RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is the U.S. National Phase of Application No. PCT/FR2017/050682 entitled “SERVICE RECORDING IN A LOCAL AREA NETWORK” and filed Mar. 23, 2017, which claims the benefit of French Patent Application No. 1652631, filed Mar. 25, 2016, each of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Technical Field

The invention relates to the field of telecommunications, and more particularly to a local area communications network.

Generally, the invention applies to the devices of such a network.

PRIOR ART

A home network is a computer network that links together, with or without wires, the terminal devices, or more simply terminals, of a household (computers, printer peripherals, storage peripherals, home automation peripherals, etc.) that are able to communicate together. A home network includes a router device, also commonly called a gateway, which is an intermediate element that redirects or routes data packets between the various terminals and networks that are connected thereto.

In the context of a home network, a user has the option of executing a given service on a given terminal having its own features (for example, view the user's digital photographs on a television or on a digital tablet, control a home automation device, etc.). Such a service may be seen as a set of software components, or programs, which are associated with a set of hardware components.

In some cases, it is desirable to execute such a service on a plurality of terminal devices (tablet, smartphone, TV, PC, lights, radiators, etc.) of one and the same user, in an ordered sequence of basic actions: for example, a user may wish to view a film on his television and, to this end, close a roller shutter (blind) beforehand and turn on a light in order to benefit from optimum lighting conditions.

The user may execute these actions manually, but this operation is burdensome, in particular when the same service has to be executed several times.

In the home automation field, there are solutions for selecting a simple scenario from a remote controller or a smartphone. However, this type of scenario involves only home automation terminals of connected object type (sensors, lights, etc.) of which the user has prior knowledge since he has installed these objects in the local area network himself.

However, in this context, the user himself has to know the various terminals of his network and the various actions that it is possible to perform on the various terminals in order to define his service.

At the present time, there is therefore not a solution for the simple and automatic construction, in a local area network, of a scenario relating to all of the terminals of the network.

The invention offers a solution that does not have the drawbacks of the prior art.

THE INVENTION

According to one functional aspect, the invention relates to a method for recording a service in a local area network, said service consisting of a set of actions to be performed on at least one terminal of the network that is able to provide part of the service, said method including the following steps:Initial procurement of a unique identifier;Discovering the capabilities of the terminals of the network;Acquiring the capabilities of the discovered terminals;Constructing the service in the form of a sequence of actions on at least one discovered terminal, by way of user interface means;Associating the service with said unique identifier;Recording the service and the associated unique identifier.

Advantageously according to this approach, a service is able to be recorded in association with a unique identifier, so as subsequently to be implemented in a very simple manner, regardless of the complexity of the service and the number of terminals involved. A preliminary discovery step makes it possible to present the user with the terminals available in his network and the various services that he is able to execute using these terminals. The user does not necessarily have prior knowledge of these terminals. Furthermore, these terminals may be “inaccessible” at the time of the discovery (for example turned off).

“Service” is understood in this case to mean a set of actions to be performed on at least one terminal of the network that is able to provide part of the service.

“Part of the service” is understood in this case to mean an action contributing to the service, executed on a single terminal, in particular a physical action (turn off the light, turn on the television, lower a blind, lower the brightness of a light, launch decoding of a film, etc.) or software (modify a variable, send a message, etc.).

