System for controlling household equipment by expanding electric appliance accessories

Abstract

A system for expanding electric appliance accessories to control household equipment comprises one or more electric appliance accessories and a portable memory electrically connected with the electric appliance accessories in an inserted mode, the portable memory is used for distributed storage and rapid transmission access of data of the household equipment, and the system further comprises a data application end and a data storage end, the data transmission module is used for identifying and driving data transmission between the electric appliance accessory and the portable memory; the system comprises a portable memory, a data control terminal and a mixed mode controller arranged in the portable memory, and the mixed mode controller is configured to be coupled to a processor arranged in an electrical accessory so that the electrical accessory can be connected to one or more household devices through a household network. Wherein the data control end or the mixed mode controller is used for controlling the data application end to point to a storage area in the portable memory so as to drive data to run. The storage area may correspond to data content provided in a home network type data storage device or other remote memory or portable memory.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the field of electrical accessory products, and more specifically, provides a system and method that can be used to expand intelligent electrical accessory products, making them more suitable for storing usage data information of electrical accessory devices in home or office scenarios and sharing controls under different scenarios and permissions. Background Art

[0002] With the improvement of industrial development level and the development and progress of smart home application technology, especially the current combination of cloud computing and the emergence of the Internet of Things, the development of related smart home industries has been directly driven. The popularization of digital life has led to more and more data information used by personal devices (such as videos, pictures, sounds, etc.). The reuse, safe storage, query and use of such information has become an important issue. Therefore, under the premise of the continuous increase in intelligent home devices, the transmission energy consumption of media data and home device data continues to increase, which requires home users to continuously purchase cloud storage and continuously upgrade network routers to meet this demand.

[0003] The electrical term "electrical accessories" refers to electrical products that meet the standards of the building electrical and power wiring industry. With the continuous development of smart homes, electrical accessories have been transformed into intelligent ones, but they still need to be strictly restricted to the industry standard installation size specifications, which limits the electronic functions of smart electrical accessories. For example, the current information storage method for smart home devices and smart electrical accessories is to use the supporting network cloud storage disks provided by various manufacturers to store data information. Although data information can be accessed anytime and anywhere, which is convenient, it must be connected to the Internet when it is needed, and data redundancy or disconnection often occurs when uploading and downloading large amounts of data. In addition, the stability of the services provided by the network service provider must also be considered, and there are certain risks in network security.

[0004] In addition, a large proportion of smart home devices currently need to respond to automation or user manual control at any time. In order to save more power, many home devices that are installed with batteries usually need to operate in a low-power environment, which does not allow the use of the currently known WiFi and 5G-LTE networks to transmit signals (this is because WiFi is the most widely used wireless communication protocol under 802.11a~g, but its bandwidth is high and the amount of data it can carry is also large. In fact, many home appliances do not need a large bandwidth during use, and the information content transmitted is also very short). Home devices that run on the WiFi protocol consume a lot of power and need to frequently replace batteries. In addition, many electrical appliances cannot be operated in a frequent battery replacement mode due to installation conditions. Another problem is that all consumer electronic devices are currently transmitted through WiFi channels. In the home system environment, the channels will be more congested, resulting in slow response of home devices. Therefore, when considering home interconnection automation, other low-power, environmentally friendly wired / wireless communication protocol types need to be used to drive various home devices to work. Moreover, with the increasing number and types of smart home devices in the home environment, the transmission of control signaling has become congested and complex, seriously affecting the transmission success rate. Therefore, designers consider setting some home devices to other low-power protocols and designing home devices that can be plugged in portable storage devices as long-power supply devices. Summary of the invention

[0005] Therefore, the present invention designs a data storage and control system that can operate without relying entirely on a home / office network, can provide good home automation service performance, and has both high network security and physical security, as well as stable scene services that support linkage between various electrical accessories. When the electrical accessories are functionally expanded using such an improved system of the present invention, the electrical accessories can effectively control the linkage system within the current home network without the need for these home devices to frequently access the Internet / cloud server.

[0006] In particular, the "scene linkage" referred to in the present invention is the mutual transmission of signals between multiple smart home devices within a certain effective communication range to perform preset perception or customized electrical actions. At the same time, by storing the automation process of the user electronic device in such a storage system, the original electrical accessory device is expanded to have an automation linkage function. For example, the expanded electrical accessory device can be used as a trigger for scene linkage.

