Patent Application
20070046560
The present application relates to user changeable text displays and more particularly relates to very low cost electronic display labels that can have textual messages changed in the field.
Selling products to consumers has changed dramatically. Typical stores today are large, with many items for sale. Some retailers, for example supermarkets and other types of “big box” retailers, can have thousands of items for sale at any one time. All of these items are generally available on the sales floor for selection by consumers. Most stores place products on shelves. These shelves have lips with shelf labels affixed thereto that contain information regarding price, special offers, unit pricing and other information. Traditionally, these paper shelf labels are printed with this information and affixed to the shelf by an employee of the retailer. An exemplary shelf label 10 like those currently in use can be seen in
Whenever the price for the product displayed on the shelf label changes, an employee will remove the old paper label and replace it with a new one. Likewise, when a special offer for a particular product is made, an employee may replace the existing paper label or place a special paper label adjacent to the old label, with the additional label indicating what the special price for that item is. An exemplary shelf label 20 showing an example of an “Extra Value” or “Temporary Price Reduction” offer is shown in
In addition to special offers available to any customer, many retailers have loyalty programs and clubs that provide special benefits to members. Oftentimes, members of such programs receive lower prices than non-members. As in the case of “Extra Value” sales like those shown in
Each price change and/or special offer requires an employee to affix the paper label to the shelf. This labor represents a significant expenditure in many retail businesses. Electronic shelf labels (ESLs) have been proposed as a solution but have met with only limited success due to their high cost. In addition, prior ESLs are not well suited for sales environments that will have differing messages displayed thereon. To be useful, ESLs must be able to easily display different types of messages to consumers. For example, they must be able to convey various different types of special offers, including the “Extra Value”, “Club Price”, “two for $1” and “buy one, get one free” type offers.
The ability to easily display multiple promotional messages is needed for ESLs. However, traditional ESLs have used display layouts in which only limited types of information can be displayed at any one time, for example only the price and a short alphanumeric field with a few characters. In order to handle relatively long promotional text messages (e.g. “buy one, get one free”), prior ESLs typically break the message into multiple frames which are displayed sequentially on the electronic display. For example, “buy one, get one free” is typically spread over three frames, first “buy one”, then “get one” and lastly “free”, each frame being shown for a few seconds. The regular price, perhaps the club price, the date of the sale and the unit price (e.g. price per ounce) are often legally mandated and require additional frames on a typical current ESL. Given these constraints, it is not uncommon to see conventional ESLs that require as many as seven sequential frames to display the required content. As a result, the consumer is required to watch the ESL for an extended period of time to receive all of the information regarding the product pricing. Furthermore, if the consumer starts watching in the middle of a promotion message cycle, they will likely have to watch for the remainder of the cycle and the full cycle again to comprehend the promotion sequence. Thus a consumer may need on average need to watch ten frames of an ESL display's sequence to receive the promotion information which may take thirty seconds or more. Such a long observation period requires a significant alteration of consumer shopping behavior and has been a major source of consumer complaints in conventional ESL installations.
One approach to improving the display of information on an ESL is to use a higher function display such as a dot matrix display which allows the simultaneous display of many characters, numbers and/or graphics. While technically possible, the cost and power requirements of dot matrix display technology (typically at least an order of magnitude higher than segmented displays) precludes their use in all but a few very price insensitive ESL markets. Display cost is roughly proportional to the number of uniquely addressable segments or pixels of the display; minimizing the number of display segments is an important method of cost reduction in electronic information displays.
The lack of a low cost and consumer friendly method of quickly and concisely displaying information on ESLs has been a major factor limiting their commercial success.
There is therefore a need for an ESL having a display that is inexpensive but has a highly flexible display arrangement that can quickly communicate pricing information to consumers.
An improved ESL is disclosed that is inexpensive to build, can be updated, and contains an arrangement of display information that allows many different messages to be displayed without many sequential frames. These messages can be updated in the field through the use of a communication system, for example low data rate wireless (e.g., radiofrequency) communication systems like those described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/155,125, filed on Jun. 16, 2005 entitled “Low Power Wireless Communication System And Protocol” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/156,193, filed on Jun. 16, 2005 entitled “Pseudo Noise Coded Communication Systems”.
