Communications: electrical – Continuously variable indicating – With meter reading
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-23
2004-09-14
Harabik, Michael (Department: 2157)
Communications: electrical
Continuously variable indicating
With meter reading
C340S870030, C340S870030, C340S007550, C340S007560, C348S734000, C345S169000, C345S173000, C398S106000, C398S107000, C398S108000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06791467
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The field of the invention relates in general to means for remotely controlling appliances. More particularly, the invention relates to an adaptive universal remote controller, that can adapt itself to any new environment, for example, while its operator is moving from one environment into another, or while the environment itself is modified by the introduction of a new appliance in it. The invention further relates to an adaptive-interactive remote controller that can further interact with appliances, for providing the user of the remote controller help guidance, and/or options that are specific to an appliance, or to a situation.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Remote controllers for electrical and electronic appliances are well known, and are widely used. In recent years, as home appliances have been improved to include more and more new features, more products for home use are being provided with remote controllers. Generally, although most of the newer remote controllers apply infrared rays for transmission, there is no one standard for remote controllers, and each company provides its appliances and remote controllers with its specific protocol of communication. In many cases, companies change the communication protocol even from one model to another in the same type of appliance.
This problem is well known, and the prior art has extensively tried to provide a so-called “universal” remote controller that is capable of controlling one or more different appliances, although the so-called universal remote controller has not been specifically designed for controlling them. Such a universal remote controller is generally provided with means for “learning” the control features of the device/s and the control signals for carrying them out, and with means for generating such signals, when desired.
There are known some types of universal remote controllers, these generally differing in their manner of programming. More particularly, the universal remote controllers of the prior art differ in the manner of teaching them the specific signals to be transmitted by each key, the location of the relevant keys for operating each appliance, and the keys' functionality.
One known type of a universal remote controller e.g., as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,643 is designed to learn the said relevant information from one or more original, dedicated remote controller/s that are provided by the manufacturer with each relevant appliance. This type of universal remote controller suffers from the drawback that the teaching procedure of the universal remote controller requires having the original remote controller of each appliance, which is not always available. Furthermore, the teaching procedure is tedious, as it requires the carrying out of the teaching procedure separately for each appliance, and for each specific key of the remote controller.
A second type of a universal remote controller e.g., as disclosed in EP 907,156 is provided with a special interface for downloading the relevant information into the remote controller from an external source. Such an information source may be, for example, the manufacturer's Internet site, a Smart Card, a plugged in ROM card, etc. A drawback of this type of universal remote controller is that the source of the relevant information is in many cases not readily available, particularly if the site (when this is the information source) is not updated for all the manufacturers' models. Moreover, there is the need for a special plugged-in card that has to be programmed, or for a special interface. A second drawback of this type of remote controller is that the procedure of programming (or downloading) in any case requires special skills by the one who carries out the programming procedure.
There are some other variations to the above types of universal remote controllers. However, they all suffer from similar drawbacks.
Moreover, the existing universal remote controllers are designed for handling some “standard” appliances, such as a TV, a stereo receiver, a video recorder, a tape recorder, a CD player, etc. Their keyboards are generally not provided with keys for handling newly available features in new models of the above “standard” appliances, and definitely not with keys for handling new appliances that are being provided with remote controllers for the first time. Moreover, there are some remote controlled outdoor appliances, such as a garage door, or a car alarm system that are provided with remote controllers using encrypted signals. The existing universal remote controllers are not capable of learning from the dedicated remote controllers with encrypted signals of such appliances.
Furthermore, the remote controllers of the prior art are generally uni-directional, capable only of sending signals to the appliances, in order to carry out some of their specific operations. They are not capable of receiving information from the appliances, and do not comprise a graphic man-machine interface (MMI) for easing and extending their operations, and for providing more friendly operation. Moreover, most of the existing remote controllers are based on infrared signal transmission, that generally requires a line of sight between the remote controller and the appliance. The remote controller of the invention also overcomes this drawback, as it is RF based, and is provided with a non-directional antenna.
It is therefore one object of the invention to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks of the existing universal remote controllers.
It is another object of the invention to provide a remote controller that can handle any remote controlled appliance, of any type, model, and with any type of feature, even a new one.
It is still another object of the invention to provide the said remote controller with the ability to easily handle a plurality of remote controlled appliances.
It is still another object of the invention to provide the said remote controller with the capability of adapting itself immediately and automatically to any remote controlled appliance with any features whatsoever, and in any environment, with no need for any programming procedure to be carried out by the operator.
It is still another object of the invention to provide the said remote controller with the capability of adapting itself immediately to handle the addition of a new appliance in its existing environment.
It is still another object of the invention to provide the said remote controller with the capability to adapt itself immediately and automatically to any movement of the operator with the remote controller into a new environment that includes appliances different from the previous environment. Such a new environment can be, for example, another apartment, a new room in the same apartment, another floor in the same apartment, or an outdoor environment such as a parking lot paying-entering device, a control device for automatic payment machine in toll way, a control of an ATM machine for withdrawal of cash, an industrial environment such as an automatic warehouse, or a manufacturing plant where machines can be “wirelessly controlled”, etc.
It is still another object of the invention to provide to said adaptive remote controller the capability to adapt itself immediately to handle any new feature of any new or existing appliance, by displaying on the display a descriptive symbol or text that is directly connected to a relevant key for activating the new feature.
It is still another object of the invention to provide the said remote controller with the capability of adapting its operations based on the current or past status of appliances with whom contact has been made.
It is still another object of the invention to provide said remote controller with a new type of display that clearer for viewing and determining the function of each key.
It is still another object of the invention to provide an adaptive remote controller that is much more user-friendly, particularly due to its new manner of teaching and operating. For example, a remote controller that
DaLencourt Yves
Flextronics Semiconductor Inc.
Friedman Mark M.
Harabik Michael
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