Power consumption continues to be of concern by manufacturers and consumers alike, as evidenced by the growing importance of work by organizations such as ENERGY STAR, a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy to facilitate the development of energy efficient products and practices. This concern extends to devices and appliances controlled by remote control devices, referred to herein as appliances, such as TVs, VCRs, DVD Players, components of Home Theater systems, etc.
A primary goal of programs such as ENERGY STAR is to reduce the amount of standby power used by appliances. While a laudable goal, much power is still wasted by appliances in a standby mode and it remains that the most energy saving solution is for appliances to turn themselves off after some period of time. In a powered-down state, an appliance does not consume any energy at all. There is no easy way for a consumer to power-up these devices from a powered-down state, however, given that the user must physically press the power ON switch or otherwise activate the power switch of the powered-down appliance or device.
The accompanying drawings provide visual representations which will be used to more fully describe various representative embodiments and can be used by those skilled in the art to better understand the representative embodiments disclosed and their inherent advantages. In these drawings, like reference numerals identify corresponding elements.
As shown in the drawings for purposes of illustration, a remote control device, system comprised of a remote control device and appliance controlled by the remote control device, and methodology provide for enhanced energy savings and efficiency of remotely controlled appliances. A remote control device has a wireless power transmitter operable to transmit a wireless energy burst having a wireless magnetic resonating power coupling characteristic; a processor and control element; and a user interface having a power ON activation element. In response to activation of the power ON activation element of the user interface, the processor and control element controls the wireless power transmitter to transmit the wireless energy burst having the wireless magnetic resonating power coupling characteristic.
A system is comprised of an appliance with a power antenna receiver, a switched mode power supply, and a processor and control element, and having a standby mode and an operational mode; and a remote control device with a wireless power transmitter operable to exercise remote control of the appliance. In response to the wireless power transmitter of the remote control transmitting a wireless energy burst that is received by the power antenna receiver of the appliance when the appliance is in a powered-down state, the processor and control element controls the switched mode power supply to power on the appliance from the powered-down state to a standby mode.
In accordance with a method for minimizing power consumption of an appliance operated by a remote control device, the appliance receiving a wireless energy burst; and a switched mode power supply of the appliance powering up the appliance to a standby mode if the appliance is in a powered-down state when the wireless energy burst is received. Further, a process and control element of the appliance controlling the switched mode power supply of the appliance to power on the appliance from the powered-down state to the standby mode when the appliance is in a powered-down state and the wireless energy burst is received.
In accordance with a method of power consumption of an appliance operated by a remote control device in a system comprised of the appliance and the remote control device, the remote control device transmitting a wireless energy burst; the appliance receiving the wireless energy burst; and powering up the appliance from a powered-down state to a standby mode if the appliance is in the powered-down state when the wireless energy burst is received.
Using the drawings, the various embodiments of the present invention, including preferred embodiment(s) will now be explained. In the following detailed description and in the several figures of the drawings, like elements are identified with like reference numerals.
As shown in the system of
The remote controller 100 has a user interface 130 through which a user may remotely control operation of the appliance(s); a processor and control element 200 that processes instructions received from the user via the user interface and generates control signals in accordance with those instructions; a receiver 230 of the remote controller communications unit 140 that receives signals from the appliance(s) and provides those received signals to the processor and control element; and a wireless power transmitter 210 of communications unit 140 that transmits the control signals generated by the processor and control element to the appliance(s) under control of the processor and control element.
The remote controller 100 has a user interface 130 by which the user may send and receive information. The user interface features a display 110, for example a liquid crystal display (LCD), on which data and information received from the appliance or input using the keypad 120 may be displayed. For example, in the case of a television as the appliance, the display 110 may display a menu or program guide. Such information can assist a viewer in navigating among the wide variety of available programming. For example, electronic program guides that are displayed on a particular channel are common in cable and satellite systems as a way of informing viewers as to what programming is being shown.
The user interface also features a plurality of keys or buttons 120 with which a user can enter instructions to be sent to the appliance 160 or instructions to be received by the processor and control element 200 of the remote controller of
The communications unit 140 of the remote controller 100 includes a wireless power transmitter 210 and a receiver 230 for both sending and receiving data signals from the appliance 160, illustrated in this embodiment by way of example and not limitation as a television set. The appliance 160 is equipped with a similar communications unit 170 which includes both a receiver and a transmitter for receiving signals from the remote controller 100 and transmitting signals to the remote controller. The signaling between the appliance 160 and the remote controller 100 is wireless magnetic resonating transmission.
