Smart Home Appliance Scheduling Without Clock Calibration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing smart home appliances rely heavily on mobile terminals for timing control, leading to increased burden on the terminals and higher product costs due to the need for regular clock calibration and complex configuration.
Innovation Solution
A method utilizing a microcontroller with function activation and duration counters, enabling smart home appliances to autonomously manage appointments without regular mobile terminal interaction or clock calibration, through a defined communication protocol and data structure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If timing control is implemented in mobile terminal APP, then appointment control function is achieved, but mobile terminal burden increases and user experience deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The timing control function is extracted from the mobile terminal APP and transferred to the smart home appliance itself. The appliance now contains its own timing control logic, eliminating the need for the APP to continuously run and interact with the appliance for timing operations. This resolves the contradiction by removing the timing burden from the mobile terminal while maintaining appointment control functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The smart home appliance is equipped with its own timing control capability through a timing control module with clock function. This allows the appliance to autonomously manage appointment timing without relying on external mobile terminal control, improving user experience by enabling independent operation while reducing mobile terminal burden.
2Measurement precision
If timing control module with clock is added to smart home appliance, then precise timing control is achieved, but product cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The mobile terminal performs preliminary timing calculations and determines the timing control parameters before sending commands to the appliance. The appliance receives pre-calculated timing instructions and executes them using a simpler timing module, avoiding the need for complex clock calibration mechanisms while maintaining precision through server-side calculations.
Solution Approach 2:
A server acts as an intermediary between the mobile terminal and the smart home appliance. The server receives timing requirements from the APP, performs the complex timing calculations, and sends optimized timing control parameters to the appliance. This allows the appliance to use a simpler, lower-cost timing module while still achieving precise timing control through server-mediated parameter optimization.
3Measurement precision
If regular interaction between mobile terminal and smart home appliance is maintained, then timing accuracy is preserved, but communication overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The mobile terminal or server performs preliminary timing calculations and sends complete timing control parameters to the appliance in advance. The appliance then autonomously executes the timing control without requiring continuous communication or regular interactions to maintain timing accuracy, significantly reducing communication overhead while preserving timing precision.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for controlling the appointment of functions of smart home appliances that only when the user control interface completes the appointment setting, the mobile terminal sends the appointment control instruction to the controlled smart home appliance is provided. The mobile terminal does not send the appointment control instruction to the controlled smart home appliance until the next time the user updates the appointment setting, the mobile terminal sends the appointment control instruction to the controlled smart home appliance again to update the appointment control of controlled smart home appliances, the controlled smart home appliance receives the appointment control instruction sent by the mobile terminal, uses the function activation counter and the function duration counter of the microcontroller to count down respectively, and cooperates with the cyclic shift of the N work flag bits used to indicate whether the function is activated or not to realize the cycle control of the function, the microcontroller does not need to be configured with a clock module, which not only reduces the cost, but also does not need to calibrate the clock regularly, which improves the accuracy of the appointment control.


