Electrolux Home Products, Inc.

Giorgio Francescangeli

Thomas Schulz

Paul Stoufer

James Fisher

A hub for managing networked household appliances is provided. The hub may include a network communication interface for wirelessly connecting to a wireless access point of a wireless local area network (WLAN), and a wireless repeater for receiving and rebroadcasting signals from the wireless access point. The hub may include an appliance communication interface for wirelessly connecting the hub to a plurality of household appliances and establish a wireless local appliance network over which the hub and the plurality of household appliances are configured to communicate with one another. The hub may also include a control module coupled to the appliance communication interface and configured to provide a user interface to enable a user to interact with the plurality of household appliances from the hub over the wireless local appliance network, and view status information associated with the household appliance.

Hub for managing networked household appliances

A system, method, apparatus, and computer program product for configuring a network connected appliance to use online services are disclosed. A method may include receiving an indication of a selected home automation system for a network connected appliance. The selected home automation system may be selected from multiple available home automation systems. The method may additionally include registering the network connected appliance to the selected home automation system. The method may also include enabling communication between the network connected appliance and the selected home automation system.

System, method, apparatus, and computer program product for configuring a network connected appliance to use online service

An apparatus integral with or directly coupled to an appliance is provided. The apparatus may connect to a user device at the apparatus configured to operate as a wireless local area network (WLAN) access point. The apparatus may receive a command over the connection from the user device to cause the apparatus to scan for one or more available WLAN(s) and obtain one or more service set identifiers (SSIDs) of the available WLAN(s). The apparatus may send the SSID(s) over the connection to the user device for display and user selection of a selected SSID of the SSID(s), with the selected SSID being of a selected WLAN of the available WLAN(s). And the apparatus may receive the selected SSID over the connection from the user device to enable the apparatus to connect directly to the selected WLAN as a WLAN station using the selected SSID.

Growing community of inventors

Cornelius, NC, United States of America

Giorgio Francescangeli