In the various preferred embodiments, the characters of a first message are alternated or interleaved with the characters of other messages in character sets. The characters are selectively activated. All characters comprising the messages embedded in the character sets are preferably on the same line in the active area of a segmented LCD display. Activating the letters associated with the first message and deactivating the letters associated with the other messages results in display of the first message. Similarly, activating only the letters associated with a second message and deactivating those associated with the other messages encoded into the character set results in display of the second message. This character selectivity provides legibility combined with eliminating the need to display multiple frames of images. This allows a consumer to quickly read the shelf label, which as discussed was a significant drawback to prior ESLs.
In one embodiment, the display system can comprise a housing containing an electronic display device having an active area. The active area comprises a first interleaved character set region comprising a plurality of selectively activated characters. The selectively activated characters are interleaved such that a plurality of different messages can be displayed depending upon activation states of the plurality of selectively activated characters.
In an embodiment, the plurality of selectively activated characters of the first interleaved character set region comprises LSIAMVIETTWHARSU.
In an embodiment, the display device can also comprise an interleaved segmented alphanumeric region comprising a plurality of segmented numerical characters, a “/” a “.” and at least one symbol indicative of a currency denomination. The display first interleaved character set region in combination with the interleaved segmented alphanumeric region can display “THRU xx/xx”, where each “x” comprises an integer formed by selectively activating segments of the plurality of segmented numerical characters.
In another embodiment, the first interleaved character set region in combination with the interleaved segmented alphanumeric region can display “WAS xx.xx”, where each “x” comprises an integer formed by selectively activating segments of the plurality of segmented numerical characters.
In another embodiment, the display first interleaved character set region in combination with the interleaved segmented alphanumeric region can display “SAVE axx.xxz”, where each “x” comprises an integer formed by selectively activating segments of the plurality of segmented numerical characters and wherein “a” and “z” comprise currency denomination symbols. Usually, only one of said at least one currency denomination symbols will be activated at a time.
In another embodiment, the display system further comprises a second interleaved character set region comprised of a plurality of selectively activated characters and at least one segmented numerical display. The selectively activated characters are interleaved such that a plurality of different messages can be displayed depending upon activation states of the plurality of selectively activated characters. In an embodiment, the plurality of selectively activated characters of the second interleaved character set region comprise BOUNY.
In an embodiment, the first interleaved character set region is located above the second interleaved character set region, thereby allowing said first interleaved character set region and said second interleaved character set region to display words that can be read as a message.
In an embodiment, the first interleaved character set region can have its characters selectively activated to display “SAVE” and the second interleaved character set region can have its characters selectively activated to display “ON” while its at least one segmented numerical displays a number, thereby forming a message stating “SAVE ON x”, where x is an integer comprised of at least one digit.
In an embodiment, the display system comprises a pricing display region comprising a plurality of display segments. Each of the plurality of display segments comprises segments that can be selectively activated to display an alphanumeric character.
In an embodiment, the pricing display region can have segments of the plurality of display segments selectively activated to display a numeric price.
In an embodiment, the pricing display region can have segments of the plurality of display segments selectively activated to display a word. One such word is “FREE”.
In an embodiment, the active area further comprises a first special message region comprising a plurality of selectively activated words. One such word that can be selectively activated is the word “get”.
In an embodiment, the active area con can comprise a special character region comprising selectively activated characters and at least one segmented numerical character. One of the at least one of said selectively activated characters that can be located in the special character region is a symbol indicative of a currency denomination. One of the selectively activated characters located in the special character region is a “/”. One of the at least one segmented numerical character is comprised of segments that can be selectively activated to display a number.
In an embodiment, the first special message region is located to the left of the special character region and the special character region is located to the left of the pricing display region.
In an embodiment, the active area further comprises a second interleaved character set region comprising a plurality of selectively activated characters and at least one segmented numerical display. The selectively activated characters are interleaved such that a plurality of different messages can be displayed depending upon the activation states of the plurality of selectively activated characters.
In an embodiment, the plurality of selectively activated characters of the second interleaved character set region comprises BOUNY.
In an embodiment, the second interleaved character set region, the first special message region, the special character region and the pricing display region can have their characters and segments selectively activated to form messages stating “BUY x get y FREE”, where “x” and “y” are integers. The “x” and “y” can be the same value integers or different valued integers depending on the desired promotion.
