Diagnostic system and method for home appliance

• US 8,341,002 B2
• Filed: 07/29/2010
• Issued: 12/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Han, Jonghye, Cho, Inhaeng, Lee, Phaljin, Jeong, Hoijin
• Primary Examiner(s): Fleischer, Mark A
• Application Number:
  US12/846,040
• Publication Number:
  US 20110054967A1
• Time in Patent Office: 880 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7.13
• US Class Current: 705/7.13
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2825 Reporting to a device located outside the home and the home network access arrangements H04L12/2856; for remote control or remote monitoring of applications H04L67/025; telephonic communication systems adapted for combination with telemetering systems H04M11/002

Abstract

A diagnostic system and method for a home appliance is provided. When the home appliance outputs product information as a sound signal, a service center remotely performs fault diagnosis of the home appliance by receiving the sound signal, detecting the product information from the sound signal, checking the state of the home appliance using diagnostic data included in the product information to determine whether the home appliance is out of order, determining, when a drying error has occurred, a cause of the drying error, and deriving a solution to the drying error. Upon deriving a diagnosis result through the fault diagnosis of the home appliance, the service center immediately notifies the user of the diagnosis result and may dispatch a service technician or may provide the user with a solution to allow the user to easily fix the fault without dispatching a service technician.

Claims

1. A diagnostic method for a home appliance diagnostic system, the method comprising:

receiving a sound signal output from a home appliance via a communicator of a diagnostic server and extracting product information about the home appliance from the sound signal;

analyzing via the diagnostic server the product information and determining, when an error code is set in the product information, whether the error code corresponds to a dryer heater error associated with a dryer heater of the home appliance;

diagnosing via the diagnostic server a fault of the home appliance by determining, when the error code corresponds to the dryer heater error, whether the dryer heater or a drying fan of the home appliance is out of order using diagnostic data associated with operation of the dryer heater among a plurality of diagnostic data included in the product information; and

deriving via the diagnostic server a diagnosis result by deriving a solution corresponding to a cause of the dryer heater error, the cause being obtained according to the fault diagnosis.

2. The diagnostic method according to claim 1, wherein diagnosing via the diagnostic server the fault of the home appliance includes diagnosing the dryer heater error using a fan motor rotation speed and a voltage measured upon occurrence of an error among the plurality of diagnostic data.

3. The diagnostic method according to claim 2, wherein diagnosing via the diagnostic server the fault of the home appliance includes determining that the fault of the home appliance is caused by an error due to a malfunction of the drying fan or a malfunction of a connector of the drying fan when the fan motor rotation speed is equal to or less than a reference speed.

4. The diagnostic method according to claim 2, wherein diagnosing via the diagnostic server the fault of the home appliance includes comparing the voltage measured upon the occurrence of the error with a reference voltage when the fan motor rotation speed is higher than a reference speed that is set based on an average rotation speed during normal operation.

5. The diagnostic method according to claim 4, wherein diagnosing via the diagnostic server the fault of the home appliance includes determining that the drying fan is functioning normally and the fault of the home appliance is caused by an error due to a low supply voltage when the voltage measured upon the occurrence of the error is equal to or less than the reference voltage.

6. The diagnostic method according to claim 5, wherein deriving via the diagnostic server the diagnosis result includes deriving a solution of providing guidance for checking whether voltage supplied to the home appliance is normal.

7. The diagnostic method according to claim 6, further comprising:

performing a procedure for scheduling an appointment for dispatching a service technician to inspect the home appliance at a request of a user of the home appliance.

8. The diagnostic method according to claim 4, wherein diagnosing via the diagnostic server the fault of the home appliance includes determining that the fault of the home appliance is caused by an error due to a malfunction of the dryer heater or a connector although the drying fan is functioning nominally when the voltage measured upon the occurrence of the error is higher than the reference voltage.

