Abstract:
The present subject matter relates to systems and methodologies for communicating between an appliance and a mobile device using audio signaling. An appliance is provided with an audio generating device controlled by a processor to cause the audio device to produce encoded sounds. The sounds may correspond to a series of tones. The tones are sampled using the microphone in a smartphone or other mobile computing device and decoded by an application running on the smartphone or device to provide information and/or instructions to the appliance user.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The present subject matter relates to appliance communications functionality. More specifically, the present subject matter relates to systems and methodologies for providing enhanced communications functionality between an appliance and a consumer. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     It is fairly common for plural appliances to be installed at a single premise such as a residential home, an office building, or a commercial establishment. For instance, a refrigerator, a microwave oven, a cooking appliance having a stove and/or oven, heating and/or cooling systems can be installed. Modern appliances are more sophisticated than their earlier counterparts, and often include microcontrollers or microprocessors that allow a user greater interaction with the appliance. For example, an appliance can be programmed or reprogramed as well as provide diagnostic information. 
     The Internet has given rise to worldwide connectivity for many types of devices. However, appliances have traditionally had only standalone capabilities which required operation without cooperation or communication between other devices. As a result, current status information regarding the appliance could not be determined without being physically present at the appliance. 
     Recently, network adapters have been added to appliances to provide communications between such appliances and a remote device. Often such network adapters are configured to permit appliances to join a customer&#39;s home WiFi network to permit communications between the appliances and, for example, an application installed on the customer&#39;s smart phone, home or work computer, tablet computer, or other device by which the customer may bi-directionally communicate with the appliance. 
     In some instances, however, there may be a loss of communications between appliances and, for example, a smart phone application such as in instances where the appliance is transitioning from one WiFi network to another. In such instance it would be desirable to provided alternative forms of communications to permit the appliance to inform a customer&#39;s phone immediately when it has joined the new WiFi network or otherwise needs to communicate with the customer in the absence of a normal WiFi connection. 
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     Aspects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the following description, or may be apparent from the description, or may be learned through practice of the invention. 
     The present subject matter relates to an appliance communications system including an appliance having a sound generating device and a processor along with a mobile device having a microphone, a processor, and an output device. In such system the appliance is configured to cause the sound generator to produce an audible signal and the mobile device is configured to sample the audible signal and deliver a message from the output device. 
     The present subject matter also relates to a communications method for appliances wherein audible signals are generated from an appliance and then sampled so that a humanly perceivable message based on the sampled audio signal may be delivered. 
     These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following description and appended claims. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       A full and enabling disclosure of the present invention, including the best mode thereof, directed to one of ordinary skill in the art, is set forth in the specification, which makes reference to the appended figures, in which: 
         FIG. 1  provides a block diagram of an appliance communications system in accordance with the present subject matter. 
     
    
    
     Repeat use of reference characters throughout the present specification and appended drawings is intended to represent same or analogous features or elements. 
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     Reference now will be made in detail to embodiments of the invention, one or more examples of which are illustrated in the drawings. Each example is provided by way of explanation of the invention, not limitation of the invention. In fact, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. For instance, features illustrated or described as part of one embodiment can be used with another embodiment to yield a still further embodiment. Thus, it is intended that the present invention covers such modifications and variations as come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents. 
     As previously noted, the present subject matter relates to systems and methodologies for providing enhanced communications functionality between an appliance and a consumer. With present reference to  FIG. 1  there is illustrated a block diagram of an appliance communications system  100  in accordance with the present subject matter. Generally system  100  includes an appliance  102  that is provided with a network adapter  104 . Network adapter  104  may be coupled for communications purposes to a WiFi router  106 . As those of ordinary sill in the art will understand, WiFi routers generally provide for both wired and wireless communications connections such as representatively illustrated by connection  108  and either or both such communications connections may be employed for establishing a communications pathway to and from appliance  102 . 
     Further as representatively illustrated in  FIG. 1 , WiFi router  106  may be coupled to a wide area network (WAN)  130  such as the Internet to provide wide area communications capabilities for appliance  102  as well as any other network connected devices as may be within communications range of WiFi router  106 . Such other network connected devices may include other network enabled appliances within or near a premise served by WiFi router  106  or other devices including without limitation, a customer&#39;s smartphone  110  that may include, in addition to cellular capabilities, WiFi communications functionality as well, as generally represented by connection  118 . 
