WO2012022986A1

WO2012022986A1 - Entry communication system

Info

Publication number: WO2012022986A1
Application number: PCT/GB2011/051579
Authority: WO
Inventors: Paula Jane Donnelly
Original assignee: Brandingplus Limited
Priority date: 2010-08-20
Filing date: 2011-08-22
Publication date: 2012-02-23
Also published as: GB2482985A; GB201114287D0

Abstract

The system includes a door-bell unit (10) for positioning on or adjacent a door of a secure location, such as a building. The unit has a bell push (14), a microphone (16) and a speaker (18). Programmable control means include a memory (20) for storing the dial-up number(s) of at least one remote telephone (22); dialling means (24) for dialling a selected dial-up number from the memory (20), in response to the bell push (14) being actuated by a caller, thereby to establish two-way voice communication between the door-bell unit (10) and a selected remote telephone (22) associated with the dialled dial-up number; and means (28) for preventing the ring tones of the selected remote telephone (22) from being broadcast through the door-bell unit speaker (18).

Description

Entry Communication System

Field of the Invention

This invention relates to an entry communication system, in particular to such a system which comprises a door-bell unit for positioning on or adjacent a door of a secure location such as a building, the unit having a bell push for callers to press.

Background to the Invention

In some simple such systems, pressing the bell push causes a bell to be rung, alerting an occupier to a caller at the door. The occupier responds by opening the door. In more sophisticated systems, the door-bell unit includes a microphone and a speaker, so as to enable intercom voice communication with the occupier via an intercom unit within the building, enabling the occupier to question the caller to ascertain their legitimacy or not. If satisfied, the occupier then responds by opening the door, either manually, or by some remote device.

The fastest growing sector of shopping is online shopping which includes grocery shopping and other Internet purchases. All have the end result of items being delivered to the home either by courier or the postal service and often requiring a signature. Furthermore, service providers whose engineers need access to a person's home, such as gas, electricity, television, telephone and other utility companies, for example for repair purposes, tend to arrange appointments within very broad time slots, such as from 8:00 am to 1 :00 pm or from 1 :00 pm to 6:00 pm. This can be a problem when the occupier's day-to-day schedule requires absence from home, for example to walk the dog, collect the children from school or dash out in an emergency.

Police services report that the local neighbourhood burglars will first ring the door bell to ensure no one is at home prior to entering a property.

For these various reasons, it would be beneficial that a door bell can be answered whether or not the occupier is actually at home, and ideally in a manner that does not alert the caller to the fact that the home is unoccupied. We are aware of proposals which address this problem, however in an

unsatisfactory manner. Thus, British patent application GB2377582 (Hunter) describes a programmable mobile phone mounted either on the interior of a front door or in an adjacent or nearby position within the premises. A microphone and speaker unit connected to the phone are mounted on the exterior of the door/ adjacent surface of the building. The phone is pre-programmed to call, when activated, a number which may be another landline connected telephone positioned at a remote location or a mobile telephone as required. The

microphone speaker unit includes a bell push button which activates the phone to call the pre-programmed number. Should the occupant be out or not available, a message service on a secondary phone can be set to advise the caller via the door phone of the likely return of the householder.

Also, Canadian patent application CA 2061616 (Robert Vien)) describes a discreet communications interconnect system between the public subscriber telephone network, or an interior intercom, or a private or commercial radio-communication system, and any intercom or speaker phone system located at the door or in the entrance-hall of a residence or of a commercial building. If the occupant is absent, when a visitor does ring the outside bell, an automatic dial-up operation is initiated to establish a two-way voice communication with a remote telephone. The system is so designed so that DTMF (Touch Tones) will never be heard by the visitor, with the intention that the visitor believes he is talking to someone inside and not to someone on the phone.

However, despite the intentions expressed in CA 2061616, a visitor is still able to detect that the system has set up communication with a remote telephone.

Summary Of The Invention

According to the invention there is provided an entry communication system comprising:

(i) a door-bell unit for positioning on or adjacent a door of a secure location, the unit having a bell push, a microphone and a speaker; and

(ii) programmable control means comprising:

a) a memory for storing the dial-up number(s) of at least one remote telephone;

b) dialling means for dialling a selected dial-up number from the memory, in response to the bell push being actuated by a caller, thereby to establish two-way voice communication between the door-bell unit and a selected remote telephone associated with the dialled dial-up number; and c) means for preventing ring tones, triggered by the dialling of the selected remote telephone, from being broadcast through the door-bell unit speaker.

The secure location may be, for example, a building or part of a building.

Throughout this description the term "building" is to be interpreted as

encompassing part of a building or any other secure location.