“Discovery” is understood to mean an operation well known to a person skilled in the art that is able to be implemented in the form of a request compliant with a local area network protocol, for example the UPnP standard, or the BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) standard. The aim of the UPnP standard is to allow terminals to easily connect and to communicate in a simple manner within a local area network. It constitutes a set of communication protocols based on the IP protocol and enacted by the UPnP standardization forum (“UPnP Forum”). To control the terminals of the network, UPnP uses control points that conventionally transmit what are called discovery messages (MSEARCH) to the various terminals of the network in order to recover, in return, a description of the terminals corresponding to the request. These discovery messages are more often than not transmitted in point-to-multipoint communication mode, also called multicast mode, from the control point to the terminals. A terminal device compatible with the UPnP standard responds to these request messages by supplying its features (terminal type, hardware and software capabilities, etc.). The BLE standard, which is a wireless transmission technique available in the form of an open standard and whose aim is to supply reduced power in comparison with standard applications of the Bluetooth standard, also provides a terminal discovery mechanism. The BLE terminals that are intended to be discovered (called “peripherals” in BLE) periodically transmit, in point-to-multipoint mode, messages on channels defined by the BLE standard. These messages, called “advertisements” or else “beacons”, contain, inter alia, the description of the terminal and the services that it provides. These services are referenced in the “advertisements” by UUIDs (universally unique identifiers). Thus, by listening on the channels dedicated to BLE “advertisements”, and then by interpreting the messages received (whose format is standardized), a device of the home automation network (for example the service gateway) will be able to discover the available BLE terminals and the associated services. Any other protocol that authorizes discovery may be contemplated (Zigwave, etc.).

“Constructing the service” is understood to mean the establishment of a list of actions to be performed on at least one of the terminals of the network. These actions may or may not follow a time sequence. In the example already cited, the construction of the service is equivalent to entering (for example via a graphical interface) the sequence of the following basic actions, sequentially or non-sequentially:lower the blind (action on the blind);turn on the light (action on the light);turn on the digital decoder and the television (action on the digital decoder and the television);launch playback of an item of audiovisual content on the television (action on the digital decoder).

“Associating the service with a unique identifier” is understood to mean the establishment of a relationship between the service (in the form of a list of basic actions) and an identifier, which may for example be a string of letters, of numbers, an image, a digital key, a sound, etc. or any other identifier, as long as it is able to be distinguished from the other potential identifiers. It will be noted that an identifier is not associated with a user, but rather with a service or with a set of sub-services of one and the same service (as will be detailed hereinafter, the identifier may specifically trigger a first sub-service when used for a first time, and then a second sub-service when used for a second time, etc., the second sub-service being linked to the first one).

“Recording the service and its identifier” is understood to mean storing the service (in the form of a list of basic actions) and its associated identifier in a memory, for example of one of the terminals of the local area network, of the service gateway, or of a device outside the local area network (in the cloud), etc.

Advantageously, if the unique identifier is procured before the construction of the service, the method according to the invention may automatically invite the user to configure the associated service, for example via a human-machine interface situated on any one of the terminals linked to the network, such that the user is subsequently able to reuse this known identifier in order to implement the service. However, it is also possible to contemplate the user initially configuring the service and then procuring the identifier to be associated therewith.

According to one particular mode of implementation of the invention, a method such as described above is furthermore characterized in that the step of acquiring the unique identifier is followed by a step of testing the association of said identifier with a service, and in that the steps of constructing, associating and recording the service are performed only if the identifier is not already associated with a service.

Advantageously according to this mode, the service is constructed and recorded only the first time that the unique identifier is provided to the system implementing the method.

According to a second particular mode of implementation of the invention, which may be implemented as an alternative or in addition to the previous one, a method such as described above is furthermore characterized in that the unique identifier is procured by reading of a contactless tag.

This mode of implementation of the invention allows the user very easily to use a contactless NFC (near field communication) or more broadly RFID (for radiofrequency identification) tag or “token” to trigger recording of his service. A contactless tag reader may be positioned for example on the terminal that records the service (any terminal of the network, dedicated terminal, service gateway, etc.).

An “NFC tag” is an electronic tag equipped with contactless NFC technology. Each tag has a unique identifier (UID) in the form of several bytes of data. The tag may or may not be rewritable.

According to a third particular mode of implementation of the invention, which may be implemented as an alternative or in addition to the previous ones, said method includes the following steps:Procuring, subsequent to the first procurement, a unique identifier of the service;Procuring the data of the service from the unique identifier;Implementing the service on at least one terminal of the local area network.

