Patent Document ID: 9014484
Application ID: 13676640
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An appliance control apparatus comprising: a registering unit configured to register, in association with one another, identification information, an image feature, and control information of a registered appliance, which is an appliance to be registered for being controlled; an image acquiring unit configured to acquire an image in which a target appliance, which is an object of control, is imaged; a recognizing unit configured to (1) recognize an image feature of the target appliance from the image, (2) calculate a degree of similarity between the image feature of the target appliance and the image feature of the registered appliance, and (3) specify the registered appliance corresponding to the image feature in a case in which the degree of similarity exceeds a threshold similarity as the target appliance; and a control unit configured to call up the control information of the specified target appliance from the registering unit and control the target appliance, wherein the registering unit also registers an image feature of a background of the appliance in addition to the image feature of the appliance.