Patent Description:
Electronic devices are nowadays controlled by a variety of interfaces: local (such as a keypad, a touch screen) or remote (such as a wireless controller, voice, gestures). The number of electronic devices surrounding users increases.

When many devices are located in a close proximity to each other, there appears a problem of effective control of the devices, such that a command send from a user to one particular device is not received by another one.

For example, there may be a plurality of television sets in a school classroom, a hotel lobby or a hospital room. Such TV sets are typically controlled by remote control units (RCUs). The RCUs should be paired with particular TV sets such that one user does not accidentally control a TV set of another user. There are mechanisms for pairing an RCU with a device, which can be initiated by special device setup procedures, which require at least a minimum level of technical skills. These procedures can be troublesome and time-consuming for at least some users who are not technically skilled.

<CIT> discloses a method comprising receiving at least one sound and pairing at least two devices as a result of the at least one sound, wherein pairing includes recognizing from the sound an identification of at least one of the devices and extracting authentication information from the sound.

<CIT> discloses automatic device-to-device connection control, which in one aspect extracts a first sound signature, wherein the extracting the first sound signature comprises extracting a sound signature from a sound signal emanating from a certain direction, receives a second sound signature from a peer device, compares the first sound signature to the second sound signature, and pairs with the peer device.

Therefore, there is a need to provide an efficient method for pairing a RCU with a device.

The object of the invention is a method for pairing a remote controller with a device, a method for setting up a plurality of devices located in a vicinity to each other and a corresponding computer program, according to the appended claims.

The present invention will be shown by means of example embodiments on a drawing, wherein:.

Some portions of the detailed description which follows are presented in terms of data processing procedures, steps or other symbolic representations of operations on data bits that can be performed on computer memory. Therefore, a computer executes such logical steps thus requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities.

Usually these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated in a computer system. For reasons of common usage, these signals are referred to as bits, packets, messages, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like.

Additionally, all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Terms such as "processing" or "creating" or "transferring" or "executing" or "determining" or "detecting" or "obtaining" or "selecting" or "calculating" or "generating" or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the memories or registers or other such information storage.

A computer-readable (storage) medium, such as referred to herein, typically may be non-transitory and/or comprise a non-transitory device. In this context, a non-transitory storage medium may include a device that may be tangible, meaning that the device has a concrete physical form, although the device may change its physical state. Thus, for example, non-transitory refers to a device remaining tangible despite a change in state.

The present invention is useful in a situation as shown in <FIG>, wherein there are a plurality of devices <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> in a place such as a hotel lobby, a school classroom or a hospital room. The devices <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> may be TV sets, set-back boxes (SBBs) (i.e. digital television receivers connectable to the tv sets), game consoles, Hi-Fi players, personal computers.

Each device should be paired with a particular remote controller (also called a remote control unit, RCU) for controlling the device. There are some situations when the RCUs may get easily mixed and frequent pairing of the RCU with the device is necessary.

For example, if there are a plurality of TV sets in a room visited by many users, the users may walk around the room and leave the RCU in different places that are far from the device. If someone grabs a RCU left by a different user, that new user may not be aware which device will be controlled by that RCU. This can happen for example in a hotel lobby with a plurality of TV sets or in a gaming room with a plurality of game consoles (wherein the RCU is a game pad).

Another example is a hotel wherein each room has a TV set controlled by a RCU. It sometimes happens that the visitors take away the RCUs and a new RCU must be supplied to allow a new visitor to control the TV set - and the new RCU must be effectively paired with the TV set.

The present invention takes advantage of a voice control interface that is nowadays present in more and more devices.

A structure of a device is shown in <FIG>. The device <NUM> comprises a main controller <NUM> that is configured to provide the basic functionality of the device (such as playing a TV signal for a TV set or a TV set back box, running a game for a game console, playing audio for a Hi-Fi set, or providing general purpose tasks for a personal computer). The main controller <NUM> has at least two control interfaces that are applicable for the present invention: a voice control interface <NUM> and a remote control unit interface <NUM>. The voice control interface <NUM> typically comprises a pair of microphones <NUM>, <NUM> and a sound direction detector <NUM>. The sound direction detector <NUM> is configured to determine the direction from which the sound (e.g. user's voice) received by the microphones <NUM>, <NUM> originated, e.g. by analyzing the difference in phase between the signals received by the microphones, as is known in the art. The remote control unit interface <NUM> comprises a signal receiver <NUM> to receive signal emitted by the RCU, such as an IR signal or a Bluetooth signal.