In an embodiment, the active area of the electronic display device comprises an LCD device having said first interleaved character set region fabricated thereon. The LCD device is disposed in a package
The above and other preferred features, including various novel details of implementation and combination of elements will now be more particularly described with reference to the accompanying drawings and pointed out in the claims. It will be understood that the particular methods and apparatus are shown by way of illustration only and not as limitations. As will be understood by those skilled in the art, the principles and features explained herein may be employed in various and numerous embodiments.
It should be noted that the figures are not drawn to scale and that elements of similar structures or functions are generally represented by like reference numerals for illustrative purposes throughout the figures. It also should be noted that the figures are only intended to facilitate the description of the preferred embodiments.
Each of the additional features and teachings disclosed below may be utilized separately or in conjunction with other features and teachings to provide an improved text display. Representative examples of the present invention, which examples utilize many of these additional features and teachings both separately and in combination, will now be described in further detail with reference to the attached drawings. This detailed description is merely intended to teach a person of skill in the art further details for practicing preferred aspects of the present teachings and is not intended to limit the scope of the invention. Therefore, combinations of features and steps disclosed in the following detail description may not be necessary to practice the invention in the broadest sense, and are instead taught merely to particularly describe representative examples of the present teachings.
Moreover, the various features of the representative examples and the dependent claims may be combined in ways that are not specifically and explicitly enumerated in order to provide additional useful embodiments of the present teachings. In addition, it is expressly noted that all features disclosed in the description and/or the claims are intended to be disclosed separately and independently from each other for the purpose of original disclosure, as well as for the purpose of restricting the claimed subject matter independent of the compositions of the features in the embodiments and/or the claims. It is also expressly noted that all value ranges or indications of groups of entities disclose every possible intermediate value or intermediate entity for the purpose of original disclosure, as well as for the purpose of restricting the claimed subject matter.
In particular, the present teachings can be applied to many applications in addition to ESLs that similarly require low cost display of information. Examples of such applications include but are not limited to calculators, watches, personal digital assistants, remote controls, portable music players, portable communication devices, cell phones, medical equipment, physiological monitoring devices, temperature meters, test equipment, sensor displays, electronic equipment, consumer electronics, toys, cash registers, promotional displays, and generally all applications where low cost displays are needed.
Information display techniques are disclosed herein for use with segmented electronic displays. A character set having a plurality of characters that can be selectively activated is fabricated onto a display. In the presently preferred embodiments, liquid crystal displays (“LCDs”) are used because of their low cost and low power consumption. In addition or in the alternative, the present teachings can be implemented with any display technology, including but not limited to light emitting diodes, zero power displays, mechanical displays, printed displays, emissive and non emissive displays, electrophoretic displays, vacuum flourescent displays, field emmission displays, electroluminescent displays, cathode ray tubes, micromachine displays and generally all controllable or modifiable display technologies.
An example of how messages can be interleaved within a character set is provided on the first line below. As is seen, the character set contains a series of characters (in this example, letters). Immediately below, one can see that this particular character set has two messages interleaved therein that can be displayed by selectively activating the characters so that they are displayed:
As is seen in this example, by fabricating the characters “NCOLNUMBE MPBREIRC EP R I C E” onto an active area of a display, a first message (“CLUB PRICE”) and a second message (“NONMEMBER PRICE”) can be displayed, depending upon which character set is selectively activated.
In the presently preferred embodiments, the various characters comprising a variable display are fabricated onto an active area of an LCD display and are activated using conventional driver and addressing circuitry. This allows many messages to be displayed with a low cost ESL. The character sets are permanently lithographically etched into the LCD (typical of low cost segmented LCDs) and the characters within a set are preferably electrically connected together so as to appear as a single pixel (or dot or segment) to the LCD drive electronics. By combining multiple characters into a single electrical display segment, the electrical LCD drive system is considerably simplified over conventional approaches using segmented alphanumeric characters or dot matrix displays.
There are many advantages provided by using interleaved text. As an example of the usefulness of using interleaved text, an alternative method, wherein messages are fabricated adjacent one another in the same line (i.e., not interleaved), will now be discussed. Thus, a line of characters arranged as follows can display two messages:
Using this method, the characters that are not activated result in too much white space existing in between displayed words (e.g. between LIMIT and the digit 2), thereby rendering the message difficult to read.
As will now be demonstrated, interleaving these same messages improves readability:
As can be seen, interleaving characters eliminates most of the white space, which dramatically increases the legibility of the message.
