Environment-responsive method for maintaining an electronic device

• US 5,964,786 A
• Filed: 02/10/1998
• Issued: 10/12/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Heartstream, Inc. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Powers, Daniel J., MacDuff, Ian G., Ochs, Dennis E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kamm, William E.
• Assistant Examiner(s): EVANISKO, GEORGE ROBERT
• Application Number:
  US09/021,675
• Time in Patent Office: 609 Days
• Field of Search: 607/1, 607/2, 607/4, 607/5, 607/6, 607/7, 607/27, 607/29
• US Class Current: 607/5
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/3925 Monitoring; Protecting

Abstract

A method of indicating operational status of an electronic device, the device providing an indication of device operational status as a result of a self-test, the method including the following steps: monitoring an environmental condition; changing an indication of device operational status from a first indication to a second indication if the monitored environmental condition changes from a first condition to a second condition, this changing step being performed without performing a self-test. In certain embodiments, the monitored environmental condition is a monitored temperature, the first condition is a first temperature and the second condition is a second temperature. The electronic device may be battery-operated, in which case the self-test is a battery capacity test. In these embodiments, the method also may include the step of performing the battery capacity test when the monitored temperature reaches the second temperature if there is no indication of device operational status corresponding to the second temperature stored in memory, the second temperature is lower than a temperature associated with an indication of a non-warning device operational status stored in memory, and the second temperature is higher than a temperature associated with an indication of a warning operational status; and indicating device operational status as a result of the battery capacity test. The method may also include the step of storing in memory an association between the second temperature and device operational status.

Claims

1. A method of indicating operation status of a battery-operated device, the device automatically providing an indication of device operational status as a result of a self-test, the method comprising the following steps:

monitoring a temperature of the device environment;

if the monitored temperature reaches a target temperature, retrieving from memory associations between a previously monitored temperature and respective indications of warning or non-warning of device operational status;

if a highest previously monitored temperature associated with an indication of a warning device operational status is higher than a previously monitored lowest temperature associated with an indication of non-warning device operational status, performing an automatic battery capacity test and indicating device operational status as a result of the battery capacity test.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising storing in memory an association between the target temperature and an indication of device operational status.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the battery-operated device is an external defibrillator.