Sending commands

The Appliance Control cluster server resides on the appliance to be controlled (e.g. a washing machine) and the cluster client resides on the controlling device (normally a remote control unit).

The commands from the client to the server can be of two types:

  • ‘Execution’ commands, requesting appliance operations

  • ‘Status’ commands, requesting appliance status information

In addition, status notification messages can be sent unsolicited from the server to the client.

Sending the above messages is described in the sub-sections below.

Execution Commands from Client to Server

An ‘execution’ command can be sent from the client to request that an operation is performed on the appliance (server) - the request is sent in an ‘Execution of Command’ message. The application on the client can send this message by calling the function eCLD_ACExecutionOfCommandSend().

The possible operations depend on the target appliance but the following operations are available to be specified in the message payload (described in Section 45.9.2):

  • Start appliance cycle

  • Stop appliance cycle

  • Pause appliance cycle

  • Start superfreezing cycle

  • Stop superfreezing cycle

  • Start supercooling cycle

  • Stop supercooling cycle

  • Disable gas

  • Enable gas

In the start and stop commands, the start-time and end-time can be specified. The commands are fully detailed in the British Standards document BS EN 50523.

The application on the server (appliance) will be notified of the received command by an E_CLD_APPLIANCE_CONTROL_CMD_EXECUTION_OF_COMMAND event (Appliance Control events are described in Section 45.5). The required command is specified in the payload of the message, which is contained in the above event. The application must then perform the requested command (if possible).

Parent topic:Sending commands

Status Commands from Client to Server

The application on the cluster client can request the current status of the appliance by sending a ‘Signal State’ message to the cluster server on the appliance. This message can be sent by calling the function eCLD_ACSignalStateSend(). This function returns immediately and the requested status information is later returned in an E_CLD_APPLIANCE_CONTROL_CMD_SIGNAL_STATE_RESPONSE event, which is generated when a response arrives from the server (Appliance Control events are described in Section 45.5).

Note: The cluster server handles the ‘Signal State’ message automatically and returns the requested status information in a ‘Signal State Response’ message to the client.

The appliance status information from the message payload is contained in the above event - for details of this payload and the status information, refer to Section 45.9.3.

Parent topic:Sending commands

Status Notifications from Server to Client

The cluster server on the appliance can send unsolicited status notifications to the client in ‘Signal State Notification’ messages. A message of this kind can be sent by the application on the server by calling either of the following functions:

  • eCLD_ACSignalStateNotificationSend()

  • eCLD_ACSignalStateResponseORSignalStateNotificationSend()

Note: The latter function is also used internally by the cluster server to send a ‘Signal State Response’ message - see Section 45.4.2.

The appliance status information from the ‘Signal State Notification’ message is reported to the application on the cluster client through the event E_CLD_APPLIANCE_CONTROL_CMD_SIGNAL_STATE_NOTIFICATION, which is generated when the notification arrives from the server (Appliance Control events are described in Section 45.5). The appliance status information from the message payload is contained in the above event - for details of this payload and the status information, refer to Section 45.9.3.

Parent topic:Sending commands

Parent topic:Appliance Control Cluster