Although the control means can be incorporated in the door-bell unit, preferably part or all of the control means is contained within a control unit for positioning within the building. The control unit may be in operative connection with the doorbell unit by hard wiring or by wireless connection, such as via a Bluetooth connection.

The door-bell unit may include an amplifier, to strengthen the voice signal from the caller to a level which can be easier deciphered when received by the remote telephone.

The user of the remote telephone will usually be a person responsible for the security of the location, referred to herein as the "owner".

The system may further comprise a door lock, the control means including means for operating the door lock upon receipt of a predetermined signal from the selected remote telephone. In this embodiment, the owner can allow controlled access to the building even though the owner is absent.

On the other hand the owner may wish to bar the caller from entry into the building. Nevertheless the caller might make forcible entry. If the owner can be alerted to such forcible entry, the police or other security services can be summoned. To enable this, the control unit may include a microphone. Then, in a preferred embodiment, the system further comprises means to establish an audio connection between the selected remote telephone and the control unit, to enable the user of the selected remote telephone to monitor activity within the building.

The selected remote telephone will conveniently be a mobile phone, although it is also possible for the selected remote telephone to be a fixed line phone, such as may be at the location of the owner's place of employment or business address.

The system may be programmable by the owner. This may be done manually on the control unit or more conveniently the system may include a line-of-sight remote control device for programming the control means. In a further or additional embodiment, the system may be programmable by the same or another remote telephone.

The control means may be programmable to cause a second selected dial-up number to be dialled in the event that communication between the door-bell unit and a first selected remote telephone cannot be established, for example because the first selected remote telephone is busy, or out of operation, or the owner is not available to respond to the call. In an alternative embodiment, the control means is programmable to simultaneously dial a plurality of numbers and to establish a connection on a first-to-answer basis.

Preferably, the control means is programmable to operate such that, if voice communication between the bell push unit and the selected remote telephone cannot be established, any consequentially triggered signals indicative of a busy line, of a non-operating condition of the selected remote telephone or of voice-mail availability are suppressed from being broadcast to the caller.

Preferably, the control means further comprises a noise generator for

broadcasting "white noise" through the speaker of the door-bell unit when voice communication between the door-bell unit and the selected remote telephone has been established, thereby to give the caller the impression of intercom-like communication with an occupier of the building. The white noise helps to mask other noises which may be in the background at the location where the remote telephone is answered, such as train or traffic noises, thunder storms, waves lapping on a beach or any other noises that may alert the caller that the owner is not present in the building. Preferably therefore, the white noise is indicative of background noise within the building. This can be achieved where the control means includes means for recording background noise from within the building and the noise generator includes means for broadcasting the recorded

background noise. The recorded background noise can be stored in a further memory of the system.

The means for preventing the ring tones of the selected remote telephone from being broadcast are preferably constituted by means to ensure that the voice communication from the selected remote telephone to the bell push unit is not established until after any ring tones have been generated. Alternatively, or additionally, the circuit to the bell push unit speaker includes a filter to

electronically remove the ring tones, and optionally any other non-voice tones which may alert the caller to the possibility that communication has been established with a remote telephone and that therefore the building is unoccupied.

The system preferably further comprises an intercom facility for positioning within the building and means for switching the system between a first mode in which the selected dial-up number may be dialled upon actuation of the bell push, and a second mode in which intercom voice communication may be established between the door-bell unit and the intercom facility to be used, for example, when the owner is within the building. The intercom facility may be part of the control unit.

The system preferably further comprising a door chime device, adapted to chime whenever the bell push is operated, that is whether the owner is present or not. The chime device may be connected to the doorbell unit by hard wiring or wirelessly. The door chime device may be part of, or separate from, the control unit, and/or incorporated in the door-bell unit.

The door-bell unit may further comprise a camera and the control means further comprise means for relaying a still picture or video captured by the camera to the remote telephone. The power requirements for the system will generally be low. Power may be derived from rechargeable, or non-rechargeable, batteries, by solar power in appropriate locations, or by mains power.

Thus, in a preferred embodiment of this invention, a device is provided in the form of a door-bell unit which would fit on the outside of a door as a doorbell. In appearance it would seem to be a 'normal' doorbell unit. However, in one mode of operation it will in fact work in a similar way to the existing intercom units, with both a speaker and a microphone built in. In another mode of operation, when the bell push is pressed, this will automatically trigger the door-bell unit to connect to the indoor control unit which and will in turn dial a selected phone number that is programmed into the memory.

The system is arranged so that any ring tone could not be heard by the caller at the point of pressing the bell push. This will not alert the caller into thinking that no one is home. By removing the ring tone the caller pressing the bell push the caller will only here the 'ding dong' chime, and would be none the wiser as to whether anyone is at home or not, giving security to the home but also the choice of how to deal with the caller.