Advantageously according to this mode, a new procurement of an identifier that has already been recorded, upon a first procurement, in association with a service triggers the implementation of this service.

According to one variant of this particular mode of implementation of the invention, a method such as described above is characterized in that the procurement, subsequent to the first procurement, of the identifier is achieved by reading of a contactless tag.

Advantageously according to this mode, the unique identifier that was recorded upon a first presentation of an NFC tag is reused in a very simple manner to implement the service, by simply presenting the tag to the system implementing the method. A contactless tag reader may be positioned for example on a terminal of the network, the service gateway, etc.

According to a fourth particular mode of implementation of the invention, which may be implemented as an alternative or in addition to the previous ones, a method such as described above is furthermore characterized in that the service is associated with a set of sub-services, each sub-service being identified by a sub-service number in the set of sub-services, and in that a new procurement, following the first one, of the unique identifier of the service triggers the implementation of a sub-service identified by a sub-service number.

Advantageously according to this mode, the service is associated with a set of sub-services that may have variants of the same service, which may be for example a variation of one of the parameters on one of the devices (increasing/decreasing brightness of the light upon each presentation of the identifier, change of multimedia content, etc.). Each acquisition of the identifier triggers a new sub-service in the set of sub-services associated with the service, and therefore with the identifier.

According to one variant of this embodiment of the invention, an implementation method such as described above is furthermore characterized in that the last sub-service associated with the service resets the terminals of the network to the state in which they were before the first sub-service was triggered.

Advantageously according to this mode, the last procurement of the identifier, implementing the last sub-service in the set of sub-services, makes it possible to reset the devices of the network to the state in which they were before the service was implemented. For example, a device that was turned on/powered up when the service was implemented may be turned off by implementing the last sub-service.

According to a fifth particular mode of implementation of the invention, which may be implemented as an alternative or in addition to the previous ones, a method such as described above is furthermore characterized in that the discovery step is followed by a step of automatic acquisition of software components necessary to enable an action on a discovered terminal.

Advantageously according to this mode, if a discovered terminal is not yet known to the device that will subsequently be responsible for implementing the service (typically the service gateway), communication software components (plugins) are automatically downloaded. It will thus be possible, when the service is effectively implemented, to be able to dialog with terminal devices whose interfaces were not yet known.

According to one hardware aspect, the invention also relates to a device for recording a service in a local area network, said service consisting of a set of actions to be performed on at least one terminal of the network able to provide part of the service, said device including:a module for procuring a unique identifier;a module for discovering the capabilities of the terminals of the network;a module for acquiring the capabilities of the discovered terminals;a user interface means module;a module for constructing the service in the form of a sequence of actions on at least one discovered terminal, by way of the user interface means;a module for associating the service with said unique identifier;a module for recording the service and the associated identifier.

The term module may correspond equally to a software component and to a hardware component or a set of hardware and software components, a software component itself corresponding to one or more computer programs or subroutines or, more generally, to any element of a program able to implement a function or a set of functions such as described for the modules in question. In the same way, a hardware component corresponds to any element of a hardware assembly able to implement a function or a set of functions for the module in question (integrated circuit, chip card, memory card, etc.).

According to another hardware aspect, the invention also relates to a service gateway comprising a device for recording a service such as described above.

According to another hardware aspect, the invention also relates to a computer program able to be implemented in a method for recording a service such as defined above, the program comprising code instructions that, when the program is executed by a processor, performs the steps of the recording method.

This device for recording a service and this computer program have features and advantages analogous to those described above with reference to the method for recording a service.

According to yet another hardware aspect, the invention pertains to a recording medium able to be read by a data processor and on which there is recorded a program comprising program code instructions for executing the steps of the method defined above.

The invention will be better understood upon reading the following description, given by way of example and with reference to the appended drawings.