There are other approaches for ESLs that do not utilize interleaving characters. However, these other approaches have disadvantages that render them inappropriate for ESL applications where cost and power consumption are of paramount concern.
In one alternate approach, dot matrix characters are used that allow any combination of characters to be displayed without the need to interleave characters. However, the circuitry required for addressing such a dot matrix display would be much more complicated than the circuitry needed to address the characters. For example, in the example discussed above utilizing the character arrangement “NCOLNUMBE MPBREIRC EP R I C E”, the driver and addressing circuitry must be able to address and activate either of the two sets of characters independently, effectively reducing the content to the equivalent of two pixels or dots on a conventional dot matrix display. By contrast, in a dot matrix display, there are typically forty or more dots for each character. Thus, a line of dot matrix characters can require driver and addressing circuitry for hundreds of dots. Such driver and addressing circuitry has higher cost and consumes more power than the interleaved character embodiments described herein. High cost and power consumption is undesirable in ESL applications. Low cost is important, since a large store might deploy thousands of ESLs. Thus, the increased costs associated with a dot matrix system would by multiplied by the thousands of ESLs required by the retailer. This increased cost could render an ESL system economically impractical. In addition, typical ESLs are run on batteries that are expected to last for several years. Increasing power consumption will reduce service life and thus also render ESL systems economically undesirable.
Another alternative method for displaying text messages on segmented displays that reduces cost when compared to dot matrix displays is to use segmented alphanumeric displays, usually with characters comprising eleven, fourteen or sixteen segments. An exemplary fourteen-segment display 60 is shown in
In a preferred ESL, the LCD display 70 is embedded in an ESL package 600 having a fixed paper overlay label 80 that includes certain content, as seen in
As discussed above with respect to
As discussed, exemplary paper shelf label 20 shown in
Instead of using information printed on a paper label, an ESL provides the consumer with information by selectively activating appropriate segments and characters on the active area 72 of LCD display 70. This can be seen in
As is seen, first interleaved character set region 82 contains the characters “LSIAMVIETTWHARSU”. The driver circuitry of ESL 200 (not shown) selectively activates the characters forming first interleaved character set region 82 so that only those characters forming the word “WAS” are seen by the customer. As is seen in
Likewise, active area 72 contains an interleaved segmented alphanumeric region 86. Interleaved segmented alphanumeric region 86 preferably comprises several segmented numerical characters as well as a “slash”, currency denomination indicators (for example a “$”, which is indicative of dollar based quantity, and a “¢”, which is indicative of a “cents” based quantity) a decimal point and a percent sign (“%”). In ESL 200 shown in
The price itself must also be shown on ESL 200. Thus, the active area 72 of LCD display 70 contains pricing display region 84. Pricing display region 84 preferably contains a plurality of display segments capable of displaying both numbers and, where necessary, certain letters. In a presently preferable embodiment, the pricing display region 84 also contains the character “¢”, which is indicative of “cents”. For ESL 200, as can be seen in
In addition, active area 72 of LCD display 70 has a special character region 90 that can contain segmented numerical characters, as well as a slash “/” and a currency character (for example, a “$”). Special character region 90 is useful for many messages, as will be seen below. For ESL 200, special character region provides the “$” sign, so that ESL 200 displays a price of “$339”, for the item associated with this label.
As discussed with reference to
In the present teachings, any display regions containing numeric fields (e.g. 74, 84, 86, 92 and 90) can have a variety of significant digits (e.g. 2 digits for the dollars portion of item price region 84) that can be customized for various retail environments. For example, higher average price retail goods might require a 3 digit dollar display. The present teachings are not particularly limited to the number of significant digits in each of the various numeric fields described herein.
In addition, by using the first interleaved character set region 82 and the interleaved segmented alphanumeric region 86, information about the special offer being made to members of the club can be conveyed. For example, characters within the first interleaved character set 82 can be enabled as follows:
Similarly, characters in the interleaved segmented alphanumeric region 86 are enabled such that “20¢” is displayed in that region. Thus, ESL 300 has a message stating “Save 20¢” presented to customers. As discussed, the pricing display region 84, in conjunction with special character region 90, provides the price for club members, which in the case of ESL 300 is “$339”.
As discussed with reference to
Thus, first interleaved character set 82 has its characters selectively enabled to display the word “SAVE”. Likewise, the characters in the interleaved segmented alphanumeric region 86 are enabled such that “$3.38” is displayed.
