Instruction manual

US 6,642,852 B2
7
awareness of the current power state (i.e., on or off) of the
one or more home appliances 12 the remote control 10 is
setup to control. The remote control 10 may maintain the
current power state of the home appliances 12 in a table 400,
illustrated in FIG. 4, for further use in a manner to be
described hereinafter. As illustrated in FIG. 4, the table 400
may maintain data for each device mode supported by the
remote control 10. In the exemplary case, since the illus
trated remote control includes eight device mode keys 330
the table 400 has eight data ?eld rows 410. For each device
mode 420 data may be maintained that is indicative of: 1) an
ID (430) assigned to the power monitor 14 associated with
the device 12 to be controlled in the given device mode; 2)
a status of the device setup (440) within the remote control
for the given device mode; and 3) a power status (450) for
the device 12 as reported by its associated power monitor
unit 14.
More speci?cally, the data ?eld (430) maintains the unit
address number that corresponds to the user-set address of
the power monitor unit 14 associated with the device to be
controlled in the given device mode. For example, in the
illustrative table of FIG. 4, the remote control has been setup
to control an appliance in the VCR device mode which has
been indicated to be plugged into a power monitor unit 14
having an address of “3” and to control an appliance in the
TV device mode which has been indicated to be plugged into
a power monitor unit 14 having an address of “0.” It is to be
understood that not all of the appliances 12 that the remote
control 10 may control need a power monitor unit 14 and, in
the case where an appliance in a given device mode is
indicated to be operating without a power monitor unit 14,
the table 400 would maintain an entry of “none.” Preferably
the table 400 is initialiZed when the remote control is ?rst
placed in service such that “none” is maintained in the data
?eld 430 for each device mode 420 until such time as the
device mode is, in fact, setup to indicate an address for a
power monitor unit.
To set the data in the ID data ?eld 430 for a device mode
420, the user may perform the method generally illustrated
in FIG. 5. By way of eXample, a user might enter a general
setup mode (e.g., by activating the “Setup” key 310) fol
lowed by an indication to the remote control that the user
speci?cally desires to setup the power module unit ID ?eld
of the table 400 (e.g., by entering a predetermined key
sequence using the numeric keys 340, such as “979”). At this
time the user may indicate to the remote control 10 the
device mode of interest and the ID number of the power
monitor unit associated with the appliance to be controlled
in the given device mode (e.g., by hitting the appropriate
“Device” key 330 and by hitting the numeric key 340
indicative of the address of the associated power monitor
unit). The user could then indicate a desire to eXit the setup
mode (e.g., by again hitting the “Setup” key 310) at which
time the indicated ID number would be stored in the data
?eld 430 for the indicated device 420. This process can be
repeated as often as needed to de?ne the ID number of the
power monitor unit for each device mode. This procedure
may also be timed to prevent the remote control 10 from
being locked in a setup mode. By way of an illustrative
eXample, to setup the remote control such that the table 400
illustrated in FIG. 4 results, the user might hit the “Setup”
key, enter the setup code “979,” and active the following
keys: TV-0-AMP-2-VCR-3-CD-1-AUX-4. The setup mode
would be eXited by again hitting the “Setup” key.
Further maintained with the table 400 in data ?eld 440 is
data indicative of whether an appliance to be controlled in a
given device mode has, in fact, been setup by a user. Setup
10
15
25
35
45
55
65
8
in this conteXt is with reference to the initial input by the user
to identify the speci?c brand/model of home appliance to be
controlled when the corresponding “Device” button 330 is
activated (See for example US. Pat. Nos. 5,614,906 and
4,959,810). If no device setup has been performed for a
given device mode the data ?eld 440 for that device main
tains data indicative of this fact, e.g., it maintains data
representative of a state “No.” Preferably, upon initialiZation
of the remote control 10, all of the data ?elds 440 are
provided with a default value of “No” until such time as the
device mode is setup. When a data ?eld 440 indicates that a
device mode has not been setup it may be assumed that the
user does not have a home appliance to be controlled in this
device mode and, as such, this device mode can be skipped
during processing of an “All On” or “All Off” command
which is described hereinafter.
A still further data ?eld 450 within the data table 400
holds the current power status (i.e., “on” or “off”) of a device
as reported by its associated power monitor unit 14. If a
device is not equipped with a power monitor unit 14 (i.e., the
ID data ?eld 430 has data indicative of “none”) the data ?eld
450 preferably maintains data indicating the appliance is in
an “unknown” state. Likewise, if communications with the
associated power monitor 14 have failed, the data ?eld 450
again maintains data indicative of an “unknown” state.
To poll the one or more power monitor units 14 to gather
the current power status, he remote control 10 issues a
broadcast status enquiry message, as illustrated in FIG. 6,
via its RF module 40. The power module units 14 respond
to the status enquiry message by transmitting a status
response message having data indicative of the status of the
device associated with the respective power monitor unit 14.
Preferably the status response messages from the one or
more power monitor units 14 are transmitted in an orderly
fashion to avoid collisions at the remote control 10. Upon
receiving a status response message from a power monitor
unit 14, received via the RF module 40, the remote control
10 strips the data from the status response message (i.e., the
address of the responding power monitor unit 14 and the
state of the device 12 associated with that power monitor
unit 14) and updates the appropriate status data ?eld 450 in
the data table 400 to re?ect the received status information.
In the case where no response is received from a power
monitor unit 14 or an invalid/untimely response is received,
the power status of the data ?eld corresponding to the
missing or failed power monitor unit 14 is preferably set to
“unknown.”
In responding to the status enquiry message received at
the power monitor unit 14, the power monitor unit 14
measures the power draw of its associated home appliance
as illustrated in FIG. 11. The measured power draw is then
compared to the previously established threshold value. If
the measured power draw is above the established threshold
value, the status of the home appliance 12 is determined to
be “on.” If, however, the measured power draw is not above
the established threshold value, the status of the home
appliance 12 is determined to be “off.”
The determined status is returned to the remote control 10
as data in the status reply message. The status reply message
also includes data that functions to identify the power
monitor unit 14 transmitting the status reply message. Pref
erably this data is the address of the power monitor unit 14
which the power monitor unit 14 retrieves by reading the
switches 76.
To prevent the collision of status reply messages at the
remote control 10, each power monitor unit 14 may wait an