Diagnostic system and method for home appliance

• US 8,717,188 B2
• Filed: 07/29/2010
• Issued: 05/06/2014
• 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): Lu, Shirley
• Application Number:
  US12/846,013
• Publication Number:
  US 20110050441A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,377 Days
• Field of Search: 340/679, 340/825, 340/539.1, 340/825.5
• US Class Current: 340/679
• 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 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications

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 door error has occurred, a cause of the door error, and deriving a solution to the door 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.

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 communicator of the diagnostic server the product information and determining, when an error code is included in the product information, whether the error code corresponds to a door error associated with a door of the home appliance;

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

deriving via the communicator of the diagnostic server a diagnosis result by deriving a solution corresponding to a cause of the door error, the cause being obtained according to the fault diagnosis, wherein the diagnosing of the fault of the home appliance includes determining whether the error code has occurred before the home appliance performs a set operation using state information among the plurality of diagnostic data, and wherein the diagnosing of the fault of the home appliance includes determining, when the door error has occurred during the set operation, that the door error is caused by an abnormality of the door, and when the door error has occurred before the set operation, that the door error is caused by a malfunction of the program.

2. The diagnostic Method according to claim 1, wherein the deriving of the diagnosis result includes deriving a solution requesting at least one of a check of a closed state of the door, a check as to whether the door is loose, or a check as to whether the door can be closed.

3. The diagnostic method according to claim 2, further comprising:

outputting the diagnosis result and providing a user of the home appliance with guidance on the output diagnosis result.

4. The diagnostic method according to claim 1, wherein the deriving of the diagnosis result includes deriving a solution of dispatching a service technician for repairing the fault caused by the malfunction of the program.

5. The diagnostic method according to claim 4, further comprising:

performing a procedure for scheduling an appointment for the service technician to visit a user of the home appliance and transmitting the diagnosis result to a terminal of the service technician.

6. The diagnostic method according to claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting the diagnosis result to the home appliance or to a contact of a user of the home appliance.

7. A home appliance diagnostic system, comprising:

a home appliance 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 derives, 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 door error associated with a door 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 door error, whether the door or a program of the home appliance is out of order using diagnostic data associated with the door among a plurality of diagnostic data included in the product information, and then derives a solution to the fault of the home appliance, wherein the diagnostic server determines that the fault of the home appliance is caused by at least one of an abnormality of the door or a malfunction of the program using state information among the plurality of diagnostic data, wherein the diagnostic server determines the fault of the home appliance by determining whether the error code has occurred before the home appliance performs a set operation using state information among the plurality of diagnostic data, and wherein when the door error has occurred during the set operation, the diagnostic server determines that the door error is caused by an abnormality of the door, and when the door error has occurred before the set operation, the diagnostic server determines that the door error is caused by a malfunction of the program.

8. The home appliance diagnostic system according to claim 7, wherein, when the door error is caused by an abnormality of the door, the diagnostic server derives a solution requesting at least one of a check of a closed state of the door, a check as to whether the door is loose, or a check as to whether the door can be closed.

9. The home appliance diagnostic system according to claim 7, wherein, when the door error is caused by a malfunction of the program, the diagnostic server derives a solution of dispatching a service technician and performing a procedure for setting an appointment to dispatch the service technician.