Multi-air conditioner and group-unit control method thereof

Abstract

Disclosed herein are a multi-air conditioner and a group-unit control method thereof, wherein a plurality of indoor units can be controlled on a group basis. The method comprises the step of grouping the indoor units into a plurality of groups, the step of if an air conditioning operation condition of a specific one of the indoor units is changed, sending, by the specific indoor unit, the changed operation condition to all the other indoor units according to a predefined communication protocol, and the step of by each of the indoor units, receiving an air conditioning operation condition sent from a different one of the indoor units in the same group and performing an air conditioning operation based on the received operation condition. According to the invention, the plurality of indoor units can be more efficiently controlled on a group basis through inter-indoor unit data communication. Further, the group-unit control is not restricted by whether a controller is used or not. Moreover, it is easy to add or change an object to which the group-unit control is to be applied.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.