Brief Introduction To The Drawing

Embodiments of the invention are described in more detail, purely by way of example, with reference to the accompanying Figure 1 which is an illustrative diagram of an entry communication system according to the invention.

Description of Preferred Embodiments

Referring to the drawing, there is shown an entry communication system. A doorbell unit 10 is positioned adjacent a door on the outside of a wall 12 of a building, such as the owner's home. The unit has a bell push 14, a microphone 16 and a speaker 18.

The system includes programmable control circuitry 62 contained within a control unit 30 positioned inside the wall 12 the building. An interface 54 of the control unit 30 is in operative connection with an interface 32 of the door-bell unit 10 by hard wiring 34. Wireless connection, such as via a Bluetooth connection, is an alternative.

The control unit 30 includes a memory 20 for storing the dial-up numbers of at least one remote telephone 22. A dialling device 24, connected to an aerial 60 and to a fixed telephone line 64, is provided for dialling a selected dial-up number from the memory 20, in response to the bell push 14 being actuated by a caller. Thereby, two-way voice communication is established between the door-bell unit 10 and a selected remote telephone 22. The dialling device embodies a 4 band GSM module capable of speed dialling two numbers the first within 10 seconds of the bell push being pressed.

The door-bell unit 10 includes an amplifier 26, to strengthen the voice signal from the caller to a level which can be more easily deciphered when received by the remote telephone 22.

The user of the remote telephone 22 will usually be a person responsible for the security of the location, referred to herein as the "owner".

The system also includes a door lock 40. The control circuitry includes means for triggering operation of the door lock 40 upon receipt of a predetermined signal from the selected remote telephone 22. In this embodiment, the owner can allow controlled access to the building even though he or she is absent.

On the other hand the owner may wish to bar the caller from entry into the building. Nevertheless the caller may make forcible entry. If the owner can be alerted to such forcible entry, the police or other security services can be summoned. To enable this, the control unit includes a microphone 36. Then, in a preferred embodiment, the system also includes means to establish an audio connection between the selected remote telephone 22 and the control unit 30, to enable the user of the selected remote telephone 22 to monitor activity within the building. This can be achieved by using the remote telephone 22, or another remote telephone, to dial in to the system which, upon receipt of a predetermined code signal, then establishes this monitoring option. The advantage of the monitoring option is it is capable of picking up any sounds within a radius in the building without the awareness of anyone in the property.

The selected remote telephone is shown as a mobile phone 22.

The control circuitry can be programmed by the owner, with PIN code security. This can be done manually on the control unit 30 or optionally by a line-of-sight IR remote control device 38. In a further option, the control circuitry can be programmed from the same or another remote telephone 22, from anywhere in the world. Where PIN security is incorporated in the system, the PIN must be used in any of the commands when storing, changing, asking the status of the system, or asking it to do any specific tasks via SMS or by DTMF. If a user sends commands to the system via SMS, the system will immediately send SMS back to the user's phone to confirm the command has been activated. Where a number of users are to authorised to program the system, for example where the building has a number of occupants, each user has a unique PIN code.

The control circuitry is programmable to cause a second selected dial-up number to be dialled in the event that communication between the door-bell unit 10 and a first selected remote telephone 22 cannot be established, for example because the first selected remote telephone 22 is busy, or out of operation, or the owner is not available to respond to the call. The control circuitry is also programmable to operate such that, if voice communication between the bell push 14 unit and the selected remote telephone 22 cannot be established, any consequentially triggered signals indicative of a busy line, of a non-operating condition of the selected remote telephone 22 or of voice-mail availability are suppressed from being broadcast to the caller.

The control circuitry also includes a noise generator 42 for broadcasting white noise through the speaker 18 of the door-bell unit 10 when voice communication between the door-bell unit 10 and the selected remote telephone 22 has been established, thereby to give the caller the impression of intercom-like

communication with an occupier of the building. The white noise is indicative of background noise within the building. This is achieved as the control circuitry includes a recorder 44 for recording background noise from within the building and the noise generator 42 includes play-back means 46 for broadcasting the recorded background noise. Thus, the sound frequencies heard by the caller are the same as a traditional intercom system.

The control unit includes means for preventing the network ring tones, triggered by the dialling of the selected remote telephone 22, from being broadcast through the door-bell unit 10 speaker 18. This is achieved firstly by a switch 28, in the doorbell unit which ensures that the voice communication from the selected remote telephone 22 to the bell push 14 unit is not established until after any ring tones have been generated. Additionally, the circuit to the door-bell unit speaker 18 includes a filter 52 to electronically remove the ring tones, and also any other non- voice tones which may alert the caller to the possibility that communication has been established with a remote telephone 22 and that therefore the building is unoccupied.

