Home appliance and its system

• US 9,013,320 B2
• Filed: 06/20/2013
• Issued: 04/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Lee, Jinwook, Kim, Moonhyun, Kim, Deoghyeon, Ha, Sangdoo
• Primary Examiner(s): Bugg, George
• Assistant Examiner(s): Akki, Munear
• Application Number:
  US13/922,669
• Publication Number:
  US 20140009300A1
• Time in Patent Office: 670 Days
• Field of Search: 340/679, 340/825.22, 340/635, 340/539.24, 702/185, 702/188, 379/106.01, 714/27, 735/93
• US Class Current: 340/679
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0205 by means of a monitoring system capable of detecting and responding to faults
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/027 Alarm generation, e.g. communication protocol; Forms of alarm
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/187 Machine fault alarms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/282 based on user interaction within the home receiver circuitry for displaying additional information being controlled by a remote control apparatus H04N21/42204
• 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 12/2834 Switching of information between an external network and a home network access arrangements H04L12/2856
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2841 Wireless
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/285 Generic home appliances, e.g. refrigerators

Abstract

Provided are a home appliance and its system. The home appliance include: an input unit for inputting driving information; a data unit for storing a diagnosis logic; a control unit for diagnosing a state of the home appliance and whether a failure occurs according to the diagnosis logic on the basis of product information including the driving information inputted from the input unit, operation information detected during an operation, and failure information occurring during an operation, in order to generate a diagnosis result including the operation information and the failure information, and encoding transmission information including predetermined data for a diagnosis, which are selected from the driving operation, and the diagnosis result and outputting the encoded transmission information; a modulator for converting the encoded transmission information; and a sound output unit for outputting the transmission information converted by the modulator as a sound including a plurality of frequencies.

Claims

1. A home appliance comprising:

an input unit for inputting driving information;

a data unit for storing a diagnosis logic;

a control unit for diagnosing a state of the home appliance and whether a failure has occurred according to the diagnosis logic on the basis of product information including the driving information, operation information detected during operation, and failure information occurring during an operation, in order to generate a diagnosis result including the operation information and the failure information, and encoding transmission information including a subset of the driving information, and the diagnosis result, and outputting the encoded transmission information;

a modulator for converting the encoded transmission information; and

a sound output unit for outputting the transmission information converted by the modulator as a sound including a plurality of frequencies.

2. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the control unit selects the subset of driving information based on a priority on each data among data included in the driving information.

3. The home appliance of claim 2, wherein the control unit generates the transmission information including version information on a diagnosis algorithm and an index on the diagnosis result.

4. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the transmission information comprises at least two diagnosis results.

5. The home appliance of claim 4, wherein the control unit generates the transmission information including three diagnosis results.

6. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the transmission information is less than 6 bytes.

7. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the sound is output for less than 3 seconds.

8. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the subset of driving information comprises 18 bits and/or the diagnosis result comprises 21 bits.

9. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein when a diagnosis running command is inputted from the input unit, each set operation is completed, or an error occurs during an operation, the control unit performs a diagnosis on the home appliance in correspondence to the product information.

10. The home appliance of claim 1, wherein the modulator converts the encoded data through a combination of at least two different frequencies.

11. A home appliance system, comprising:

a home appliance as claimed in claim 1;

a server for receiving the sound outputted from the home appliance and outputting a diagnosis result on the home appliance; and

a terminal for transmitting the sound outputted from the home appliance to the server via a predetermined communication network,

wherein the server analyzes the sound and extracts the diagnosis result, and outputs the diagnosis result and detail data corresponding to the diagnosis result.

12. The home appliance system of claim 11, wherein the server comprises a database for storing the diagnosis result and the detail data corresponding to the diagnosis result, and stores a diagnosis history on the home appliance in the database as log data in correspondence to the diagnosis result.

13. The home appliance system of claim 11, wherein the database stores the detail data, which includes at least one of a failure cause corresponding to the diagnosis result, a countermeasure for the failure cause, additional description for the failure, and a method of using the home appliance, by each diagnosis result.

14. The home appliance system of claim 11, wherein the server periodically transmits data on the diagnosis history on the home appliance to the home appliance and the terminal according to a set period.

15. A method of operating a home appliance, the method comprising:

receiving driving information to perform a predetermined operation;

storing diagnosis logic for diagnosing a failure in the home appliance;

diagnosing a state of the home appliance and whether a failure has occurred according to the diagnosis logic on the basis of product information including the driving information, operation information detected during operation and failure information occurring during operation;

generating a diagnosis result including the operation information and the failure information;

encoding transmission information including a subset of the driving information and the diagnosis result; and

outputting the transmission information as sound having a plurality of frequencies.