System and approach for remote room controller and device diagnostics and health monitoring

Abstract

The disclosure reveals a system and approach for remote health monitoring and diagnostics of room controllers, networks and devices. A master room controller may be used to open a system health page or a diagnostic page for other controllers. A system health page may provide an overview of virtually all of the other room controllers. A tool of the present system may be used to trouble shoot issues remotely at another room controller in lieu of doing a visit to the respective room controller. A user may navigate from the system health page to virtually any place on the room controller to diagnose issues. The navigation may be done by hyper linking from the system health page. The healthy controllers may be hidden from the page so that the unhealthy systems can be viewed in one shot.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system for remote room controller monitoring, comprising:
 one or more remote room controllers;   a master room controller connected to the one or more remote room controllers; and   a user interface connected to the master room controller; and   wherein:   the user interface is used to obtain an at-a-glance overview of system-wide issues to provide an at-a-glance overview of a system-wide health status of the one or more remote room controllers;   the user interface is used to obtain a diagnostics page corresponding to a selected remote room controller; and   the user interface is used to pull up a tool to remotely troubleshoot issues of the selected remote room controller in accordance with issues indicated in the diagnostics page corresponding to the selected remote room controller.   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the user interface is used to go to a website to get the at-a-glance overview of system-wide issues and go to the website to troubleshoot any issues as indicated in the at-a-glance overview of system-wide issues in the one or more remote room controllers. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein the system health summary screen reveals the at-a-glance overview of system-wide issues to indicate health of each remote room controller for helping a technician to remotely check one or more health items of each remote room controller. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the one or more health items are selected from a group consisting of a status of an application control engine, a status of one or more networks in the application control engine, a status of devices in the one or more networks, and a hyperlink of the application control engine to allow a user to navigate to a diagnostics screen of the application control engine, mode, errors, or alarm conditions. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the system is launched from a health page for a remote room controller from a workbench at the master room controller. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 5 , wherein the health page comprises one or more remote room controllers with overall health indicators remote room controller health, network health, and device health. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 6 , wherein the system health page incorporates a link to a diagnostics page for each remote room controller in a table. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein upon clicking the link, the diagnostics page for selected remote room controller health, network health and/or a device health comes up on the display. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the remote room controller health on the diagnostics page revealed on the display comprises one or more details selected from a group consisting of central processing unit usage, memory usage, heap usage and resources. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the display shows a list of devices connected to one or more networks having a health indicator and details of one or more devices on the list with alarm and error details. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the display shows details of the one or more networks. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the mode, error and alarm details for a device may highlighted with an indicator for showing a first, second or third color;   the first color indicates that something is wrong and one or more of the conditions exceed a threshold;   the second color indicates that a connection has not been established; and   the third color indicates a healthy condition.   
     
     
         13 . A method for health monitoring and diagnosis, comprising:
 developing a diagnostics page for one or more remote room controllers;   clicking on a link to obtain for one or more remote room controllers the diagnostics page on a display of a processor;   developing a tool for troubleshooting an issue with a device of the one or more remote room controllers; and   entering into a system to get to a health page incorporating one or more remote room controllers having overall health indicators; and   wherein the diagnostics page shows the remote room controllers having overall health indicators.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the overall health indicators reveal a health of one or more items of a group consisting of remote room controllers, networks, and devices. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the diagnostics page is for a selected remote room controller. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the diagnostics page comprises details of remote room controller health, network health and device health for a selected remote room controller. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein details of the remote room controller health incorporate one or more items of a group consisting of central computing unit usage, memory usage, heap usage and resource details. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein a list of devices is connected to one or more networks with a health indicator and additional details of a selected device with mode, alarm and error details displayed. 
     
     
         19 . A system having monitoring and diagnostics comprising:
 one or more remote room controllers;   a master room controller connected to the one or more remote room controllers; and   a display with an input mechanism connected to the master room controller; and   wherein the master room controller comprises:
 an application to develop a remote room controller health page and a diagnostic page; and 
 a tool to remotely troubleshoot issues based on the diagnostics page of a device at a remote room controller. 
   
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 19 , wherein the display can show a screen that provides a system-wide health status of the one or more remote controllers. 
     
     
         21 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein each of the one or more remote room controllers comprises one or more items selected from a group consisting of an application control engine, networks connected to and in the application control engine, and a hyperlink of the application control engine to allow a user to navigate to a detailed diagnostics screen of the application control engine, modes, errors, or alarm conditions. 
     
     
         22 . The system of  claim 21 , wherein:
 a user can remotely check one or more items of a group consisting of the application control engine, networks in the application control engine, and the hyperlink of the application control engine of the application control engine to allow a user to navigate to the detailed diagnostics screen of the application control engine, modes, errors, or alarm conditions;   each of the one or more remote room controllers has a unique internet protocol address;   a user can use an internet protocol address at the master room controller to open a system health page or a diagnostics page for a remote room controller having the internet protocol address; and   the user can troubleshoot a device having a property issue spotted with the diagnostics page.