The control unit 30 also includes an intercom facility 48 and the control circuit is capable of switching the system between a first mode in which the selected dial- up number may be dialled upon actuation of the bell push 14, and a second mode in which intercom voice communication may be established between the door-bell unit 10 and the intercom facility 48. Where the remote telephone is provided with a display screen and caller ID, the user will be fore-warned that the call has been triggered by operation of the entry communication system and will therefore be able to respond accordingly.

The door-bell unit 10 also includes a camera 56 and the control circuitry also includes means 58 for relaying a still picture or video captured by the camera 56 to the remote telephone 22. The system also includes a 6-sound wireless FM door chime device 50, located within the building and adapted to chime whenever the bell push is operated.

The control unit 30 is provided with additional facilities, including the ability to call selected numbers, when triggered to do so by the occupant, and to transmit location details. This could be advantageous when calling the police or security services in the event e.g. of an intruder. Also, the system can be programmed to call a taxi service, again with the provision of location details. These additional facilities are beneficial should the occupant be unable to communicate by voice.

Claims

1. An entry communication system comprising:

(i) a door-bell unit (10) for positioning on or adjacent a door of a secure location, the unit having a bell push (14), a microphone (16) and a speaker (18); and

(ii) programmable control means comprising: a) a memory (20) for storing the dial-up number(s) of at least one remote telephone (22); b) dialling means (24) for dialling a selected dial-up number from the memory (20), in response to the bell push (14) being actuated by a caller, thereby to establish two-way voice communication between the door-bell unit (10) and a selected remote telephone (22) associated with the dialled dial-up number; and c) means (28, 52) for preventing ring tones, triggered by the dialling of the selected remote telephone (22), from being broadcast through the door-bell unit speaker (18).

2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein part or all of said control means is contained within a control unit (30) for positioning within the secure location.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the control unit (30) is in operative connection with the door bell unit (10) by hard wiring (34) or by wireless connection, such as via a Bluetooth connection.

4. The system according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the door-bell unit (10) includes an amplifier (26).

5. The system according to any one of claims 2 to 4, wherein said control unit (30) includes a microphone (36).

6. The system according to claim 5, further comprising means to establish an audio connection between the selected remote telephone (22) and the control unit (30), to enable the user of the selected remote telephone (22) to monitor activity within the secure location.

7. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the selected remote telephone is a mobile phone (22).

8. The system according to any preceding claim, further comprising a line-of- sight remote control device (38) for programming the control means.

9. The system according to any preceding claim wherein said control means is programmable to cause a second selected dial-up number to be dialed in the event that communication between the door-bell unit (10) and a first selected remote telephone (22) cannot be established.

10. The system according to any preceding claim, further comprising a door lock (40) and wherein said control means includes means for operating the door lock (40) upon receipt of a predetermined signal from the selected remote telephone (22).

1 1. The system according to any preceding claim, wherein said control means further comprises a noise generator (42) for broadcasting white noise through the speaker (18) of the door-bell unit (10) when voice communication between the door-bell unit (10) and the selected remote telephone (22) has been established, thereby to give the caller the impression of intercom-like communication with an occupier of the secure location.

12. The system according to any preceding claim, wherein the white noise is indicative of background noise within the secure location.

13. The system according to claim 12, wherein the control means includes means (44) for recording background noise from within the secure location and the noise generator (42) includes means (46) for broadcasting the recorded background noise.

14. The system according to any preceding claim, wherein the control means is programmable to operate such that, if voice communication between the bell push (14) unit and the selected remote telephone (22) cannot be established, any consequentially triggered signals indicative of a busy line, of a non-operating condition of the selected remote telephone (22) or of voice-mail availability are suppressed from being broadcast.

15. The system according to any preceding claim, wherein said means (28) for preventing the ring tones of the selected remote telephone (22) from being broadcast are constituted by means to ensure that the voice communication from the selected remote telephone (22) to the bell push (14) unit is not established until after any ring tones have been generated.

16. The system according to any preceding claim, further comprising an intercom facility (48) for positioning within the secure location and means for switching the system between a first mode in which the selected dial-up number is dialled upon actuation of the bell push (14), and a second mode in which intercom voice communication is established between the door-bell unit (10) and said intercom facility (48).

17. The system according to claims 2 and 16 wherein said intercom facility (48) is part of said control unit (30).

18. The system according to any preceding claim wherein the door-bell unit (10) further comprises a camera (56) and the control means further comprises means (58) for relaying a still picture or video captured by said camera (56) to the remote telephone (22).

19. The system according to any preceding claim, wherein the secure location is a building or part of a building.

20. The system according to any preceding claim, further comprising a door chime device (50), adapted to chime whenever the bell push is operated.