Claims
- 1. An appliance control system, comprising:
a means for detecting an incoming call; a transmitter; a universal remote control logic (URCL) that is adapted to control a home appliance; and the URCL coupled between the means for detecting an incoming call and the transmitter.
- 2. The appliance control system of claim 1 wherein the means for detecting an incoming call comprises a plain old telephone system (POTS) receiver coupled between a jack and the URCL.
- 3. The appliance control system of claim 1 wherein the transmitter comprises an infrared transmitter.
- 4. The appliance control system of claim 1 wherein the transmitter comprises a radio frequency transmitter.
- 5. The appliance control system of claim 1 wherein the universal remote control logic is programmable.
- 6. The appliance control system of claim 1 wherein the means for detecting an incoming call is a wireless receiver.
- 7. The appliance control system of claim 6 wherein the wireless receiver is a satellite receiver.
- 8. The appliance control system of claim 1 further comprising a processor coupled to the URCL.
- 9. The appliance control system of claim 1 further comprising a processor coupled to the URCL, the processor comprising logic adapted to communicate with a personal computer operating system, and the processor also adapted to control the URCL.
- 10. A method of controlling an appliance in response to a telecommunications signal, comprising:
detecting a phone call; processing a home appliance control function to generate a command; and transmitting the command to a home appliance.
- 11. The method of claim 10 wherein the home appliance is a television.
- 12. The method of claim 10 wherein the phone call is an incoming phone call.
- 13. The method of claim 10 wherein the telecommunications signal is a telephone call received through a plain old telephone system (POTS).
- 14. The method of claim 10 wherein the home appliance control function is a mute function.
- 15. The method of claim 10 wherein the home appliance control function is a pause function.
- 16. The method of claim 10 further comprising programming an appliance control system to detect in incoming phone call, and transmit a command for a specific appliance.
- 17. The method of claim 10 further comprising transmitting a plurality of commands to a plurality of home appliances.
- 18. The method of claim 11 further comprising transmitting an all-mutes command and an all-pauses command.
- 19. A method of automatically programming an appliance control system, comprising:
transmitting an identify command; receiving a response from an appliance that identifies the appliance; identifying the appliance from which the signal was received; associating a predefined appliance command with the appliance; and storing in a memory the relationship between the appliance and the predefined appliance command.
- 20. The method of claim 19 further comprising associating a mute command with the appliance.
RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This patent application is related to, and claims priority from co-owned and assigned U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/451,727 to Thrasher, entitled APPLIANCE CONTROL SYSTEM, filed on Mar. 4, 2003.
Provisional Applications (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
|
60451727 |
Mar 2003 |
US |