9. The diagnostic method according to claim 4, wherein deriving via the diagnostic server the diagnosis result includes deriving a solution of dispatching a service technician to inspect and repair at least one of the drying fan, the dryer heater, or the connector.

10. The diagnostic method according to claim 9, further comprising:

performing a procedure for scheduling an appointment for dispatching the service technician and transmitting the diagnosis result to a terminal of the service technician.

11. The diagnostic method according to claim 1, wherein the diagnostic server includes a diagnoser having a diagnosis program that performs the analyzing, diagnosing, and deriving.

12. The diagnostic method according to claim 1, further comprising transmitting the diagnostic result to a terminal of a service technician.

13. The diagnostic method according to claim 1, further comprising transmitting the diagnostic result to a user.

14. The diagnostic method according to claim 13, wherein the diagnostic result is transmitted to the user in the form of predetermined data.

15. A home appliance diagnostic system, comprising:

a home appliance having a dryer heater that outputs product information required for fault diagnosis as a sound signal;

a diagnostic server that receives the sound signal, derives a state, a fault, and a fault cause of the home appliance, and as a diagnosis result, a solution to the fault; and

a portable terminal that receives the sound signal output from the home appliance and transmits the sound signal to the diagnostic server through a communication network, wherein the diagnostic server determines, when an error code is set in the product information extracted from the received sound signal, whether the error code corresponds to a dryer heater error associated with operation of the dryer heater of the home appliance based on the product information, and diagnoses a fault of the home appliance by determining, when the error code corresponds to the dryer heater error, whether the dryer heater or a drying fan of the home appliance is out of order using diagnostic data associated with the dryer heater among a plurality of diagnostic data included in the product information, and then derives a solution to the fault of the home appliance.

16. The home appliance diagnostic system according to claim 15, wherein the diagnostic server diagnoses fault associated with the dryer heater error of the home appliance using a fan motor rotation speed and a voltage measured upon occurrence of an error among the plurality of diagnostic data by comparing the fan motor rotation speed with a reference speed and comparing the voltage measured upon the occurrence of the error with a reference voltage.

17. The home appliance diagnostic system according to claim 16, wherein the diagnostic server determines that the fault of the home appliance is caused by an error due to a malfunction of the drying fan or a malfunction of a connector of the drying fan when the fan motor rotation speed is equal to or less than the reference speed, and determines that the drying fan is functioning normally when the fan motor rotation speed is higher than the reference speed.

18. The home appliance diagnostic system according to claim 16, wherein the diagnostic server determines that the fault of the home appliance is caused by an error due to a low supply voltage when the fan motor rotation speed is higher than the reference speed and the voltage measured upon the occurrence of the error is equal to or less than the reference voltage, and determines that the fault of the home appliance is caused by an error due to a malfunction of the dryer heater or a connector when the fan motor rotation speed is higher than the reference speed and the voltage measured upon the occurrence of the error is higher than the reference voltage.

19. The home appliance diagnostic system according to claim 15, wherein the diagnostic server derives a solution of dispatching a service technician to inspect and repair the dryer heater or the drying fan in response to the dryer heater error and performs a procedure for scheduling an appointment for dispatching the service technician.

20. The home appliance diagnostics system according to claim 15, wherein the diagnostic server includes a diagnoser having a diagnostic program that derives the state, the fault, and the fault cause of the home appliance, and the solution.

21. The home appliance diagnostic system according to claim 20, wherein the diagnostic server comprises a communicator that receives the sound signal output by the home appliance and outputs the diagnosis result externally when a diagnosis has been completed.

22. The home appliance diagnostic system according to claim 21, wherein the communicator transmits the diagnosis result to a terminal of a service technician.

23. The home appliance diagnostic system according to claim 21, wherein the diagnostic server further comprises:

a server controller;

a signal processor that converts the received sound signal into a readable signal, extracts product information form the converted signal, and applies the product information to the diagnoser; and

a data device that receives, outputs, manages, and updates data under the control of the server controller.