[0007] The technical solution provided by the present invention is: a system for expanding electrical accessories to control home devices, including one or more electrical accessories, and a portable storage device electrically plugged into the electrical accessories, wherein the portable storage device is used for distributed storage and fast transmission access to home device data, wherein the system further includes: a data application end, used to identify and drive data transmission between the electrical accessory and the portable storage device; a data control end, and a hybrid mode controller provided in the portable storage device, configured to be coupled to a processor built into the electrical accessory so that the electrical accessory can be connected to one or more home devices via a home network, wherein the data control end or the hybrid mode controller is used to control the data application end to point to a storage area in the portable storage device to drive data operation, and the storage area may correspond to data content set in a home network data storage device or other remote storage device or portable storage device.

[0008] In a preferred variation of such a system, at least a portion of the consumer electronic devices or electrical accessory devices equipped with the above-mentioned data control terminal or data application terminal can be connected to a home network data storage device via a home wired and / or wireless Ethernet network, thereby solving the data storage range or efficiency problems and data provision speed problems of these devices. By customizing the storage of information related to home devices, a large amount of data generated in a home intelligent linkage system (such as large amounts of media data, device execution logs, audio, and graphic data information) can be stored and provided more conveniently and securely. The data control end can provide the physical and logical connection methods for the data information, whether there will be conflicts or fault safety after the connection, and facilitate multiple terminals to extract data and provide high-speed local / remote data services. Alternatively, the above-mentioned data control end and / or data application end are arranged in a portable memory. When an electrical accessory is used through the electrical plug, the computing power and data processing resources of the data control end can be used to drive the current electrical accessory device to perform extended functions to generate linkage with other electrical accessories or home devices. In this case, any data downloaded / uploaded by the expanded electrical accessory is set to be stored or temporarily stored in a suitable home network data storage device. In some implementation schemes, from the perspective of hardware resources, as long as the intelligent electrical accessory device provides temporary storage resources (such as hardware patch components such as FLASH, RAM, etc.), the data application end and / or data control end can access its processor through a preset protocol, such as a UART serial port, SDK (software More efficient data processing and distribution can be achieved through the use of development-kit) protocol interfaces.

[0009] In another preferred variation of such a system, data related to household devices can be shared among different household users through the portable storage device (because the portable storage device is designed to be compact and removable and portable in order to fit the size of the electrical accessory), and more convenient household device control is achieved based on this. On this basis, preferably, the data control terminal is also provided with a protocol processing component, which is configured to allow household devices of different communication protocols to access the electrical accessory device currently plugged in with the protocol processing component and transfer data information.

[0010] The technical solution of the present invention is further described in detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The same or similar marking symbols used in any of the accompanying drawings may be used to represent the same or similar components or modules. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0011] Figure 1 It is a schematic block diagram of the functional principle of the system of the present invention;

[0012] Figure 2 A schematic diagram showing the functional principle of an embodiment of the system of the present invention is shown;

[0013] Figure 3 is Figure 2 A schematic diagram of a detailed implementation scheme provided on the basis;

[0014] Figure 4 A schematic diagram showing the functional principle of an embodiment of the system of the present invention is shown. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0015] One or more embodiments of the present invention provide a data transmission and control system for household appliances that use electrical accessories as extended carriers. Such a system may mainly include a network processor (e.g., a base station server, a workstation, an intelligent host, etc.), a home network data storage device (e.g., a networkable / mapped solid-state hard disk), and at least one network interface or data channel connected to provide data application terminals, data control terminals, and / or portable storage devices. In some embodiments, the network interface or data channel may be communicatively connected to one or more network-based household appliances through physical connections laid in facades such as building walls and floors. In other embodiments, the network interface or data channel may be wirelessly connected to one or more household appliances through wireless radio frequency signals generated by network processors, routers, and the like.