In response to a user activating the power ON activation element 125 of the user interface 130, the processor and control element controls the wireless power transmitter 210 and its magnetic resonator 220 to transmit the wireless energy burst having the wireless magnetic resonating power coupling characteristic.
During normal operation, there is a two-way communications link between the appliance 160 and the remote controller 100 during which the appliance operates normally in an operational mode. The appliance 160 enters a standby mode after some period of inactivity in order to conserve power. After some period of time, however, the appliance will self-power down to a powered-down mode to further save power.
In order to power the appliance back to a standby mode from a powered-down state, in accordance with the various embodiments, a user of the remote controller 100 may activate a power ON feature of the remote controller, such as by pressing ON button 125 of user interface 130, to cause the wireless power transmitter 210 of remote controller 100 to beam a wireless energy burst having the wireless magnetic resonating power coupling characteristic that, when received by a power antenna receiver of appliance 160 while appliance 160 is in a powered-down state, will cause appliance 160 to power on from a powered-down state to its standby mode. The energy burst transmitted by remote controller 100 causes a processor and control element of appliance 160 to control a switched mode power supply, such as a bi-stable power switch, of appliance 160 to power up the device to the standby mode.
Once the appliance 160 is powered back up to its standby mode, it is operable to resume normal operation in the operational mode after a predetermined period of time. And, after a subsequent period of inactivity of the appliance, the switched mode power supply powers down the appliance causing it to go from the standby mode to the powered-down state.
The wireless energy burst transmitted by the remote controller 100 has a wireless magnetic resonating power coupling characteristic that is beamed within a mid-range distance of the remote control device. In accordance with wireless magnetic resonating technology, such as that available from WiTricity Corporation of Watertown, Mass., USA, the wireless energy burst is beamed within a mid-range distance that may range from approximately centimeters to several meters.
Wireless power transmitter 210 in certain embodiments has a magnetic resonator element 220 with a resonating frequency; the resonating frequency of the power transmitter 210 may be matched by the frequency of the receiver of the appliance, such as power antenna receiver element 430 of
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
The exemplary appliance 510 of
The television appliance, then, is operable to receive content from a variety of sources (525, 530, 535, 540, 565) at remote control receiver element 505 and, as controlled by programmed processor and control element 500, to display received information or content during a normal mode of operation of the appliance.
As described herein, content is one or more of audio, visual and audio/visual content and may come from a variety of sources, such as a set top box, to be displayed by display 560 during a normal operating mode. It may be, for example, movies, games, videos, advertisements, etc.
Referring now to
Switched mode power supply 600 has the following elements configured and arranged as shown in
Switched mode power supply 600 illustrates one implementation to allow the device to “wakeup” from a powered-down state to a standby mode using a relay approach. When the power supply is OFF, there is no current drawn by the main side 670. The mains relay 610 turns ON only when there is enough energy picked by up RF energy picking antenna 430 and supplied to MCU and driver element 690. When enough energy is received, the MCU and driver circuit element 690 turns on the mains relay 620 and the supply to the MCU and driver element 690 is provided from the auxiliary winding 680 of the main power supply transformer. Even with the energy converter 695 OFF, the MCU and driver element 690 will continue to be kept operating by this auxiliary supply. Power consumption as low as approximately 120 mW has been achieved. Reference is made to printed circuit board relay PCT Power Relay G6DS by Omron as a miniature relay with single pole switching capability as an exemplary switching power supply device.
It is noted that the microcontroller unit MCU may be represented by discrete components, such as discrete analog or digital components, that provide the same functionality.
Reference is now made to
A switched mode power supply of the appliance powers up the appliance to a standby mode if the appliance is in a powered-down state when the wireless energy burst is received, at Block 720. As discussed, this may further comprise a processor and control element of the appliance controlling the switched mode power supply of the appliance to power on the appliance from the powered-down state to the standby mode when the appliance is in a powered-down state and the wireless energy burst is received. Optionally, if operational input is received while in the standby mode, such as from a user of the remote controller, the appliance can resume normal operation in an operational mode, at Block 730. At Block 740, the appliance may power down from its standby mode to a powered-down state after it has been in standby mode a predetermined period of time.
Flowchart 800 of
The representative embodiments, which have been described in detail herein, have been presented by way of example and not by way of limitation. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made in the form and details of the described embodiments resulting in equivalent embodiments that remain within the scope of the appended claims.