Home Appliance Data Standardization via Gateway Filtering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current home appliance control systems face issues with data saturation, excessive communication bandwidth usage, and security vulnerabilities due to the need for manual monitoring and lack of standardization in data management, leading to inefficient supply management and potential environmental impacts.
Innovation Solution
A procedure and installation that standardizes data communication between home appliances and a control device, reducing data transmission by up to 98% and ensuring only necessary data is shared, using a standardization system to homogenize data and rationalize communication, while also enhancing security and compliance with data protection regulations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If each home appliance manages its own data communication autonomously, then the appliance can independently send data to remote equipment, but this causes data circulation beyond user control, excessive data traffic, network saturation, and serious security problems
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a gateway device as an intermediary between home appliances and the control server. The gateway centralizes data collection from multiple appliances, manages communication protocols, and filters data before transmission. This mediator approach resolves the contradiction by maintaining autonomous appliance operation while centralizing communication control to prevent network saturation and security issues.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments data communication into two layers: appliance-gateway communication (local, high-volume) and gateway-server communication (remote, filtered). This segmentation allows appliances to maintain autonomous data generation while the gateway segmentes and manages the actual data transmission, preventing excessive traffic from overwhelming the network.
2Loss of information
If home appliances send all available data to remote servers, then complete information is available for monitoring, but this saturates communication bandwidth and memory resources
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements partial data transmission by selectively sending only relevant data from appliances to the server. The gateway filters and prioritizes data based on importance, user preferences, and current operational context. This partial action approach ensures critical information reaches the server while avoiding transmission of redundant or low-priority data, thus conserving bandwidth.
Solution Approach 2:
Different data processing approaches are applied locally at the gateway based on data type and priority. Critical data (e.g., error codes, urgent alerts) is transmitted immediately with high priority, while non-critical data (e.g., routine status updates) is either summarized, delayed, or processed locally. This local quality differentiation optimizes bandwidth usage while preserving essential information.
3Reliability
If home appliances are updated with latest security and malware protection software, then security vulnerabilities are reduced, but this increases device complexity and requires frequent maintenance
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway device serves as a security intermediary, implementing centralized security management for all connected appliances. Instead of each appliance requiring independent security updates, the gateway maintains security protocols, filters malicious traffic, and manages authentication. This shifts the security burden from individual appliances to the gateway, reducing device complexity while maintaining reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The gateway provides universal security functions for multiple appliances simultaneously - acting as a firewall, intrusion detection system, and authentication server for the entire home network. This multi-functional approach consolidates security requirements into a single device, eliminating the need for each appliance to independently maintain security software.
4Ease of operation
If users manually monitor and control supply needs, then flexibility in supply acquisition is maintained, but this leads to supply running out due to carelessness or failure to anticipate needs
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements automated feedback loops where the control server continuously monitors appliance operation data, supply consumption rates, and usage patterns. Based on this feedback, the system automatically generates supply replacement alerts, predicts future needs, and can even initiate automated reordering. This feedback mechanism maintains user control flexibility while eliminating the need for continuous manual monitoring.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary analysis of consumption patterns and usage data to predict future supply needs before actual depletion occurs. By analyzing historical data and current usage rates, the system proactively identifies when supplies will run out and alerts users in advance, allowing them to reorder before critical shortages occur. This preliminary action prevents the loss of time associated with reactive monitoring.
Data Source
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AI summary
A procedure and an installation for the control of home appliances that uses only the data that is necessary, avoiding saturation of the memories of the elements involved and/or the communications bandwidth, and is simple and reliable so that it does not require the intervention of an expert user or a service person. The procedure includes the standardisation of the data identifiers of each home appliance by identifying the identifier that contains a value for each data point and checking that the scale of each data point is equivalent to a predetermined scale. The installation includes a standardisation system for such purpose.