     Smartphones, such as smartphone  110  are well understood by those of ordinary skill in the art to have not only cellular communications capabilities for making and receiving voice calls but may also include other cellular capabilities including ability to make and receive SMS messages and, with appropriately installed applications (apps) provide other functionalities such as “surfing” the Internet by an appropriately installed web browser app. 
     With respect to cellular functionalities, smartphones generally include transceivers and associated microprocessors (not separately illustrated) that make possible use of the smartphone for cellular communications. Such aspects will not be further discussed as, not only are they well understood in the art, but also because such functionalities do not form a part of the present subject matter. In general, however, smartphone  110  includes a display screen  112  that may generally correspond to a touch sensitive device for both input and output (display) of information. Smartphone  110  also includes a speaker (earpiece)  114  used to reproduce sounds including received voice audio and a microphone  116  for converting a customer&#39;s spoken words or other audible sounds to electronic signals that may be transmitted for cellular purposes. 
     In accordance with the present subject matter, additional communication functionality is provided within smartphone  110  by way of a new application (app) for direct communications with appliance  102 . In accordance with the present subject matter, appliance  102 , that may already include a microprocessor (microcontroller or controller)  124  for providing functionalities associated with network communications capabilities via network adapter  104  as well as other control or display capabilities (not separately illustrated) for operation of the appliance per se, is, per present subject matter, provided with a sound generating device  120  that may be used to communicate with smartphone  110  by way of audio signals, generally  122 , generated thereby and received by smartphone microphone  116 . 
     Sound generating device  120  may correspond to a controllable audible alarm device, for example, a piezo electric device, or audio speaker or other device, already associated with appliance  102  or may correspond to a newly installed device. In either instance, in accordance with the present subject matter, in instances where network communications functionality or status via network adapter  104  may have been lost or changed, or, optionally, concurrently with some network communication, sound generating device  120  may be used to provide audible signaling directly to smartphone  110  by way of microphone  116  operating in conjunction with an audio sampling (oversampling) and decoding application installed on smartphone  110 . 
     In accordance with the present subject matter, by performing audio sampling via microphone  116  the phone can then receive simple commands or information from appliance  102 . This allows appliance  102  to provide, for example, notifications to smartphone  110  in instances where they are not on the same network or where appliance  102  may have lost all network communications capabilities, be in transition from one network to another, be in the process of establishing an initial network connection, or, in fact, never had obtained any network connection. In this way appliance  102  may immediately notify smartphone  110  that it has joined and/or left a WiFi network or provide some other information and/or command to smartphone  110 . 
     In accordance with the present subject matter, when appliance  102  needs to communicate with smartphone  110  or some other mobile device capable of sampling and processing audio signals, for example, a tablet computer or other mobile device possessing a microphone, processing, and display and/or sound reproduction capabilities, appliance  102  may cause a series of audio tones to be created by way of sound generating device  120 . In an exemplary configuration, such audio tones may correspond to an encoded pattern, e.g., Morse code or other, possibly specifically developed, tone encoding that is designed to convey one or more messages to a consumer. The smartphone, upon “hearing” such encoded tones, may then decode such tones by way of sampling or oversampling audio received by microphone  116 , to provide a customer perceivable message. 
     In accordance with the present disclosure, decoding of received audio tones may include conversion of the decoded tones into audible messages relayed to a customer as spoken messages via smartphone speaker (earpiece)  114  and/or to text messages displayed on smartphone display  112 . In an exemplary configuration, pre-defined codes may be created and stored in a memory (not separately illustrated) associated with microprocessor  124  corresponding to particular possible messages that might become necessary to be conveyed to a customer. Such codes may be sent singularly or in combinations by way of sound generating device  120  under the control of microprocessor  124  and then decoded by the sampling and decoding application within smartphone  110 . In an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter, such decoding may correspond to employing a look-up table stored in a memory associated with smartphone  110  that may have been created in association for the smartphone stored sampling and decoding application. 
     It should be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that while the present subject matter has been described in relation to network enabled appliances, such subject matter is equally applicable to any appliance, whether network enabled or not, with which communications with a consumer is desirable. 
     This written description uses examples to disclose the invention, including the best mode, and also to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the invention, including making and using any devices or systems and performing any incorporated methods. The patentable scope of the invention is defined by the claims, and may include other examples that occur to those skilled in the art. Such other examples are intended to be within the scope of the claims if they include structural elements that do not differ from the literal language of the claims, or if they include equivalent structural elements with insubstantial differences from the literal languages of the claims.