Start Building A Smarter Home With QuickSet
Framework for device interoperability
A wide range of products can benefit from QuickSet and its offerings as it empowers consumers with simple automated setup and complete control of the entire home entertainment ecosystem, as well as an expanding range of home automation devices and services. Building a unified home entertainment system is not easy, and new smart home use cases make it more complex! We know because we've done it and have made it available through QuickSet product line.
This section covers a high-level overview of the engines and engines' interactions, which are the foundation to start interacting with QuickSet.
The Overall Flow
QuickSet can be integrated into, and with many different platforms, devices, and applications. By implementing the whole-home discovery and control capabilities embodied in QuickSet, application developers make it possible to automatically discover and interact with all points of access to content and smart home applications in the home through a single point of control (a voice assistant; a touchscreen device, or a remote control).
QuickSet provides a unified discovery and control interface through different communication mediums ranging from HDMI to IP, and different wireless protocols such as Zigbee, Bluetooth, and the widely used Infrared.
This page is broken into two primary sections, the out-of-the-box experience and QuickSet in every day lives, exploring how QuickSet provides a friction-less experience for consumers to get to their content.
QuickSet's journey in the consumer's home begins with the initial device setup, thereafter, it is involved in the daily device interaction.
Out-Of-The-Box Experience
QuickSet simplifies the out-of-the-box experience for consumers by automating the initial device setup.
QuickSet In Everyday Lives
QuickSet provides unified device control across multiple networks and enables one-touch access to the content
Out-Of-The-Box Experience With QuickSet
Users are looking for solutions that simplify their experience right from the time when they open the box for set-up. In today's evolving home, the initial device installation and setup is more complicated than ever. These complications lead to consumers spending hours setting up their devices and/or paying for an installation service.
QuickSet is designed to make this experience a hassle-free journey by its automatic recognition of devices within the home and control point configuration. Following sequence diagram covers the flow of events between the host application and QuickSet Engines.
Once devices are physically connected and turned on, QuickSet identifies devices through its Discovery Engine. Discovery Engine leverages QuickSet’s device knowledge graph to arrive at device information such as device type, brand, model, and available control methods and commands. The output from Discovery Engine is a device list including devices identified on multiple networks. Once devices are detected, the next step is to identify the available activities
QuickSet uses the concept of Activities to enable consumers to access a specific content or service with ‘One Touch’. Activities include a set of commands and the sequence in which the commands need to be executed to put the entertainment system in the configuration that the user desires.
The discovery results are further enhanced by Predictive Engine, which identifies deep device attributes with varying degrees of confidence from possible service providers, links to native applications, app icons and many more.
Following examples show how a television powered by QuickSet can utilize QuickSet’s device recognition capabilities.
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QuickSet automatically detects the connected devices and configures the universal remote control unit.
QuickSet's Predictive Engine provides a prioritized list of service providers for the consumers to select from to further enhance the experience.
By now, QuickSet has identified everything about the devices and the activities. The next steps include setting up the control interface with different Control+ Engines:
Control+ Engine W/ IR-CEC configures the control point such as the remote control. It constructs and maintains the activities that were identified by the Activity Engine. The following flowchart explains the series of events in this engine.
Control+ Engine W/ IP Services enables execution of commands as well as interactions with connected devices. It allows the host to subscribe for notifications to track events and device usage history. The following diagram explains some of the main steps of this engine.
Control+ Engine W/ Zigbee rf4ce Services identifies the Zigbee rf4ce capable devices in the ecosystem and automatically configures the control point to control devices over rf4ce. These services are exclusively available with UE878(UEI’s multiprotocol RF SoC). The different steps are elaborated in this flow diagram.
QuickSet In Everyday Lives
With a growing number of content providers and an overwhelming number of remote control units in the house, watching TV has become a complicated experience. There are numerous steps involved in the process, right from turning the devices on, to finding the proper input and successfully launching the desired content, all of which adds to the frustration of the end consumers.
A connected home should provide a consistent experience where the consumers are able to easily control their devices through a single point, watch their favorite content, switch between the devices, track their current device state and usage history etc.
A QuickSet enabled device automatically configures the universal control point for all discovered devices within the home. The One Touch View feature instantly takes the users to their desired content regardless of the state of the system. In order to add context to all user actions, an extensive understanding of devices within the home is necessary. This comes native with QuickSet as it leverages the largest knowledge graph of devices to extract this information. The upcoming sections will cover some examples to illustrate the interaction of QuickSet enabled devices in everyday usage. To start with, take a look at different events that take place during the prime time TV watching in an average household.
Unified Control
Unified device control through one or multiple control mediums and protocols within the home.
One Touch View
A single command (touch or voice) takes the consumers to their desired content.
Contextual Awareness
Contextual awareness in devices within the home, reducing friction in the daily user experience
Unified Control
QuickSet easily connects the consumers with their devices by enabling a unified control interface for different control protocols such as HDMI, IR, IP, and Zigbee rf4ce. Leveraging the vast device details in UEI's device knowledge graph, it uses the optimal control method(s) for achieving the desired response. These can be on one or multiple control mediums and protocols. In this example, Quickset in Television is providing unified device control within the ecosystem - a single dashboard of devices and a universal remote to control them.
One Touch View
With QuickSet's One Touch View feature, a single button takes the user to their desired content regardless of the state of the devices. The dynamic key mapping appropriately maps the control point such that, channel keys control the content source, volume keys control the soundbar etc. There are similar solutions in the market that rely heavily on HDMI-CEC support to achieve this. These solutions are not compatible with a large portion of the installed base that lacks CEC support, or has it disabled by default. QuickSet leverages the largest knowledge graph of devices with HDMI fingerprints and infrared control codes to reach the desired content on a much wider set of devices. The example here presents QuickSet in a set-top box showing One Touch View.
Contextual Awareness
Daily TV watching activities require a constant context switching from one content source to another that adds friction in this user experience. QuickSet enabled devices reduce this friction by tracking the current device state. Information about their current state empowers them to offer a consistent experience in finding the content and services. Contextual awareness helps device manufacturers provide improved and personalized services to the consumers. Today's voice solutions can also utilize these capabilities to add the much-needed context for devices within the home and their current status. As an example, a single command "Watch Hulu" will turn on the TV, switch the input to the proper content source, and launch Hulu App.
In this example, Nevo Home, a mobile application powered by QuickSet, displays a live dashboard of devices, their content and their current playing items. The search option enables the users to get the complete history of the content and devices that have been used.
