed on the display of the appliance over a network; and

receiving, at the computing device, the data associated with the appliance from the server responsive to the signal indicative of the optical machine-readable representation of information.

3. The method as in claim 1, wherein capturing, at a computing device, information indicative of an optical machine-readable representation comprises capturing a digital image of the optical machine-readable representation.

4. The method as in claim 1, wherein the method comprises placing the client in proximity to the appliance such that the client receives information from the appliance using near-field communication.

5. The method as in claim 1, wherein the data associated with the appliance comprises at least one of diagnostic information, executable code, help information, user guide information, appliance use information, and commercial information.

6. The method as in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises presenting the data associated with the appliance in a user interface.

7. The method as in claim 1, wherein the optical machine-readable representation encodes information associated with a second appliance in communication with the appliance.

8. The method as in claim 1, wherein the optical machine-readable representation of information is digitally encoded in a non-human readable display format.

9. The method as in claim 7, wherein the digitally encoded display format comprises a linear or matrix barcode.

10. The method as in claim 7, wherein the digitally encoded display format comprises a digital image.

11. The method as in claim 1, further comprising transmitting the data associated with the appliance from the computing device to the appliance.

12. A computer-implemented method of communicating information associated with an appliance, comprising:

detecting an event occurrence for the appliance;

identifying information associated with the event occurrence; and

communicating information associated with the event occurrence to a remote device placed in proximity to the appliance using near field communication.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the method further comprises:

encoding the information associated with the event occurrence in an optical machine-readable representation, the optical machine-readable representation digitally encoded in a non-human readable display format; and

presenting the optical machine-readable representation on a display of the appliance.

14. The method as in claim 13, wherein the digitally encoded display format comprises a linear or matrix barcode.

15. An appliance, comprising:

a display;

a controller, the controller configured to execute computer-readable instructions stored in a memory to cause the controller to perform operations, the operations, the operations comprising;

detecting an event occurrence for the appliance;

identifying information associated with the event occurrence;

encoding the information associated with the event occurrence in a non-human readable optical machine-readable representation, the optical machine-readable representation digitally encoded in a non-human readable display format; and

presenting the non-human-readable optical machine readable representation on the display.

16. The appliance of claim 15, wherein the appliance further comprises an antenna capable of near field communication, the antenna configured to communicate information associated with the event occurrence.

17. The appliance of claim 15, wherein the non-human readable optical machine readable representation comprises a linear or matrix barcode.

18. The appliance of claim 15, wherein the non-human readable optical machine readable representation comprises a digital image.