Home appliance, home appliance system, and diagnosis method of a home appliance

• US 8,705,715 B2
• Filed: 04/29/2009
• Issued: 04/22/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Park, Hyung Jun, Kang, Hae Yong, Kim, Young Soo, Jeon, Si Moon, Lee, Koon Seok, Kim, Yong Tae, Kim, Hyun Sang, Kwon, Eui Hyeok
• Primary Examiner(s): Chin, Vivian
• Assistant Examiner(s): Zhang, Leshui
• Application Number:
  US12/432,111
• Publication Number:
  US 20100027770A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,819 Days
• Field of Search: 379/106.01, 379/106.07, 379/106.11, 379/102.01, 379/102.07, 379/102.04, 379/93.37, 379/37, 379/90.01, 379/9.04, 379/92.01, 379/92.03, 379/92.04, 340/53, 340/679, 340/310.06, 340/310.08, 340/539.24, 340/853.2
• US Class Current: 379/106.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 11/00 Transmission systems employing sonic, ultrasonic or infrasonic waves
• 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

Abstract

A home appliance system and an operation method thereof are disclosed. The home appliance outputs product information as a predetermined sound and transmits the sound through a connected communication network, thereby making it easier for a service center at a remote place to check a status of the home appliance. Further, the home appliance system and operation method thereof prevents noise or signal error generated in the procedure of converting product information into a signal of a predetermined frequency band in order to output the product information as a sound, thus enabling stable signal conversion and improving the accuracy of information transmission using the output of sound.

Claims

1. A home appliance that transmits product information to a management device via a communication network for fault diagnosis of the home appliance, the home appliance comprising:

a selection device that receives an input of an external command signal;

a storage device that stores the product information of the home appliance for the fault diagnosis;

a controller that, upon receipt of the external command signal through the selection device, loads the product information stored in the storage device and generates a control signal including the loaded product information as a sequence of symbols;

a conversion device that converts the control signal into a sequence of acoustic signals, each of the acoustic signals having any one of predetermined frequencies which are different from each other from signal to signal; and

an output device that receives the sequence of the acoustic signals from the conversion device and outputs a sound corresponding to the sequence of the acoustic signals, wherein each of the acoustic signals corresponds to each of the symbols, and the controller controls signal conversion of the conversion device to be stopped during a dead time provided between adjacent symbols, and wherein the each of the symbols corresponds to 1 bit.

2. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the controller controls the conversion device to set the dead time to be less than approximately 20% of a duration of the acoustic signals.

3. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the controller controls the conversion device to set the dead time between a first symbol and a second symbol and wherein the dead time has a different logic value from the first symbol.

4. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the controller controls the conversion device to set a cycle time of the each symbol within a range of approximately 7 ms to approximately 24 ms.

5. The home appliance of claim 4, wherein the cycle time of the each symbol is approximately 12 ms.

6. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the each of the acoustic signals has 8 to 32 pulses.

7. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the conversion device converts the control signal into the acoustic signals by generating a resonance frequency according to a pulse width modulation, and the resonance frequency is turned off during the dead time.

8. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the conversion device converts the product information into a signal having a first frequency if a logic value of the control signal is 0, converts the product information into a signal having a second frequency if the logic value of the control signal is 1, and combines the converted signals of the first and second frequencies to output the acoustic signals.

9. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the product information contains operation information and fault information of the home appliance.

10. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the product information contains status information of the home appliance.

11. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the conversion device converts the loaded product information into a signal having a first predetermined frequency if a logic value of the control signal is 0, converts the loaded product information into a signal having a second predetermined frequency if the logic value of the control signal is 1, and combines the converted signals of the first and second frequencies to output the sequence of the acoustic signals.

12. A diagnosis method of a home appliance, the diagnosis method comprising:

storing product information of a home appliance;

upon receipt, in the home appliance, of an external signal for diagnosis, loading the product information;

generating a control signal including the loaded product information as a sequence of symbols, each of the symbols corresponds to 1 bit;

converting the control signal into a sequence of acoustic signals, each of the acoustic signals having any one of predetermined frequencies which are different from each other from signal to signal; and

outputting the sequence of the acoustic signals as a sound, wherein each of the acoustic signals corresponds to the each of the symbols, and wherein converting the control signal is stopped during a dead time provided between adjacent symbols.

13. The diagnosis method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving the sound by a service center through a communication network;

inversely converting the received sound and extracting the product information of the home appliance from the received sound; and

diagnosing a condition of the home appliance by analyzing the extracted product information.

14. The diagnosis method of claim 12, wherein, in the generation of the control signal, the loaded product information is converted by using any one of frequency shift keying, amplitude shift keying, and phase shift keying.

15. The diagnosis method of claim 12, wherein a cycle time of the each symbol is within a range of approximately 7 ms to approximately 24 ms.

16. The diagnosis method of claim 15, wherein the cycle time of the each symbol is approximately 12 ms.

17. The diagnosis method of claim 12, wherein a duration of the acoustic signals is set such that 8 to 32 pulses are contained per one symbol.

18. The diagnosis method of claim 12, wherein the product information contains operation information and fault information of the home appliance.

19. The diagnosis method of claim 12, wherein the product information contains status information of the home appliance.

20. A home appliance that transmits product information to a management device via a communication network for fault diagnosis of the home appliance, the home appliance comprising:

a selection device that receives an input of an external command signal;

a storage device that stores the product information of the home appliance for the fault diagnosis;

a controller that, upon receipt of the external command signal through the selection device, loads the product information stored in the storage device and outputs a control signal including the loaded product information;

a conversion device that converts the control signal into a sequence of acoustic signals, each of the acoustic signals having a predetermined frequency which is different from each other from signal to signal; and

an output device that receives the sequence of the acoustic signals from the conversion device and outputs a sound corresponding to the sequence of the acoustic signals, wherein a dead time is provided between adjacent frequencies, and the controller controls signal conversion of the conversion device to be stopped during the dead time, and wherein the each of the acoustic signals corresponds to 1 bit.

21. A home appliance that transmits product information to a management device via a communication network for fault diagnosis of the home appliance, the home appliance comprising:

a selection device that receives an input of an external command signal;

a storage device that stores the product information of the home appliance for the fault diagnosis;

a controller that, upon receipt of the external command signal through the selection device, loads the product information stored in the storage device and outputs a control signal including the loaded product information as a series of bits, each bit having a value of 0 or 1;

a conversion device that converts the control signal into modulated output signals based on frequency, wherein adjacent bits of the modulated output signals are modulated based on a different frequency; and

an output device that receives the modulated output signals from the conversion device and outputs a sound corresponding to the modulated output signals, wherein when adjacent bits of the modulated output signals have different bit values, the controller controls the conversion device such that a dead time is provided between the modulated output signals, wherein each of the modulated output signals corresponds to 1 bit of the product information.