The RCU pairing procedure is shown in <FIG>. It comprises steps to be taken by the voice interface <NUM> (on the left) and the RCU interface <NUM> (on the right). These actions can be performed by programs controlling these interfaces, which can be executed by dedicated controllers for these interfaces (in particular, the RCU pairing controller <NUM>) or by the main controller <NUM>.

The procedure is initiated in step <NUM> by recognizing, by the voice interface <NUM>, a special activating phrase (which can be a single word) spoken by the user, such as "pair my remote". This activating phrase may be a default phrase or a secret phrase defined by the user when setting up the device <NUM>. The voice interface <NUM> may be further configured to be activated only by the activating phrase spoken by a particular user (such as a hotel personnel), if the voice interface <NUM> has capabilities to recognize users by voice.

In step <NUM> the voice interface <NUM> checks from which direction the phrase was received. Each device <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> is programmed to accept the RCU activating phrase only from within a specific activation angle <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>. For example, if the device is a TV set located in a hotel room and there are no other devices in that room, the activation angle can be set to even a very high value, such as <NUM> degrees, such that the device accepts the activation command from anywhere in the room. However, if the device is a TV set located in a hotel lobby where there are several other TV sets, the activation angle <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> can be set to a small value, such as smaller than <NUM> degrees, for example smaller than <NUM> degrees, or smaller than <NUM> degrees, or smaller than <NUM> degrees, or smaller than <NUM> degrees, or smaller than <NUM> degrees, or smaller than <NUM> degrees, or smaller than <NUM> degrees, such that the device <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> accepts pairing commands only from a user <NUM> that is located substantially in front of that device <NUM>, as shown in <FIG>. This way only a single device <NUM> accepts the activating phrase in step <NUM> and the other devices <NUM>, <NUM> reject it in step <NUM>. This limits the risk that the user will unintentionally activate the RCU <NUM> with other devices <NUM>, <NUM>.

Once the request is accepted, the device awaits the user to activate the RCU that is to be paired with the device.

In order to notify the user that the activation phrase was detected, the RCU interface may ask the user in step <NUM> to activate the RCU, for example by blinking a diode or sending a command to other interfaces to inform the user (e.g. a command to a display interface to display a sign or a command to an audio interface to play a sound, wherein the sign or sound may be "Please use your RCU").

In step <NUM> the RCU interface awaits to receive a command from the RCU. This can be any command or a specific command, such as corresponding to a particular RCU button, preferably a button that is rarely used so as to avoid accidental activations (e.g. a yellow button on a TV set RCU). Typically, in IR or Bluetooth RCU, when a button is pressed, the RCU sends a signal that includes the RCU identifier and the command. Then, in step <NUM>, the RCU interface stores the RCU identifier that was just received as the identifier of the RCU that is allowed to control this particular device. The RCU interface <NUM> may be configured to be operated by a single RCU (in that case, the recently received RCU identifier replaces the previously stored identifier) or by a plurality of RCU (in that case, the recently received RCU identifier is added to the list of accepted RCUs).

Next, the device continues its operation and can be controlled by the recently activated RCU.

<FIG> shows a schematic illustration of a main controller <NUM> or a dedicated RCU controller <NUM>. The controller <NUM> may include at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium <NUM> that stores at least one of processor-executable instructions <NUM> or data (such as authorized user voice identifiers, activation phrase, paired RCU identifier(s)); and at least one processor <NUM> communicably coupled to the at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium <NUM>. The at least one processor <NUM> may be configured to (by executing the instructions <NUM>) perform the corresponding steps of the method of <FIG> (i.e. steps <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> for the voice interface <NUM> or steps <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> for the RCU interface).

The presented solution makes the process of RCU pairing very easy and intuitive. A user that wishes to operate a device with a new RCU simply stands in front of the device, utters the activation phrase and enters a button of the RCU. No navigation via system settings is necessary.

While the invention presented herein has been depicted, described, and has been defined with reference to particular preferred embodiments, such references and examples of implementation in the foregoing specification do not imply any limitation on the invention. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader scope of the technical concept. The presented preferred embodiments are exemplary only, and are not exhaustive of the scope of the technical concept presented herein.

Claim 1:
A method for pairing a remote controller (<NUM>) with a device (<NUM>), the method comprising, at the device (<NUM>):
- receiving (<NUM>), via a voice interface (<NUM>), an activation phrase;
- receiving (<NUM>), via a remote controller interface (<NUM>), a command from the remote controller (<NUM>), wherein the command includes a remote controller identifier;
- storing (<NUM>) the remote controller identifier as an identifier of a paired remote controller;
characterized in that the steps of receiving (<NUM>) and storing (<NUM>) are performed after checking (<NUM>) that the activation phrase is received from within an allowable activation angle (<NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>).