Interactive user interface functionality for lighting devices or system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10278261-B2
Application number	US-201715720546-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 29, 2017
Priority date	May 28, 2013
Publication date	Apr 30, 2019
Grant date	Apr 30, 2019

Abstract

An example of a lighting system includes intelligent lighting devices, each of which includes a light source, a communication interface and a processor coupled to control the light source. In such a system, at least one of the lighting devices includes a user input sensor to detect user activity related to user inputs without requiring physical contact of the user; and at least one of the lighting devices includes an output component to provide information output to the user. One or more of the processors in the intelligent lighting devices are further configured to process user inputs detected by the user input sensor, control lighting and control output to a user via the output component so as to implement an interactive user interface for the system, for example, to facilitate user control of lighting operations of the system and/or to act as a user interface portal for other services.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
lighting devices, each respective lighting device comprising:
a light source;
a communication interface configured to enable communication via a network link; and
a processor coupled to control the light source and coupled to communicate via the communication interface and the network link with one or more others of the devices and configured to control operations of at least the respective lighting device, wherein:
at least one of the lighting devices includes a user input sensor configured to detect user activity related to user inputs without requiring physical contact of the user, wherein the user inputs include an audio input and the user input sensor includes a microphone to receive the audio input;
at least one of the lighting devices includes an output component configured to provide information output to the user when the user is in a vicinity of the at least one output component, wherein the output component includes a display, a projector, or a speaker; and
one or more of the processors of the lighting devices is further configured to process user inputs detected by the user input sensor, control lighting and control output to a user via the output component so as to implement an interactive user interface, including to selectively:
digitize, the audio input detected via the microphone, into an audio data segment;
convert the audio data segment into a parsed representation of speech that includes a word string;
recognize a lighting command in the word string by:
sending, to a server, the parsed representation of speech and receiving, from the server, the recognized lighting command in response to sending the parsed representation of speech; or
analyzing, on one or more of the lighting devices, the word string to recognize the lighting command in the parsed representation of speech;

control a lighting operation of at least a plurality of the lighting devices as a function of the recognized lighting command; and
obtain and provide information as an output via the output component, in response to a processed user input.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a data communication network at a premises serviced for lighting by the system, the network interconnecting the links to provide data communications amongst the lighting devices, wherein:
the data communication network is configured to further provide data communications for at least some of the lighting devices via a wide area network outside the premises, and
the function to obtain the information comprises communicating with an information source outside the premises via the data communication network at the premises and the wide area network.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein one of the lighting devices includes both the user input sensor and the output component.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the user input sensor is configured to detect an optical input; and
the one or more of the processors configured to process the detected optical input to identify a gesture of a user.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the user input sensor comprises an image detector.

6. The system of claim 4 , wherein the user input sensor comprises a device configured for detection of direction and intensity of received light.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the output component is configured to provide the information output to the user in an audio or a visual format.

8. The system as in claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors configured to process user inputs comprises a plurality of the processors of lighting devices configured to perform the processing in a distributed processing manner.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user is a living organism or a robot.

10. A system, comprising:
lighting devices, each respective lighting device comprising:
a light source;
a communication interface configured to enable communication via a network link; and
a processor coupled to control the light source and coupled to communicate via the communication interface and the network link with one or more others of the lighting devices, wherein:
each processor of a respective lighting device is configured to control lighting operations of the respective lighting device;
at least one of the lighting devices includes a user input sensor configured to detect user activity related to user inputs without requiring physical contact of the user, wherein the user inputs include an audio input and the user input sensor includes a microphone to receive the audio input;
at least one of the lighting devices includes an output component configured to provide information output to the user, wherein the output component includes a display, a projector, or a speaker; and
the processor of at least one of the lighting devices is further configured to implement a distributed processing procedure to respond to user inputs detected by the user input sensor, control lighting and control output to a user via the output component, in such a manner that the system provides an interactive user interface via one or more of the lighting devices by:
digitizing, the audio input detected via the microphone, into an audio data segment;
converting the audio data segment into a parsed representation of speech that includes a word string;
recognizing a lighting command in the word string by:
sending, to a server, the parsed representation of speech and receiving, from the server, the recognized lighting command in response to sending the parsed representation of speech; or
analyzing, on one or more of the lighting devices, the word string to recognize the lighting command in the parsed representation of speech; and

controlling a lighting operation of at least a plurality of the lighting devices as a function of the recognized lighting command.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the distributed processing procedure involves distributing portions of a processing task supporting the interactive user interface processors of a plurality of others of the lighting devices.

12. The system of claim 10 , further comprising a data communication network at a premises serviced for lighting by the system, the network interconnecting the links to provide data communications amongst the lighting devices.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the distributed processing procedure involves a distributed server operation involving server functions implemented on a plurality of the lighting devices and client-server communications through the data communication network with processors of a plurality of others of the lighting devices.

14. The system of claim 10 , wherein:
the user input sensor comprises an optical detector; and
the processor of at least one of the lighting devices is configured to process detected optical inputs via the distributed processing procedure to recognize gestural user inputs.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the optical detector comprises a camera.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein the optical detector comprises a device configured for detection of direction and intensity of received light.

17. The system of claim 10 , wherein the output component is configured to provide the information output to the user in an audio or a visual format.

18. The system of claim 10 , wherein the user is a living organism or a robot.

Assignees

• Abl Ip Holding Llc

Inventors

• Aggarwal Januk
• Rogers Jason W
• Rains Jr Jack C
• Ramer David P

Classifications

• H05B47/12 Primary

  by detecting audible sound · CPC title

• H05B47/155

  Coordinated control of two or more light sources · CPC title

• H05B37/0245

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H05B37/0236

  Electricity · mapped topic

• Y02B20/44

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic