Home appliance and method of controlling the same

• US 9,267,729 B2
• Filed: 02/24/2014
• Issued: 02/23/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/19/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Kang, Hee Jun
• Primary Examiner(s): Tweel, Jr., John A
• Application Number:
  US14/187,953
• Publication Number:
  US 20140313047A1
• Time in Patent Office: 729 Days
• Field of Search: 340/692, 715/202, 715/234
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 23/12 Arrangements of compartments additional to cooling compartments; Combinations of refrigerators with other equipment, e.g. stove
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 2400/361 Interactive visual displays
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/0381 Multimodal input, i.e. interface arrangements enabling the user to issue commands by simultaneous use of input devices of different nature, e.g. voice plus gesture on digitizer
• 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

Abstract

Provided is a home appliance that outputs an operating sound, if a predetermined operating sound output condition is satisfied, the home appliance including: a storage unit that stores at least one sound; a manipulation unit through which a sound to be set as the operating sound is selected from among the at least one sound from a user; a sound output unit that outputs the operating sound; and a controller that controls the sound output unit to output the sound selected by the user to the operating sound, if the operating sound output condition is satisfied. The user directly inputs sounds to the home appliance and selects an operating sound from among the sounds so that the home appliance capable of providing various operating sounds according to a user'"'"'s taste can be provided.

Claims

1. A home appliance that outputs an operating sound when a predetermined event occurs, the home appliance comprising:

a display unit to display at least one candidate sound;

an input unit to receive a user input;

a sound output unit to output the operating sound; and

a controller to set a sound of the at least one candidate sound as the operating sound according to the user input, and to control the sound output unit to output the set sound when the predetermined event occurs.

2. The home appliance according to claim 1, wherein the display unit displays an event list corresponding to the predetermined event and a sound list corresponding to the at least one candidate sound.

3. The home appliance according to claim 2, wherein the input unit allows the sound list and the event list to be mapped to each other so that a sound to be set as the operating sound is able to be selected.

4. The home appliance according to claim 3, further comprising a sound input unit through which the at least one candidate sounds are input by the user.

5. The home appliance according to claim 4, wherein the controller converts the at least one candidate sound input from the sound input unit into sound data and stores the converted sound data in a storage unit of the home appliance.

6. The home appliance according to claim 3, further comprising a communication unit that receives sound data from an external device, the sound data including the at least one candidate sound.

7. The home appliance according to claim 6, wherein the controller stores the received sound data in a storage unit of the home appliance.

8. The home appliance according to claim 3, wherein the predetermined event comprises at least one of:

turning on the home appliance, turning off the home appliance, starting an operation of the home appliance, completing the operation of the home appliance, changing an operating mode of the home appliance, and changing settings of the home appliance.

9. A method of controlling a home appliance that outputs an operating sound when a predetermined event occurs, the method comprising:

displaying at least one candidate sound;

receiving a user input;

setting a sound of the at least one candidate sound as an operating sound according to the user input, the operating sound corresponding to the predetermined even; and

outputting the at least one sound when the predetermined event occurs.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the setting of the sound of the at least one candidate sound as the operating sound comprises displaying an event list corresponding to the predetermined event and a sound list corresponding to the at least one candidate sound.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the setting of the sound of at least one candidate sound as the operating sound comprises allowing the sound list and the event list to be mapped to each other so that a sound of the sound list can be set as the operating sound by way of the mapping.

12. The method according to claim 10, further comprising recording sound through a sound input unit.

13. The method according to claim 10, further comprising receiving sound data from an external device, the sound data including the at least one candidate sound.

14. The method according to claim 10, wherein the predetermined event comprises at least one of:

turning on the home appliance, turning off the home appliance, starting an operation of the home appliance, completing the operation of the home appliance, changing an operating mode of the home appliance, and changing settings of the home appliance.

15. A graphical user interface to be displayed on a display of a home appliance that outputs an operating sound when a predetermined event occurs, the graphical user interface comprising:

an event list display region disposed at a first side of the graphical user interface, wherein the event list display region lists a plurality of events of the home appliance in which an operating sound could be output; and

a sound display region disposed at a second side of the graphical user interface wherein the sound display region displays a plurality of sounds stored in the home appliance.

16. The graphical user interface according to claim 15, further comprising:

a selection portion of the graphical user interface to receive a selection of one sound from among the a plurality of sounds displayed in the sound display region and to allow the selected sound to be mapped to the event list displayed in the event list display region, thereby allowing setting of an operating sound.