Patent ID: 8319599

Claim:
A system comprising an electrical household appliance connected to a source of electrical energy and including a digital control system that is configured for enabling performance of a plurality of pre-determined basic functionalities by the electrical household appliance; and an auxiliary device configured to acquire and/or process auxiliary information, the auxiliary device further configured to communicate data in a point-to-point mode with the electrical household appliance; the control system of the electrical household appliance configured to: verify autonomously the presence of the auxiliary device by sending a request for presence of the auxiliary device, recognize, in response to the request for presence, the presence of the auxiliary device if within a given time interval the control system receives from the auxiliary device a list of types of auxiliary information the auxiliary device is able to provide to the control system, enable execution of one or more functionalities that are additional with respect to said basic functionalities, send to the auxiliary device, at least one request regarding at least one piece of auxiliary information necessary for execution of one or more of said additional functionalities; and receive from the auxiliary device, following said at least one request, said at least one auxiliary piece of information to execute the one or more additional functionalities, said at least one auxiliary piece of information being a value of an electrical quantity associated with said source of electrical energy and/or with the operation of the electrical household appliance, said electrical quantity being in particular selected from among: supply voltage, mains frequency, electric power and/or electric current absorbed by the electrical household appliance, angle of phase displacement between the supply voltage applied to the electrical household appliance and the electric current absorbed thereby, and electrical energy consumed by the electrical household appliance in a time interval.