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| 20120128025 | System and method for integrating sensors in thermostats - Provided according to one or more embodiments is a thermostat having a housing, the housing including a forward-facing surface, the thermostat comprising a passive infrared (PIR) motion sensor disposed inside the housing for sensing occupancy in the vicinity of the thermostat. The PIR motion sensor has a radiation receiving surface and is able to detect the lateral movement of an occupant in front of the forward-facing surface of the housing. The thermostat further comprises a grille member having one or more openings and included along the forward-facing surface of the housing, the grille member being placed over the radiation receiving surface of the PIR motion sensor. The grille member is configured and dimensioned to visually conceal and protect the PIR motion sensor disposed inside the housing, the visual concealment promoting a visually pleasing quality of the thermostat, while at the same time permitting the PIR motion sensor to effectively detect the lateral movement of the occupant. In one embodiment, the grille member openings are slit-like openings oriented along a substantially horizontal direction. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130546 | USER FRIENDLY INTERFACE FOR CONTROL UNIT - A user-friendly programmable thermostat is described that includes a circular body having a large central display surrounded by a ring that can be rotated an pressed inward by a user so as to receive user input in a simple elegant fashion. Different colors can be displayed to the user to indicate currently active HVAC functions, and different shades of colors can be displayed to a user to indicate an estimated amount of time and/or energy for reaching a target temperature. The thermostat is wall mountable and is made up of a head unit removeably mounted to a backplate. A locking mechanism can be provided so as to increase security against unauthorized removal of the head unit. The backplate can be adapted to be mounted on a wall so as to be level, for example by including a bubble level on the backplate. One or more vents are preferably located on the sides of the body, such as in a gap beneath the translatably mounted ring, and/or in a gap between the head unit and the backplate. The target temperature for the device can be altered in response to sensing rotation of the rotating ring, and the programmed schedule can be displayed to and altered by the user in response to sensing rotation of the ring and the translational movement of the ring. Historical information such as temperature and cost information can be displayed to a user in response to sensing rotating of the rotating ring. One or more device settings can be displayed to and edited by a user in response to sensing rotating of the rotating member and the translational movement. According to some embodiments, text characters can be entered by the user. | 05-24-2012 |
| 20120130547 | THERMOSTAT USER INTERFACE - A thermostat for controlling an HVAC system is described, the thermostat having a user interface that is visually pleasing, approachable, and easy to use while also providing ready access to, and intuitive navigation within, a menuing system capable of receiving a variety of different types of user settings and/or control parameters. For some embodiments, the thermostat comprises a housing, a ring-shaped user-interface component configured to track a rotational input motion of a user, a processing system configured to identify a setpoint temperature value based on the tracked rotational input motion, and an electronic display coupled to the processing system. An interactive thermostat menuing system is accessible to the user by an inward pressing of the ring-shaped user interface component. User navigation within the interactive thermostat menuing system is achievable by virtue of respective rotational input motions and inward pressings of the ring-shaped user interface component. | 05-24-2012 |
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| 20090132576 | DATABASE PART CREATION, MERGE AND REUSE - Embodiments are provided to merge, manage, create, and reuse database parts in a computer system. Database parts may include database tables, datatypes, field combinations or entire databases. A selection of a database part is received by a database software application executing on a computer system. The application may be configured to check for metadata associated with the database part to identify an action property. If, after checking for the metadata, a merge action property is identified, then the application may check for a metadata property associated with a database table. If a merge action associated with the database table is identified, then the application may merge the database part with the database table in the database. The application may also be configured to generate a user interface for creating database parts using database tables and for creating a database part by saving a database. | 05-21-2009 |
| 20100205269 | Actionable Email Documents - A received reply email document enables some action to be effectuated using data included in the email document responsive to field identifiers associated with the data and corresponding to fields of metadata. The associated field identifiers that correspond to known fields of the metadata provide some expectation as to the semantic meaning and/or syntactic constraints of the data to which the field identifiers are associated. In a described implementation, an actionable email documents module creates an email document having blocks that are mapped to fields of metadata. The email document is transmitted to one or more recipients. Each recipient adds data to the blocks so that the data becomes mapped to the fields of the metadata. The recipients return a reply email document having the field-mapped data. Upon receipt, the module can effectuate some action using the field-mapped data responsive to the mappings. | 08-12-2010 |
