Consumable holder with converter

• US 8,264,318 B2
• Filed: 10/23/2008
• Issued: 09/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Whirlpool Corporation
• Original Assignee: Whirlpool Corporation
• Inventors: Ebrom, Matthew P., Glotzbach, Mark E., McCoy, Richard A., Pires, Andre O.
• Primary Examiner(s): Syed, Nabil
• Application Number:
  US12/256,534
• Publication Number:
  US 20090040013A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,419 Days
• Field of Search: 340/10.1, 340/10.3, 340/10.31, 340/10.4, 340/10.5, 340/572.1, 340/3.1, 340/5.2, 340/3.9, 340/641, 340/638, 340/643, 68/13, 700/83, 700/17, 700/65, 700/188, 700/19, 700/20, 700/66, 700/11, 700/217, 700/797
• US Class Current: 340/3.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/282 based on user interaction within the home receiver circuitry for displaying additional information being controlled by a remote control apparatus H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/285 Generic home appliances, e.g. refrigerators
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/26 Special purpose or proprietary protocols or architectures network applications for proprietary or special purpose networking environments H04L67/12
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 6/688 for thawing
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 40/00 Technologies aiming at improving the efficiency of home appliances, e.g. induction cooking or efficient technologies for refrigerators, freezers or dish washers

Abstract

A consumable holder is provided for use in an appliance configured to perform an operation cycle related to a consumable in the consumable holder. The consumable holder has or is enabled to acquire information associated with itself or the consumable, and further includes a converter configured to transform the information to a cycle structure. Thus, the consumable holder can communicate with a cycle engine to create or modify a cycle structure for use by the appliance to perform an operation cycle related to the consumable.

Claims

1. A consumable holder for use in an appliance configured to perform an operation cycle related to a consumable in the consumable holder, configured to receive messages, and having a cycle engine to build the operation cycle, the consumable holder having or enabled to acquire information associated with one of itself and the consumable and configured for communication to the appliance in at least one message, wherein the information includes uncompiled data having a description of an ordered collection of steps, actions to be taken by at least one component of the appliance during each step, and conditions under which a current step should transition into a next step in the ordered collection of steps wherein the transition conditions are logic expressions that must be resolvable to a Boolean value, and further comprising a converter configured to transform the information to a cycle structure whereby the appliance can build the operation cycle based on the information upon receipt of the at least one message from the consumable holder, and perform the operation cycle related to the consumable.

2. The consumable holder of claim 1 wherein the information is represented by one of key-value pairs, XML, relational data tables, comma separated variable files, a hierarchical composite tree or graph, byte arrays, data packets, command objects, binary encoded data, data encoded as a programming language such as a C header file, scripts, serialized objects, and messages.

3. The consumable holder of claim 1 wherein the consumable holder comprises a sensor and the information is acquired from the sensor.

4. The consumable holder of claim 1 wherein at least a portion of the information is acquired from a distinct source of information about one of the consumable and the consumable holder.

5. The consumable holder of claim 1 wherein the information includes data about at least one attribute of the consumable that would enable the appliance to ascertain the utility of the consumable.

6. The consumable holder of claim 1 wherein the consumable holder is one of a bag, a box, a carton, a bottle, a can, a bowl, a dish, a plate, and any other rigid or semi-rigid body suitable to contain a substance.