A home appliance and a method for operating the same are provided. The home appliance outputs product information as a predetermined sound signal and the sound signal is transmitted to a remote service center over a communication network so that the state of the home appliance is easily checked at the service center. Data associated with each operation of the home appliance is stored as product information according to the operation state of the home appliance. The product information is also stored when the operation is suddenly terminated and is then output as a sound signal so that it is possible to correctly check the state of the home appliance and to correctly diagnose an error that has occurred in the home appliance.