[0016] exist Figure 1In the illustrated embodiment, the data control terminal can be configured to: when any electrical accessory device connected to the current home network drives the data interface to access the portable storage through the data application terminal, and when a processor built into any electrical accessory sends a request indicating the generation of a data access demand, verify the request to determine whether to allow fast and targeted access to the home network data storage device through the currently plugged in data interface or remote data channel. Furthermore, for example, the access configuration information such as the capabilities and conditions of the current electrical accessory device can be broadcast to multiple home devices through the network discovery protocol (UDP). These home devices (set as "discoverers" on the network node) can access the data content of the corresponding protocol through the relevant information.

[0017] In one embodiment, such a system further comprises a power supply for providing operating power to electrical accessories, home devices and / or hybrid mode controllers. For example, the aforementioned wired network interface or physical connection can synchronously provide DC power, such as Figure 4 A smart switch 40 is shown with a power base 45 for providing 5V to 24V DC power to the functional circuits in the current electrical accessory device. Synchronously, when the AC power current / voltage of the pre-buried physical connection is used to carry the control signaling (such as the power line PLC protocol scheme), the processor built into the smart switch 40 can also collect and decode the control signaling from the network processor through the UART serial port. Here, the smart switch 40 is usually used as a controlled / executing device of an end node. As mentioned above, this problem is still completely dependent on the capabilities of centralized network host devices such as network processors. The more the number and types of mounted devices, the more complicated the network host processing, the lower the efficiency and the higher the error rate, and the need to increase the wiring cost. Therefore, after using a portable memory to plug and couple it, this dependence can be abandoned and the electrical functions and processing capabilities of the current smart switch 40 can be further improved.

[0018] In another embodiment, the portable storage device under the system of the present invention can be multiple and run simultaneously. In some implementations, these portable storage devices can be data coupled to each other at an electrical accessory or consumer electronic device end, for example, in a manner that supports a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) for further functional aggregation, data security protection and / or backup to avoid data being erased or damaged when a single storage device is damaged. In yet another embodiment, the portable storage device can contain a first storage block and a second storage block, wherein the first and second storage blocks are used to store the distributed respective data storage from the above-mentioned different household devices, consumer electronic devices and / or electrical accessories.

[0019] The "mixed mode controller" mentioned in any embodiment of the present invention can be designed as Figure 2 — Figure 4The depicted setting is in a portable and compact structure of a portable storage 13, a consumer electronic device (such as a smart phone 6, a watch, a personal computer 5 or a portable player), a household appliance (such as a smart TV, a set-top box, a refrigerator, a smart speaker) and other physical devices, running basic application service programs to implement smart home-specific related electrical functions. In some implementations, the hybrid mode controller can implement extended electrical functions by electromechanically plugging and unplugging the portable storage 13 designed to be portable and compact with an electrical accessory (such as a mobile socket 1). The hybrid mode controller can synchronously execute more than two types of functions. For example, when executing the extended function of signal relay on the mobile socket 1, it can still be used as a data download function, and can establish communication and receive control signals with external wireless network devices through the built-in antenna module or the mobile socket 1. Of course, when the portable storage 13 is removed, it can still be used as a general data storage device with consumer electronic devices. Figure 2 In the illustrated embodiment, the mobile socket 1 can be designed to have an openable and accommodating housing 108 for realizing such plug-in coupling. In one example, the housing 108 is designed to accommodate the portable storage 13 with a built-in hybrid mode controller by opening an accommodating slot 118 .

