This week the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Samsung that revealed a new smart home/office network messaging system. The timing of this patent application couldn't have been timelier when you consider that Apple announced their new smart home initiative with HomeKit earlier this month and Google's Nest just introduced their APIs for the same thing when Google I/O opened this week. Samsung's invention relates to their vision of the smart home interconnecting a smart TV with appliances and devices throughout your home. The heart of the invention is the creation of a messaging system that will allow users to set up messages to control their in-home devices and appliances through a user interface that will be coming to future smart TVs.
Samsung and the Smart Home Network
Home networks, which have become wide spread in recent years, refer to a home system which enables household electronic and electric appliances to be connected via a single wireless or wire-based system in order to implement two-way communication.
The home network allows automated adjustment of not only simple functions of remotely controlling home appliances, i.e., (home automation) but also high-tech functions, including information exchange, monitoring and security through data transmission and reception between home appliances. A user may switch on and off gas or electronic products from outside the home via a computer, a personal digital assistance (PDA) or a mobile phone and access multimedia content, such as education programs, movies, and games, via a TV.
The home network may be classified into a data network of home information and communication devices based on a computer, an audio/video (A/V) network of a TV and an audio system, and an information appliances network of household equipment based on white goods, depending on use.
In the home network, wire-based technology, such as Ethernet, PLC, IEEE 1394 and home PNA, radio technology, such as IEEE 802.11 WLAN, IEEE 802.15 WPAN and UWB, and home network control middleware, such as UPnP, HAVI, JINI and Home Network Control Protocol (HNCP) are employed, and various kinds of services based on these technologies are being vigorously developed.
Samsung's latest invention is designed to advance the networked home and make it a practical reality by creating a system that could communicate with users through messages that could appear on their next generation Smart Samsung HDTVs. The system is to allow two way communications between home users and their interconnected in-home devices and more importantly their in-home appliances.
As shown in Samsung's patent FIG. 1, a future smart TV may be connected to various home appliances (washer (101), microwave (102) and electric cooker (103) at home or to various electronic devices at an office, via a network.
The communicator noted in patent FIG. 2 begins communication with any of the connected home appliances according to the controller and communicates with the home appliances according to a predetermined communication protocol. The communicator is able to communicate with one or a plurality of home appliances and receive a condition satisfaction signals transmitted from these appliances.
In response to the communicator communicating with a plurality of home appliances, a signal received from each home appliance, particularly a condition satisfaction signal, may include an identifier for each home appliance. The condition satisfaction signal refers to a signal that the home appliance transmits to the smart TV in response to a specific function of the home appliance set up by the user being completed or meeting a specific condition. The condition satisfaction signal is a precondition for the smart TV to display a user setting message, and the smart TV displays various user setting messages based on the condition satisfaction signal.
The user input noted in patent FIG. 2 above as #40 represents a user interface that is configured to set up a specific function of the home appliance and a user setting message. The user input may be configured as a remote controller in order to control the television from a distance or include a button formed on an outside of the smart TV or a touch pad, wheel-type input and any other appropriate input method.
In response to the user selecting a washing machine, the display unit 30 displays a function or a specific operation condition of the washing machine, as shown in FIG. 3B. Displayed items A-1 include "Start wash," "Finish pre-wash," and "Finish wash." The user may schedule a time which she or he wants to do a wash from a present time and set up a pre-wash instead of a main wash. Of course, the user may select a wash completion item in which an entire washing cycle is finished.
The system can also work to communicate with other smart TVs in other rooms via texting so that parents will be able to communicate with their children by sending them reminders regarding daily activities, upcoming family or sporting activities and functions, basic house chores they're to do or to simply tell them to stop watching TV and do their homework as noted in patent FIG. 5A below.
As Google I/O began this week, Nest announced their new Smart Home API. You can review their documentation about that here. To get an overview of where this could be going, the released a video as presented below.
Samsung's new home messaging system is likely to tie into Google's Nest home network at some time in the future. Considering that Samsung makes so many devices and appliance for the home, future vehicles and the office, this is bound to be of great benefit to them in the future.
Samsung filed their US patent application back in Q4 2013. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
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