Patent Grant
7391337
The present application relates to the LED lighting systems. It finds particular application in conjunction with a display illumination within refrigeration cabinets, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the present application is also amenable to other retail environments.
Typically, products in the retail environment are contained in the cabinets, which are often refrigerated. A cabinet typically has a form of a chest defining an environment intended to contain the products and having an access such that the products can be easily removed either directly by a customer or by a sales representative. Such cabinets are widely used for the distribution of products in supermarkets and other points of distribution or sale, such as cafés and other retail establishments. Historically, the essential functional requirement of such cabinets has been the containment of the products and a maintenance of environmental conditions within the cabinets, e.g., temperature and humidity.
Recently, a great deal of attention has been given to the aesthetics of the design to give the cabinet a more attractive and pleasant appearance, which would encourage interaction with the customer and make it generally more appealing and more likely to promote the purchase of the products. The systems and methods have been proposed, in which traditional lights or LEDs are controlled by a processor to alter the brightness and/or color of the generated light to provide predetermined patterns of light. One drawback of such computer-controlled LED lighting systems is that an operator or user is required to interactively control it.
The present application provides a new interactive display system for retail environments.
In accordance with one aspect of the present application, a bi-directional communication system for communicating between a control station, which receives and outputs control signals, and one or more display cabinets is disclosed. LEDs illuminate objects disposed about the cabinets. Addressable nodes interactively communicate with the control station and selectively operate the LEDs, each node being coupled to the control station and to associated LEDs.
In accordance with another aspect of the present application, method for bi-directionally controlling a light show is disclosed. An input signal of a sensor is received at a control station coupled to a network, the sensor being disposed about a display cabinet. In response to receiving the sensor signal, an output signal sequence is generated to produce a predetermined light show effect. Activation states of associated LEDs disposed about the display cabinet are selectively changed based on the generated output signal sequence via associated nodes.
One advantage of the present application resides in the display system bi-directionality.
Another advantage resides in a fast and effective change of display.
Still further advantages and benefits of the present application will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reading and understanding the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.
The application may take form in various components and arrangements of components, and in various process operations and arrangements of process operations. The drawings are only for the purpose of illustrating preferred embodiments and are not to be construed as limiting the application.
With reference to
The control station 12 interactively communicates with a plurality of nodes 30, which are electrically or otherwise connected with the control station 12 and the LEDs 28. In one embodiment, the nodes 30 and the control station 12 are coupled to a network 32. Each node 30 includes a sensor or sensors 34, which detect a change in the environment near an associated display cabinet 14, such as a passage of a person, a temperature within the case 16, a case door opening, a customer standing in front of the display cabinet 14, and other like events, and provides a corresponding input signal to the control station 12. Optionally, the computer station 12 collects the information of customers' consumption habits, e.g., which display cabinets 14 have been visited the most frequently, and stores the information as a look up table which identifies the location, the frequency of visits, and other appropriate information. The selected collected information might be printed on paper, stored in a non-volatile electronic or magnetic storage medium, transmitted over a local area network or the Internet, or otherwise processed. The examples of the sensor 34 are a proximity sensor, a motion detector, a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, a digital camera, and any other appropriate sensor. In response to receiving the input control signal from the sensor 34, the control station 12 sends back appropriate control output signals to the corresponding nodes 30. More specifically, an applications database 38 includes a set of predetermined instructions or LEDs' activation state sequences which are configured by a user in advance to generate predetermined visual displays at the display cabinets 14. Upon receiving the information from the sensors 34, a signal generator 36 consults the applications database 38 and generates corresponding output signals which are indicative of a desired activation state sequence for the associated LEDs 28. E.g., a special lighting or special effects are generated by using dimming, flashing, variable messaging, selective displaying of red, green and blue colors, and other effects.
With continuing reference to
With continuing reference to
The application has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments. Obviously, modifications and alterations will occur to others upon reading and understanding the preceding detailed description. It is intended that the application be construed as including all such modifications and alterations insofar as they come within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.
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