Home appliance and home appliance system

• US 8,565,079 B2
• Filed: 10/22/2009
• Issued: 10/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Kim, Hyun Sang, Kwon, Eui Hyeok, Kang, Hae Yong, Kim, Yong Tae, Lee, Koon Seok
• Primary Examiner(s): Bugg, George
• Assistant Examiner(s): Dorsey, Renee
• Application Number:
  US12/603,810
• Publication Number:
  US 20100259398A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,461 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/230
• 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
• 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: H04M 11/045 using recorded signals, e.g. speech

Abstract

A home appliance and home appliance system are provided which enable a portable terminal not to recognize an acoustic signal sound corresponding to product information output by the home appliance as noise. Thus, the acoustic signal corresponding to product information output by the home appliance may be transmitted to a service center through the portable terminal. The home appliance may include a controller that sets a dead time at a predetermined interval of time with respect to a signal corresponding to product information to avoid a noise detection section of a portable terminal, a converter that converts the signal into an acoustic signal of a predetermined band, and a sound output device that outputs the acoustic signal as sound.

Claims

1. A home appliance, comprising:

a controller that outputs a digital signal corresponding to product information, the digital signal comprising a plurality of frames, each of the plurality of frames being separated by a predetermined time interval;

a converter that receives the digital signal from the controller and converts the digital signal into a modulated acoustic signal; and

a sound output device that receives the modulated acoustic signal from the converter and outputs from the home appliance the modulated acoustic signal as a predetermined sound, wherein the predetermined time interval comprises an inter-frame space (IFS), wherein when the IFS is repeated at a predetermined interval of time, the acoustic signal is reproduced in the form of an intermittent sound, and wherein the converter stops the signal conversion during the IFS.

2. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of frames has a transmission time of approximately 1 to approximately 10 seconds.

3. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the predetermined time interval has a transmission time of approximately 0.1 to approximately 1 second.

4. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the converter converts the digital signal into the modulated acoustic signal by frequency shift keying, amplitude shift keying, or phase shift keying.

5. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the product information includes status information.

6. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the product information includes failure information.

7. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the digital signal corresponding to the product information is in packet form.

8. The home appliance of claim 7, wherein a total transmission time of the packet is approximately 12 to approximately 13 seconds.

9. The home appliance of claim 8, wherein the packet comprises approximately 1000 symbols.

10. The home appliance of claim 9, wherein each of the plurality of frames contains approximately 250 symbols.

11. The home appliance of claim 9, wherein each of the plurality of frames has a transmission time of approximately 3 seconds.

12. The home appliance of claim 9, wherein the inter-frame space (IFS) contains approximately 16 symbols.

13. The home appliance of claim 9, wherein the inter-frame space (IFS) has a transmission time of approximately 192 ms.

14. A home appliance system comprising the home appliance of claim 1.

15. A home appliance, comprising:

a controller that outputs a digital signal corresponding to product information in packet form, the packet comprising a plurality of frames, each of the plurality of frames being separated by an inter-frame space (IFS);

a converter that receives the digital signal from the controller and converts the digital signal into a modulated acoustic signal; and

a sound output device that receives the modulated acoustic signal from the converter and outputs from the home appliance the modulated acoustic signal as a predetermined sound, wherein when the IFS is repeated at a predetermined interval of time, the acoustic signal is reproduced in the form of an intermittent sound, and wherein the converter stops the signal conversion during the IFS.

16. The home appliance of claim 15, wherein each of the plurality of frames has a transmission time of approximately 1 to approximately 10 seconds.

17. The home appliance of claim 15, wherein the IFS has a transmission time of approximately 0.1 to approximately 1 second.

18. The home appliance of claim 15, wherein a total transmission time of the packet is approximately 12 to approximately 13 seconds.

19. The home appliance of claim 18, wherein the packet comprises approximately 1000 symbols.

20. A home appliance system comprising the home appliance of claim 15.