[0020] Here, the portable storage device 13 designed to be portable and compact can be set very small and does not occupy a large assembly space (for example, in 86 2 The mobile socket 1 has a body 103 for plugging into the mounting groove 118 and a card stand 113 for, for example, fixing, so that it is tightly stored in the mounting groove 118 and forms a whole for use with the mobile socket 1. In some implementation schemes, the mobile socket 1 has a body 10, a power lead 302 and a plug 201. The body 10 has an operating surface for plugging in household appliances, consumer electronic devices, etc., such as a power adapter power 51 plug, and the operating surface is provided with a power switch 102 and a plurality of electrical sockets 106. In the housing of the body 10, these electrical sockets are correspondingly arranged with a plurality of power supply components, including a main power supply component 104 and a sub-power supply component 106. In one embodiment, the body 10 may include only one electrical socket and a plurality of 5V to 12V weak current sockets. In addition, an indicator light 101 is provided on the side wall of the body 10 of the mobile socket 1 corresponding to each hole position, which is used to indicate the operating status or network distribution status of each socket. The main power supply component 104 may be configured to determine the consumer electronic device (eg Figure 2The power plugging position of the personal computer 5 shown in the figure is used as a hybrid mode controller. For example, after the portable storage device 13 is plugged into the installation slot 118, the power path of the main power supply component 104 can be continuously and regularly turned on / off to send a pairing request to the hybrid mode controller of the personal computer 5 through the power adapter 51 of the personal computer 5. The hybrid mode controller determines the pairing request and uses the main power supply component 104 as a long power supply port to provide the hybrid mode controller with power that can continue to control the host end, or when other consumer electronic devices (such as smart phones 6) are connected through other universal serial interfaces 61 (such as USB, Type-C, etc.) of the personal computer 5, the hybrid mode controller determines the local control mode to the smart phone 6, thereby sending a wireless (such as Bluetooth-LE) instruction to the built-in data control terminal of the portable storage device 13 to determine to establish a coupling mechanism with the microprocessor in the mobile socket 1 to search for nearby smart home devices. The main body 10 can be connected to a wall socket or other power supply device through an extension cable 302.

[0021] In an optimized example of the above implementation, the home network is used to provide network services of the same protocol (such as WiFi, WAN) to multiple consumer electronic devices, electrical accessories and / or household electrical appliances in the room, and access other electrical accessories in the home network (such as Figure 4 The smart switch 40 shown in the figure may be pre-set with a processor and a data application terminal (e.g., system application firmware, smart home driver), or such electrical accessories may also be assembled parts of home devices / home appliances that include the data application terminal. Alternatively, the data application terminal may be installed in certain electrical accessories (such as sockets, air environment monitors, thermostats, and / or smart scene switches), or may be arranged in home devices / home appliances (such as smart televisions, desktop computers, kitchen and bathroom equipment). In this case, the data application terminal is used to control the data verification and access of each electrical accessory in the same home network environment. In addition, the data application terminal may be used to access the data content of the above-mentioned home network or remote database through any wired or wireless means, or to access and control certain types of electrical accessories through this home network, that is, to establish a communication coupling with the processors installed in these electrical accessories in order to relay or transfer control signals.

[0022] In some implementations, the data application end may also be hardware or firmware coupled to at least one of the power supply components 104 and 106, and may include an application process or firmware that can be run to display and operate data according to the enablement of the hybrid mode controller in the portable memory. Thus, if, for example, personalized scene parameter data is transmitted from a portable memory 13 designed to be portable and compact to a processor of an electrical accessory, the electrical accessory can display, operate or store data from the portable memory 13. Data can also be transferred between two data application ends with similar or identical computing processing capabilities (such as operating environments). The data storage implemented in these data application ends may be different due to the user's personalized settings (such as equal flow or processing capacity, personalized setting parameters, etc.). Therefore, different data information can be stored in different storage blocks according to content or type for the convenience of the data control end to call. In addition, the processor and / or data application end of the electrical accessory can store some complex operation logics such as processing logic services of various home devices, script files of linkage scenes, and / or timed start scene files. The user can pre-edit the script to be run on the personal computer 5. When the hybrid mode controller is plugged into the electrical accessory, the built-in processor of the electrical accessory will establish communication with the hybrid mode controller, read the corresponding data content according to the established operation rules, and directly inject the execution script into the running program of the electrical accessory, or map the data content from the cache program of the processor of the electrical accessory. The processor and / or the data application end may include at least one processing circuit (such as a central processing unit (CPU), a microprocessing unit (MCU) or a similar dedicated logic circuit) or be part of such a processor. For example, the processor may reuse one or more microprocessors, and the microprocessor may be a general-purpose microprocessor, a combination of general-purpose / dedicated microprocessors, or an ASIC. In addition, the processor may include one or more reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processing chips, digital video processors, or related chipsets. In such a home network, the processor may provide processing capabilities to perform data verification and access operations, control the operation of various applications on the data application end, and / or provide the fast access processing described herein.

