System and method for remotely monitoring the operating life of electronic displays

• US 9,812,047 B2
• Filed: 01/07/2011
• Issued: 11/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Manufacturing Resources International, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Manufacturing Resources International, Inc.
• Inventors: Schuch, John, De Laet, Rick
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Gene W
• Application Number:
  US12/986,787
• Publication Number:
  US 20110283199A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,496 Days
• Field of Search: 345 87-104, 345204-215, 345690-699
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2320/08 Arrangements within a display terminal for setting, manually or automatically, display parameters of the display terminal
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/145 the light originating from the display screen
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/042 for monitor identification
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/006 Electronic inspection or testing of displays and display drivers, e.g. of LED or LCD displays testing individual LED's G01R31/2635; testing lamps G01R31/44; testing of optical features of LCD displays G02F1/1309
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/00 Control arrangements or circuits for visual indicators common to cathode-ray tube indicators and other visual indicators image data processing or generation, in general G06T
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/003 Details of a display terminal, the details relating to the control arrangement of the display terminal and to the interfaces thereto specific for a CRT G09G1/165; for a flat panel G09G3/2092
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 17/00 Diagnosis, testing or measuring for television systems or their details
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 17/004 for digital television systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41415 involving a public display, viewable by several users in a public space outside their home, e.g. movie theatre, information kiosk
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4424 Monitoring of the internal components or processes of the client device, e.g. CPU or memory load, processing speed, timer, counter or percentage of the hard disk space used error monitoring in general G06F11/30; arrangements for monitoring conditions of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/32; diagnosis, testing or measuring for television receivers H04N17/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4425 Monitoring of client processing errors or hardware failure
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/173 with two-way working, e.g. subscriber sending a programme selection signal

Abstract

A system for remotely monitoring and controlling one or more electronic displays containing several hardware components. The components may electronically communicate with a network connection which can be used to establish communication with a local area network and/or the internet. A personal computing device can be used to run a user interface which allows the user to access a wealth of information from the electronic display as well as change controlling software, operating parameters, and check for downtime incidents or failures. Various sensors and measurement devices can be installed within the display to provide the information which may be stored locally or stored remotely for real-time access or on-demand access.

Claims

1. A system for remotely monitoring and controlling an electronic display comprising:

a first electronic display having a backplane in electrical connection therewith;

a color light sensor placed in front of the first electronic display and electrically connected with the backplane;

a network connection with the backplane; and

a computing device residing at a location remote to and not visible from the first electronic display, the computing device having a second display, change controlling software, and an electronic storage medium populated with operating parameters, the computing device in electronic communication with the network connection and adapted to display a user interface on the second display, the user interface configured to present the current brightness level of the first electronic display and to accept as an input a new brightness level to be provided via the change controlling software to the first electronic display if the current brightness level of the first electronic display is determined to fall outside of corresponding acceptable operating parameters saved on the electronic storage medium.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a power module electrically connected with the backplane.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein:

the user interface is adapted to display the current draw of the power module.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein:

the user interface is further adapted to display the temperature of the power module.

5. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a fan placed electrically connected with the backplane.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein:

the user interface is adapted to display the speed of the fan.

7. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

an AC current monitoring device electrically connected with the backplane.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein:

the user interface is adapted to display the data from the AC current monitoring device.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein:

the first electronic display is a liquid crystal display.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein:

the first electronic display is an OLED display.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein:

there are a plurality of first electronic displays, each first electronic display having;

a display assembly,

a backplane in electrical connection therewith,

a color light sensor placed in front of each first electronic display and electrically connected with the backplane thereof, and

a network connection with the backplane; and

wherein the computing device is adapted to communicate with each first electronic display device, and the user interface is adapted to present sensor data from each first electronic display device and to allow new input values to be provided thereto.

12. A system for remotely monitoring and controlling a liquid crystal display (LCD), the system comprising:

an LCD having a backlight;

a backplane electrically connected with the LCD and backlight;

a light sensing device placed to measure the light emitted from the backlight and electrically connected with the backplane;

at least one temperature sensing device electrically connected with the backplane and placed to measure at least one temperature of the LCD and;

a fan placed to draw cooling air over the backlight and electrically connected with the backplane;

a network connection with the backplane; and

a computing device residing at a location remote to and not visible from the LCD, the computing device having a second display, change controlling software, and an electronic storage medium populated with operating parameters, the computing device in electronic communication with the network connection and adapted to display a user interface on the second display, the user interface configured to present data from the light sensing device, the fan and the at least one temperature sensing device, and to accept as an input new backlight emission levels and new fan speeds to be provided via the change controlling software to the LCD if the light from the backlight as measured by the light sensing device or a temperature of the LCD as measured by the at least one temperature sensing device is determined to fall outside of corresponding acceptable operating parameters saved on the electronic storage medium.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein:

the network connection is a wireless network.

14. The system of claim 12 further comprising:

a power module electrically connected with the backplane.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein:

the user interface is adapted to display the current draw of the power module.

16. The system of claim 12 wherein:

an ambient light sensor is also electrically connected with the backplane; and

the user interface is adapted to display data from the ambient light sensor and to accept as an input new backlight emission levels to be provided via the change controlling software to the LCD if the ambient light level as measured by the ambient light sensor is determined to fall outside of corresponding acceptable operating parameters saved on the electronic storage medium.

17. A computing device for remotely monitoring and controlling an electronic display having a display assembly, a backplane electrically connected with the display assembly, an ambient light sensor electrically connected with the backplane, a power module electrically connected with the backplane, and a fan electrically connected with the backplane, the device comprising:

an electronic storage medium at a location remote to the electronic display and electrically connected with a processor, a second display, and a network communication port;

wherein the electronic storage medium contains operating instructions to accept and display the speed of the fan, the current draw and temperature of the power module, and the data from the ambient light sensor; and

wherein the electronic storage medium further contains operating instructions which provide an acceptable range for the current draw and temperature of the power module and analyze the incoming current draw and temperature data to determine if it has fallen outside the acceptable range.