Device-Hosted Mobile App Provisioning for Firmware-Compatible Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
In industrial automation, users face challenges in configuring, maintaining, and diagnosing data processing devices using mobile applications, as they need to load device-specific applications from app stores, ensuring compatibility with current firmware, managing multiple applications, and requiring internet connectivity and app store registration.
Innovation Solution
A method where the mobile application is hosted on the data processing device, allowing direct loading without app store connection or internet access, using a progressive web application that dynamically generates and updates content based on current device data, enabling interaction with multiple connected devices and automatic updates.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If mobile applications are loaded from app stores, then users can access device-specific applications, but users must be registered in the app store and have internet connection
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the application distribution function from the external app store infrastructure and relocates it directly to the data processing device. The device now hosts and serves applications directly to mobile devices, eliminating the intermediary app store system and its associated registration and internet connection requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The data processing device itself becomes the new intermediary between the application repository and the mobile device. Instead of requiring users to access external app stores, the device acts as a local server providing applications directly, thereby removing the need for external registration systems and internet connectivity.
2Ease of operation
If device-specific mobile applications are loaded from app stores, then users can configure and maintain data processing devices, but it is not ensured that the loaded version corresponds to the current firmware
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by having the data processing device generate and host the application before the user needs it. The application is created in advance with the correct version information embedded, and the device verifies compatibility before serving it to the mobile device, preventing version mismatch issues.
Solution Approach 2:
The data processing device provides feedback about its current firmware version and generates applications that are specifically tailored to match that version. This feedback mechanism ensures that only compatible applications are distributed, as the device itself controls the generation and versioning process.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple device-specific mobile applications are installed on mobile device, then users can operate various data processing devices, but the user interface becomes confusing with multiple icons
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal approach where a single mobile application provides access to multiple data processing devices. Instead of requiring separate applications for each device, the application acts as a universal interface that can connect to and control various devices, thereby maintaining versatility while simplifying the user interface to a single icon.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for generating and providing a mobile application executable on a mobile device, and designed for the configuration, maintenance, diagnosis of data and functions of a data processing device, and coupled to the mobile device via a communication link. The mobile application is hosted in the data processing device and is loaded from the data processing device into the mobile device after the communication link is established, wherein content and/or functions of the application data describing the mobile application are dynamically generated or updated by means of a generation logic implemented in the data processing device on the basis of current data of a configuration and/or a runtime environment of the hosting data processing device, and wherein the generation logic is designed to record data of a configuration and/or runtime environment of further data processing devices coupled to the hosting data processing device via a network.