The present invention relates to terminals for remotely controlling devices including home electric appliances, and more particularly relates to a terminal for permitting the replacement of remote control devices and relates to a method for remotely controlling the devices using the same.
Recently there have been proposed systems, called a home network, in which not only personal computers but also other various types of home electric appliances link to the Internet or LANs to permit them to be remotely controlled. The home electric appliances that are compatible with the home network are not only audio-visual appliances, such as televisions and video recorders, but also refrigerators, microwaves, and so on, and they are expected to increase in number.
For example, considering a situation in which such home-network compatible appliances are remotely controlled using a single terminal, the terminal is required to have a function to ask a user to select his desired appliance among a plurality of compatible ones and then issue a control command in accordance with the selected appliance. When an appliance is replaced with a new one, the terminal itself must be also replaced with one compatible with the newly replaced appliance, or the ROM thereof may be replaced with a new ROM containing the control commands compatible with the newly replaced appliance.
As an embodiment of such a terminal, a portable information terminal, such as a personal computer or a PDA (Personal Digital (Data) Assistants), can be considered. By using the personal computer as the terminal, the replacement of an appliance can be flexibly accommodated with the help of software. However, even for a notebook computer, a personal computer designed with serious consideration on portability, the operations of a keyboard, a mouse, and the like are required. This therefore does not allow everyone to remotely control the appliance easily from the beginning. Furthermore, despite the portability of the portable information terminal, as long as the feature to remotely control the appliance is provided as an application, the feel of operation of the terminal heavily depends on the quality of the provided application. In addition, since the portable information terminal is principally operated using a pen or a button, it takes a certain amount of time for the user to intuitively operate it.
Recently the operations for using home electric appliances have been very common. It is therefore easily anticipated that the user expects to have the same feel of operation when remotely controlling the appliance. Furthermore, when an appliance is replaced or a feature is changed, complicated replacing processes should not be required on the terminal side.