[0023] Figure 4Another embodiment is shown, that is, the smart switch 40 device described above follows the same teaching implementation, so that this type of electrical accessories can be plugged in communicatively with the portable memory 8 used above, so that after being plugged and fixed with the interface 8 through the expansion interface 43, the hybrid mode controller is coupled to the built-in processor of the smart switch 40, wherein the portable memory 8 can store data and executable code for such quick access. The portable memory 8 may include a volatile memory (RAM) and may also include a non-volatile memory, such as a read-only memory ROM or a flash memory. In one embodiment, when buffering or caching data related to operations called for data access, the first memory provided in the portable memory 8 can be used to temporarily store user data associated with applications running on the portable memory 8 designed to be portable and compact or on certain remote controls or buttons 41. The portable memory 8 may also include a second memory or more types of memory. The second memory may represent any suitable non-volatile storage medium (such as a hard disk drive) or a non-volatile memory (such as a flash memory). Since, for example, streaming media data presented by the display 42 may need to be stored for a long time or imported directly from the first or second memory of the portable memory 8 (for example, the second memory can be used to store such large-capacity data files, such as media (for example, music / video data), software / firmware (for example, for executing electrical functions on the data application end), preference setting information (for example, lighting brightness settings recommended to the user), lifestyle information (for example, shopping preferences)), in addition, the first memory can be encrypted for verification on the button 41 on the smart switch 40, for example, it can contain transaction information, wireless connection information, reservation information or information recorded by TV programs or other media, and telephone information (for example, telephone number). It should be understood that data associated with the application running the function of the smart switch 40 can be additionally saved in the second memory and removed when the user needs. In another embodiment, such a function can be enriched in the electrical accessory and a non-volatile storage device can also be provided. The non-volatile storage device can represent any suitable non-volatile storage medium, such as a hard disk drive or a non-volatile memory such as a flash memory to facilitate the creation of a function update or developer mode by driving the processor of the smart switch 40 after the hybrid mode controller is plugged in. Because they are well suited for long-term storage, non-volatile storage devices can store more important data files, such as media (e.g., music and video files) coprocessors, driver software (e.g., for executing functions on electronic devices), personal preference information (e.g., media playback preferences), lifestyle information (e.g., dietary preferences), fitness information (e.g., information obtained by health monitoring devices), financial / merchant transaction information (e.g., credit card information, mobile payment information), wireless connection information (e.g., information that enables a media device to establish a wireless connection such as a telephone connection), reservation information (e.g., information that keeps a record of television programs or other media that a user has reserved), and telephone information (e.g., telephone numbers).It should be appreciated that user data associated with open applications may be stored in non-volatile storage.

[0024] In one embodiment, the portable storage 8 can store data related to the wireless gateway and protocol conversion firmware, which is used to create a short-range interconnected MESH network in a home application scenario on the current smart switch 40, such as using a local area network (LAN) or some limited-distance Internet networks, such as Bluetooth Bluetooth-LE networks, ZigBee networks, etc. In such new networks of other protocol types created on the basis of the above-mentioned home network, the data control terminal can be used to provide complete physical backbone network stability and network capacity support. At the same time, the gateway is also used to connect to a wide area network (such as WLAN, Internet) through preset verification rules or access a remote database through such a wide area network, and provide a data channel so that the portable storage 8 can provide data download, upload or storage for verified devices accessing the wide area network under such verification rules. In the system of the present invention, it is possible to quickly access (report, send or forward) the device data information of other household devices or electrical accessories that establish a MESH network with the current smart switch 80. For example, an audio component 46 is also provided in the smart switch 40. When it is determined that the data application end or the hybrid mode controller has a data access demand, the request signaling is sent to other household devices as sub-devices through the gateway, and voice prompts or voice commands are received through the audio component 46. In one example, such a portable storage 8 also includes a sensor 44 for waking up the current smart switch 40 or each sub-device connected to it when the user's presence is sensed. In another example, the smart switch 40 is also built with an indicator 45 to emit a prompt light effect, so that the user can touch the button 83 on the portable storage 8 to enter a confirmation instruction, or can be prompted through the indicator 82 on the portable storage 8.

