Electrical appliance, in particular an electrical household appliance, a corresponding optional auxiliary device, and a system comprising said appliance and device

An electrical household appliance, prearranged for use with an auxiliary device that communicates auxiliary information over a power supply cable of the electrical household appliance, the electrical household appliance being configured to:

• communicate with said auxiliary device and including a control system pre-arranged for:
• verifying autonomously the presence or otherwise of the auxiliary device;
• verifying the presence or otherwise of the auxiliary device before carrying out any cycle or program of operation of the electrical household appliance;
• and
• verifying the presence or otherwise of the auxiliary device by means of sending a request for declaration of the presence and recognizing as effective the presence of the auxiliary device if said auxiliary device sends properly to the control system within a given time interval a list of the type of auxiliary information that the auxiliary device is able to provide to the control system subsequent to an instant of sending of said request for declaration of presence;
• using at least one piece of auxiliary information, necessary for the execution of one or more of the additional functionalities that are additional with respect to the basic functionality of the electrical household appliance, provided by the auxiliary device if and only if the auxiliary device supplies correctly to the control system said at least one piece of auxiliary information within a given maximum time from a corresponding request by said control system;
• and
• selectively sending to the auxiliary device at least one piece of information regarding operation of the electrical household appliance, in order to make available the information itself on an external communication network,
• wherein said at least one piece of auxiliary information being a value of an electrical quantity associated with a source of electrical energy for the electrical household appliance.

An auxiliary device pre-arranged for communication with an electrical household appliance over a power supply cable of the electrical household appliance, the auxiliary device further configured to:

• communicate presence of the auxiliary device to the electrical household appliance by sending to the electrical household appliance within a given time interval from receipt of a request of presence from the electrical household appliance a list of the types of auxiliary information that the auxiliary device is able to provide;
• acquire and/or process the auxiliary information, by measuring one or more electrical quantities that constitute at least one piece of auxiliary information associated with one or more additional functionalities of the electrical household appliance that are additional with respect to a basic functionality of the electrical household appliance;
• wherein the acquiring and/or processing is responsive to receiving of at least one request regarding the at least one piece of auxiliary information from the electrical household appliance, said at least one piece of auxiliary information being a value of an electrical quantity associated with a source of electrical energy for the electrical household appliance;
• and
• communicate said at least one piece of auxiliary information to said electrical household appliance to execute said one or more additional functionalities.