In a presently preferred ESL, the active area 72 of LCD display 70 has a second interleaved character set region 92. Second interleaved character set region 92 preferably comprises a series of interleaved characters, as well as segmented numerical characters. Additionally, the second interleaved character set 92 can be enabled as follows:
Thus the second interleaved character set 92 has its characters selectively enabled to display the word “ON”. Likewise the numeric characters in region 92 can be activated to display the number 2. Thus, ESL 300 has a message stating “SAVE $3.38 ON 2” presented to customers.
In addition, active area 72 on LCD display comprises a special character region 90 containing segmented numerical characters, as well as a slash “/” and a currency character (for example, a “$”). The segmented numerical characters of special character region 90 can indicate how may items the customer will receive for the price indicated in pricing display region 84. In ESL 400, a segmented numerical character present in special character region 90 displays a “2”. The slash (“/”) in special character region is also activated, as is the dollar sign (“$”). In addition, pricing display region 84 provides the price of the item. Thus, as is seen in
Another type of special offer is a “buy one, get one free” type offer. A prior art “buy one, get on free” paper shelf label 50 can be seen in
Thus, the first interleaved character set 82 displays the word “THRU”. Interleaved segmented alphanumeric region 86 has segments activated such that the date upon which the special offer ends is displayed. In the example shown in
In a presently preferred ESL, the active area 72 of LCD display 70 has a second interleaved character set region 92. Second interleaved character set region 92 preferably comprises a series of interleaved characters, as well as segmented numerical characters. In the “buy one, get one free” example, the second interleaved character set region can have its characters activated as follows:
Thus, in ESL 500, the second interleaved character set region 92 displays “BUY” to the customer. The segmented numerical characters within the second interleaved character set region 92 can be similarly selectively activated to display the number “1”. The “GET” found in the special message region 88 can also be activated. Likewise, one of the segmented numerical characters in special character region 90 can have selected segments activated to display a “1”. Finally, the pricing display region 84 can have selected segments activated such that it states “FREE”. Thus, the combination of second interleaved character set region 92, special message region 88, special character region 90 and pricing display region 84, in combination, state “BUY 1 GET 1 FREE”.
In one embodiment, the ESL 500 can cycle through more than one message. For example, the ESL 500 can have the display seen in
Thus, as can be seen, the various regions have various arrangements of interleaved characters and segmented alphanumeric characters that allow for a highly flexible ESL for displaying messages to customers. The range of messages that can be displayed is quite broad. For example, as has been seen, the first interleaved character set 82 can display several different words:
Note that there are no limitations on the arrangement of characters used for interleaved messages. For example, the characters used for the first interleaved character set 82 could be rearranged and yet still provide various messages depending upon which characters are selectively activated:
Likewise, as has been seen, second interleaved character set region 92 can display several messages:
By having segmented numeric characters, second interleaved character set region 92 can also provide quantities.
Active area 72 of LCD display 70 also contains a third interleaved character region set 94. In a preferred embodiment, the third interleaved character region set 94. Third interleaved character region 94 can display many different messages as well:
LCD display 70 will typically be mounted into an enclosure 600 that is affixed to shelf channel 602. Active area 72 of LCD display 70 be visible through an aperture 604 in enclosure 600. Fixed label 80 will surround the active area 72. An optional hanging tag with a secondary message 606 can form a component of enclosure 600 and can either be a permanent part of enclosure 600 or can be removable. Enclosure 600 will also house the other components that comprise an ESL. For example, ESL 600 will require a battery, an antenna and electronic circuitry. The electronic circuitry includes (but is not limited to) driver circuitry for the LCD display 70, processing electronics for handling data transmitted to the ESL 600, as well as circuitry for transmitting and receiving data. Additional information regarding the electronics found in enclosure 600 can be found in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/155,125, filed on Jun. 16, 2005 entitled “Low Power Wireless Communication System And Protocol” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/156,193, filed on Jun. 16, 2005 entitled “Pseudo Noise Coded Communication Systems”.
This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/155,125, filed on Jun. 16, 2005 entitled “Low Power Wireless Communication System And Protocol” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/156,193, filed on Jun. 16, 2005 entitled “Pseudo Noise Coded Communication Systems”. The disclosures of these applications are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