[0025] For example, Figure 1 In the illustrated embodiment, the processor built into the smart switch 40 verifies the access request to the first memory of the portable memory 8. If the device that issues the request is a verified device, a data channel is provided to such verified device to allow access to the first memory. In one example, the verified device includes any form of electrical accessory device with a built-in data application terminal. Then, the processor maintains the communication connection between the data channel of the portable memory 8 and the data application terminal and determines the access direction based on the data access service received from the data control terminal. For example, such verification rules may include:

[0026] (1) Detecting the data capacity required for processing. In some implementations, the processor can obtain data streams downloaded from the portable storage device 8 or from the home network according to set requirements. For example, metadata associated with these data streams can be obtained. The metadata includes characteristic information indicating that any data application terminal (such as a smart phone) in the home network created by the gateway needs to download, such as streaming media content. By obtaining such characteristic information, it is convenient to find a storage device with matching data capacity in the home network. In one embodiment, the download of the streaming media content can be performed by selecting an optimized data channel. (2) Detecting the computing processing capability. For example, the memory level or processing power of the processing chip of any smart home appliance accessory connected to the home network can be obtained through a processor or a hybrid mode controller. This detection is usually performed based on the device verification of the data application end. That is, according to the computing processing capability of each data application end, each block of the downloaded data can be allocated to, for example, an appliance accessory that can quickly process the content of these blocks. (3) Security verification information. This data includes user-related information collected and obtained in the above-mentioned home network, such as user preference settings, such as temperature / humidity and illumination of the indoor environment, personalized settings of the data application end, and certain user query / search information. The above data can be stored locally in the home network. In this way, these user-related data can be obtained after performing the user identity verification operation, so as to optimize the content of the data to be downloaded.

[0027] In one example, the data desired to be stored in the data application terminal can be sent to the portable memory 13, and the processor can be configured to determine the type of data (sometimes also the data capacity) to be stored to write into the first memory or the second memory or other types of memory. And, based on the determination, the data is retrieved when an access request is received from the data application terminal. In one embodiment, the processor can be configured to select a target device for the desired output, such as the device where the hybrid mode controller is located, or the data application terminal of an independent or new verified device.

[0028] In some examples, the data application end may also be configured to synchronize between multiple verified devices. Thus, the synchronization is used to direct the transfer of (for example) setting information or user information on one verified device to another verified device. In some implementations, such direct transfer is applied between two electronic devices with similar computing capabilities.

[0029] Then, when the processor is in a short-range MESH network, it can directly access the home network created by the gateway through this direct transmission, and after verification, connect to a home network data storage device to obtain a data channel for establishing data access to perform the desired access operation. If the data to be downloaded or saved is stored in a remote database, the processor can open the data channel of the home network data storage device, pass (for example) the download address to the home network data storage device, and access the storage device at the data application end to directly obtain data from such a remote database.

Claims

1. A system for expanding electrical accessories to control household devices, characterized in that The system comprises one or more electrical accessories and a portable storage device electrically connected to the electrical accessories for communication, wherein the portable storage device is used for distributed storage and rapid transmission access to household device data, wherein the system further comprises: A data application terminal, used for identifying and driving data transmission between the electrical accessory and the portable storage device; Data control terminal, and A hybrid mode controller disposed in the portable storage device is configured to be coupled to a processor built into the electrical accessory so that the electrical accessory can be connected to one or more home devices via a home network, wherein The data control end or the hybrid mode controller is used to control the data application end to point to a memory in the portable storage to drive data operation, and the memory corresponds to the data content set in a home network data storage device or other remote storage or portable storage.

2. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that: At least a portion of the consumer electronic devices or electrical accessory devices provided with the above-mentioned data control terminal or data application terminal are connected to the home network data storage device through a home wired and / or wireless network.

3. The system according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: The data control terminal and / or data application terminal are arranged in the portable memory. When an electrical accessory is used through the electrical plug, the data control terminal is used to drive the current electrical accessory device to execute the extended function to link the currently plugged electrical accessory with other electrical accessories or household devices.

4. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that: Also included is a power supply that provides operating power to electrical accessories, home devices and / or mixed-mode controllers.

5. The system according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: The invention comprises a plurality of said portable storage devices which operate synchronously.

6. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The portable storage device is built with a plurality of memories corresponding to different data contents or types to be called.

7. The system according to claim 6, characterized in that: The portable memory stores data related to the wireless gateway and protocol conversion firmware.

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