Control method, recording medium, and information providing method for terminal device and information providing system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016147208-A1
Application number	US-201615010579-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 29, 2016
Priority date	Aug 28, 2013
Publication date	May 26, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A control method for controlling a terminal device includes using a memory that manages cooking appliance logs each including at least a cooking time of a food and first information indicating an age-related deterioration level of one of the cooking appliances to acquire, from among candidates of a recommended cooking time calculated based on the first information and the cooking time and stored in a server apparatus, third information indicating a recommended cooking time corresponding to second information indicating an age-related deterioration level of the first cooking appliance, displaying, on a display, a user interface that allows a user to select one of the candidates including at least the recommended cooking time for the first cooking appliance using the third information, and outputting a setting command for setting the selected cooking time to the first cooking appliance upon detecting selection of one of the cooking times through the user interface.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A control method for controlling a terminal device connected to a first cooking appliance among a plurality of cooking appliances, the terminal device including a touch panel display, comprising:
causing a computer of the terminal device to use a memory that manages cooking appliance logs each including at least a cooking time of a food and first information indicating an age-related deterioration level of one of the cooking appliances and acquire, from among candidates of a recommended cooking time that are calculated on the basis of the first information and the cooking times and that are stored in a server apparatus, third information indicating a recommended cooking time corresponding to second information indicating an age-related deterioration level of the first cooking appliance; causing the computer of the terminal device to display, on the display of the terminal device, a user interface that allows a user to select any one of the candidates of a cooking time including at least the recommended cooking time for the first cooking appliance using the third information; and upon detecting selection of one of the cooking times through an operation input to the user interface, causing the computer of the terminal device to output a setting command for setting the selected cooking time to the first cooking appliance.

2 . The control method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
causing the computer of the terminal device to acquire, from the server apparatus, a standard cooking time of a food to be cooked by the first cooking appliance; causing the computer of the terminal device to display, on the display, the user interface including an icon corresponding to the standard cooking time and an icon corresponding to the recommended cooking time; and upon detecting selection of one of the icon corresponding to the standard cooking time and the icon corresponding to the recommended cooking time, causing the computer of the terminal device to output, to the first cooking appliance, as the setting command, a setting command for setting a cooking time corresponding to the selected icon.

3 . The control method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
causing the computer of the terminal device to acquire, from the server apparatus, the candidates of the recommended cooking time each corresponding to one of the age-related deterioration levels of the cooking appliances; causing the computer of the terminal device to display, on the display, the user interface including a relationship between the age-related deterioration level and the candidate of the recommended cooking time and an area of the recommended cooking time for the first cooking appliance in the displayed relationship; and upon detecting selection of the area of the recommended cooking time for the first cooking appliance, causing the computer of the terminal device to output, to the first cooking appliance, as the setting command, a setting command for setting a cooking time corresponding to the recommended cooking time.

4 . The control method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
causing the computer of the terminal device to acquire, from the server apparatus, the candidates of the recommended cooking time each corresponding to one of the age-related deterioration levels of the cooking appliances; causing the computer of the terminal device to display, on the display, the user interface including a relationship between the age-related deterioration level and the candidate of the recommended cooking time and an area of the recommended cooking time for the first cooking appliance in the displayed relationship; and upon detecting a touch operation performed on a display screen displaying the relationship through an operation input to the user interface, causing the computer of the terminal device to identify the recommended cooking time on the basis of a touched position in the display screen and output, to the first cooking appliance, as the setting command, a setting command for setting a cooking time corresponding to the identified recommended cooking time.

5 . The control method according to claim 1 , wherein the third information indicates an extension ratio of the recommended cooking time to a standard cooking time for a food, and
wherein the control method further comprising: causing the computer of the terminal device to acquire, from the server apparatus, the standard cooking time of a food to be cooked by the first cooking appliance; and causing the computer of the terminal device to display, on the display, the user interface including an extension time that is applied to the standard cooking time and that is calculated on the basis of the standard cooking time and the extension ratio and the age-related deterioration level of the first cooking appliance visualized in accordance with the second information.

6 . The control method according to claim 1 , wherein the first information includes a total usage count of a first cooking function and a total usage count of a second cooking function of each of the cooking appliances, the second information includes a total usage count of the first cooking function and a total usage count of the second cooking function of the first cooking appliance, and the third information indicates an extension ratio of the recommended cooking time to the standard cooking time of a food for the first cooking function of the first cooking appliance, and
wherein the control method further comprising: causing the computer of the terminal device to acquire, from the server apparatus, the standard cooking time of a food to be cooked by the first cooking appliance using the first cooking function; and causing the computer of the terminal device to display, on the display, the user interface including an extension time that is applied to the standard cooking time and that is calculated on the basis of the standard cooking time and the extension ratio, a usage trend of the first cooking function of the first cooking appliance corresponding to the second information, and a usage trend of the second cooking function of the first cooking appliance corresponding to the second information.

7 . The control method according to claim 1 , wherein the first information indicates a total usage count of a cooking function of each of the cooking appliances,
wherein the second information indicates a total usage count of a cooking function of the first cooking appliance, and wherein a plurality of groups are formed by dividing the cooking appliance logs into groups based on a predetermined range of the total usage count, and the candidate of the recommended cooking time is a ratio of an average of the cooking times of each of the groups to an average of the cooking times of a group having the lowest total usage count.

8 . The control method according to claim 1 , wherein the first information indicates a first total usage count of a first cooking function and a second total usage count of a second cooking function of each of the cooking appliances,
wherein the second information indicates a total usage count of the first cooking function and a total usage count of the second cooking function of the first cooking appliance, and wherein a plurality of groups are formed by dividing the cooking appliance logs of the cooking appliances based on a pair consisting of the first total usage count and the second total usage count, and the candidate of the recommended cooking time of the first cooking function is a ratio of the average of the cooking times of the first cooking function of each of the groups to the average of the cooking times of the first cooking function of the groups corresponding to the pair having the lowest fi

Assignees

• Panasonic Ip Corp America

Inventors

• Shinomoto Yuki
• Kubotani Hiroyuki
• Yuki Yasuhiro

Classifications

• G06F3/04817

  using icons (graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34) · CPC title

• G05B15/02 Primary

  electric · CPC title

• H05B6/6435 Primary

  Aspects relating to the user interface of the microwave heating apparatus · CPC title

• G06F13/00

  Interconnection of, or transfer of information or other signals between, memories, input/output devices or central processing units (interface circuits for specific input/output devices G06F3/00 {; multiprogram control therefor  G06F9/46}; multiprocessor systems  G06F15/16 ) · CPC title

• H05B6/668

  Microwave heating devices connected to a telecommunication network · CPC title