Communicating through a server between appliances and applications

• US 8,588,990 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2011
• Issued: 11/19/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ayla Networks, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Ayla Networks, Inc.
• Inventors: Caceres, Adrian, Friedman, David R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bahta, Kidest
• Application Number:
  US13/173,038
• Publication Number:
  US 20130006400A1
• Time in Patent Office: 873 Days
• Field of Search: 700/295, 700/300
• US Class Current: 700/295
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2803 Home automation networks

Abstract

A method and apparatus for communicating between electrical appliances (e.g. smoke detectors, thermostats, refrigerators, TV program recorders, lawn/garden sprinkler systems, irrigation control systems, etc.) and cloud-based applications (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, email, SMS, etc.) includes a server that translates communications between the communication protocols used by the appliances and applications. The electrical appliances include a minimum complexity necessary to perform their primary functions and to communicate with the server. Additional complexity necessary for the electrical appliances to communicate with the cloud-based applications is enabled by the server remote from the electrical appliances.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving by a server a communication from an electrical appliance, the electrical appliance being one of a plurality of electrical appliances, the communication being in a protocol that is for communicating between the server and the plurality of electrical appliances, the plurality of electrical appliances being embedded devices having primary function components for performing dedicated primary functions other than networking and computing functions;

selecting by the server from a plurality of cloud-based applications a target cloud-based application that can service the electrical appliance;

translating by the server the communication into a protocol that is for communicating with the target cloud-based application selected to service the electrical appliance; and

transmitting by the server the translated communication to the target cloud-based application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the plurality of electrical appliances are capable of communicating application data only in the protocol that is for communicating between the server and the plurality of electrical appliances; and

the server enables communicating between the plurality of electrical appliances and the plurality of cloud-based applications.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving by the server a second communication, the second communication coming from the target cloud-based application;

translating by the server the second communication into the protocol that is for communicating between the server and the plurality of electrical appliances; and

transmitting by the server the translated second communication to the electrical appliance.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

determining by the server whether the target cloud-based application is authorized to communicate with the electrical appliance;

determining by the server a type of the second communication; and

determining by the server whether the electrical appliance can accept communications of the type of the second communication.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein:

a user of the electrical appliance can use a device capable of accessing the plurality of cloud-based applications in order to transmit the communication from the target cloud-based application to the server.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving by the server one or more commands that establish one or more rules by which the server determines how to respond to communications from the plurality of electrical appliances and the plurality of cloud-based applications; and

setting by the server the one or more rules according to the received one or more commands.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the server receives at least one of the one or more commands from at least one of the plurality of cloud-based applications, with which a user can make a selection for remotely setting at least one of the rules.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the server receives at least one of the one or more commands from the electrical appliance, which has an interface with which a user can make a selection for remotely setting at least one of the rules.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to the receiving by a server a communication from an electrical appliance, receiving by the server an initial identification communication including identification data that identifies at least one of the electrical appliance, a type of the electrical appliance and a network address of the electrical appliance;

registering by the server the identification data;

receiving by the server an initial access communication from the target cloud-based application including data identifying the electrical appliance; and

setting by the server a rule that allows the target cloud-based application to service the electrical appliance.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

adding an additional cloud-based application to the plurality of cloud-based applications, the additional cloud-based application being selectable as the target cloud-based application that can service the electrical appliance without updating the electrical appliance.

12. The server of claim 1, wherein:

the plurality of electrical appliances are capable of communicating application data only in the appliance communication protocol; and

the server enables communicating between the plurality of electrical appliances and the plurality of cloud-based applications.

13. The server of claim 1, wherein:

when the application interface receives a second communication being sent in one of the application communication protocols from one of the cloud-based applications and identifying one of the electrical appliances as a recipient electrical appliance, the server uses the rules storage component to determine whether the sending cloud-based application is authorized to communicate with the recipient electrical appliance; and

if the sending cloud-based application is authorized to communicate with the recipient electrical appliance, the protocol translator translates the second received communication into a second translated communication in the appliance communication protocol, and the electrical appliance interface transmits the second translated communication to the recipient electrical appliance.

14. The server of claim 13, wherein:

due to functionality enabled by the server remote from the electrical appliances, an impression is presented to a user of accessing the recipient electrical appliance directly through the sending cloud-based application and of the recipient electrical appliance having a level of complexity of functionality greater than is built into the recipient electrical appliance.

15. The server of claim 1, wherein:

due to functionality enabled by the server remote from the electrical appliances, the electrical appliances are accessible through electronic devices that can communicate in the application communication protocols through the cloud-based applications and then to the server, which translates communications that originate from the electronic devices into the appliance communication protocol for transmission to the electrical appliances.

16. The server of claim 1, wherein:

when the electrical appliance interface receives a communication from one of the electrical appliances for which there is no entry in the rules storage component, the server generates an entry for the electrical appliance in the rules storage component, the entry includes identification data that identifies at least one of the electrical appliance, a type of the electrical appliance and a network address of the electrical appliance.

17. The server of claim 1, further comprising:

a control interface that receives communications from a Web-based management console application, through which entries are generated and updated in the rules storage component and available cloud-based applications are established.

11. A server comprising:

an electrical appliance interface that sends and receives communications to and from a plurality of electrical appliances, the communications between the server and the electrical appliances being in an appliance communication protocol, the plurality of electrical appliances being embedded devices having primary function components for performing dedicated primary functions other than networking and computing functions;

an application interface that sends and receives communications to and from a plurality of cloud-based applications, the communications between the server and the cloud-based applications being in a plurality of application communication protocols;

a rules storage component that stores rules that determine, for each electrical appliance, which of the cloud-based applications services that electrical appliance; and

a protocol translator that translates communications between the appliance communication protocol and the application communication protocols;

and wherein;

when the electrical appliance interface receives a communication from one of the electrical appliances, the server uses the rules storage component to select one or more of the cloud-based applications, the protocol translator translates the received communication into one or more translated communications, and the application interface transmits the one or more translated communications to the selected one or more cloud-based applications.

18. An electrical appliance comprising:

a control unit that manages primary functions of the electrical appliance, the primary functions being dedicated functions other than networking and computing functions; and

a communication module connected to the control unit, the communication module sending and receiving communications to and from a server;

and wherein;

the control unit generates data for the communications that the communication module sends to the server;

the control unit controls the primary functions of the electrical appliance in response to data in the communications that the communication module receives from the server;

a single communication protocol is used for communications between the communication module and the server that involve cloud-based applications;

the server enables the communication module to communicate with the cloud-based applications;

the cloud-based applications require the use of other communication protocols; and

the server translates the communications between the single communication protocol and the other communication protocols whenever the communications are passed between the communication module and the cloud-based applications.

19. The electrical appliance of claim 18, wherein:

the electrical appliance is accessible through an electronic device that can communicate in at least some of the other communication protocols through the corresponding cloud-based applications and then to the server, which translates communications that originate from the electronic device into the single communication protocol for transmission to the electrical appliance.

20. The electrical appliance of claim 19, wherein:

due to functionality of the electronic device in conjunction with functionality enabled by the server remote from the electrical appliance, the electronic device presents an appearance of communicating directly with the electrical appliance through at least one of the cloud-based applications.

21. The electrical appliance of claim 18, further comprising:

a user interface that a user can operate to set functional parameters for the electrical appliance, at least some of the functional parameters are set remote from the electrical appliance within the server after being communicated by the communication module to the server.