CA2061616A1 - Door answering interconnect system utilising either an inside intercom or radio-communication system or a public or private subscriber telephone network, interconnected to an outside or entrance-hall intercom system, including video retrans ission possibilities - Google Patents

Abstract

A B S T R A C T

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. When the building occupant is on the premises, he can either answer directly at the door or through the inside intercom. If the occupant is absent, the said link, after being set to OPTION I or OPTION 2 stand-by status by the building occupant before leaving the building, will automatically be switched on every time a visitor will ring the outside bell. When a visitor does ring the outside bell, ...OPTION 1. an easely recognizable tone-signal is automatically transmitted through the radio-communication system.
The answering party , with his first transmission on his radio, automatically establishes the audio path to the outside speaker with the visitor. The conversation will then occur back and forth using either simplex VOX, simplex sampling or half-duplex modes technology, as programed by the answering party, as if through a normal intercom system. When the conversation is over and the visitor leaves, the audio path between the radio-communication system and the outside speaker is automatically cut after one to 5 minutes of radio silence from the answering party. ...OPTION 2.
An automatic dial-up operation is initiated via a public or private subscriber telephone network to a unique telephone number pre-programmed by the building occupant before leaving the premises.
The pre-programmed phone number could be a cellular phone or any other phone number of a location where the individual expects to be present within a short period of time or the number of another trusted person who would know how to handle the call properly. When his phone rings, the answering party will hear a caracteristic "DING-DONG-like" tone that will be transmitted on the phone line by the said communications interconnect control-board, alerting the answering party that someone is at the door. Depending on how the system was programed, the answering party will either automatically have audio path to the outside intercom at the door or he will then transmit a "*" using any "touch-Tone" telephone key-pad, thereby allowing audio from the answering party to be heard by the visiting party. From that moment on, a normal phone-like two-way communication will be established between the answering party and the visiting party, through the subscriber telephone network, via the outside intercom. The control-board will be designded so that DTMF (Touch Tones) will never be heard by the visitor, thereby making him beleive that he is talking to someone inside and not to someone on the phone. Interesting security feature, isn't it? Since the answering party is not present on the premises, he would then find some excuse as to why he cannot actualy go to the door and would then suggest to the visitor that they could meet at some other time or talk on the phone later. The outside intercom audio could be temporarily muted if needed by the answering party through the use of other DTMF "Touch-tone" codes. Once the conversation is completed, the answering party then transmits the "#" on his "Touch-Tone" key-pad, thereby inducing hang-up of the phone line on the side of the visitor. If the answering party omits to transmit the "#", the line will be automatically hung-up by the control-board after a short while. The control-board on location will be remotely programmable through the phone line as long as the phone line is not in "call-forwarding" mode to another phone

Description

S P E C I F I C ~ T I 0 N

This invention is a communication interconnect means by which ~ building occupant, whether residential or comnercial, will be able to answer a visitor at his door whether the answering party his present or absent from the premises, through either an inside intercom on the premises or a r~dio-communication system or through the subscriber telephone network, the said communication interconnect means being designed in such a way that the visitor will have no possibility of knowing that he is actualy talking to someone ~w~y from the premises.
The intercom systems presently in use for the purpose of answering a visitor at the door can only be used while the building occupant is present on the premises. Therefore9 it has been widely known that potenti~l burglars will co~e to a building and ring the bell and w~it for someone to ans~er simply to confirm the presence or the absence of people on the pre~ises in order to know if they are safe or not to engage in their mischief. It is therefore obvious that those intercom systems are ineffective to oeter such potential wrongdoers from ~cting when the building occup~nt is absent from the premises. This is why it has been proposed that an interconnect control-board circuitry be devised in s~ch a w~y that would make it possible for a building occupant or any other trusted answering p2rty that would know how to handle the c~ll to answer a visitor at his door from practically anywhere in the world, either through the public subscriber telephone network or any private telephone network, or through ~ny private or commercial radio-communication syste~, as well as through ~n already eKisting inside intercom system. This invention will thereby greatly improve the security of the premises and will also make the building occupant easier to reach by his visitors, ~n aspect of this invention th~t could often make the difference betw~en success and f~ilure in all kinds of endeavours, ~usiness or othQrwise.

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Claims (15)

1. A discreet communications interconnect system between the visitor to a building, residential or commercial, and the building occupant, whether he be present in or absent from the building, through an inside intercom or through the subscriber telephone network, or through a private or commercial two-way radio-communication system, via an outside or entrance hall intercom, all of which would be controled by an inside programmable control-board.

2. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claim 1, that will behave in such a manner that the visitor will not be able to know that the person answering him is actualy quite a distance away from the premises, speaking through a telephone system or through a radio-communication systems thereby making the visitor beleive that he or she is talking to someone inside the building and thereby discouraging potential unlawfull access to the premises.

3. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 and 2, that will, when a visitor rings the door bell, if preset to OPTION 1, automatically interconnect the intercom located at the door to a radio-communication system, using either simplex VOX, simplex sampling or half-duplex modes technology as programed by the answering party, thereby allowing intercom-like two-way conversation between the visitor and the answering party.

4. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 3, that will, when a visitor rings the door bell, if preset to OPTION 1, automatically disconnect the intercom located at the door from the radio-communication system 1 to 5 minutes after the last transmission from the answering party, as per program pre-established by answering party.

5. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims I through 4, that will, whether beeing used in preset OPTION 1 or OPTION 2, be interconnectable to any existing or pre-installed exterior or interior door or entrance-hall intercom system.

6. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 5, that will, when a visitor rings the door bell, if preset to OPTION 2, automatically perform a dial-up operation, in either DTMF "Touch-Tone" or "Pulse" code technique, via any public or private subscriber telephone network to a phone number previously programmed on the control-board by the building occupant before leaving the premises, thereby allowing two-way phone-like conversation between the visitor speaking through the outside intercom at the door and the answering party on the phone.

7. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 6, that will, when a visitor rings the door bell, if preset to OPTION 2., control the audio path between the answering party on the telephone network line and the visitor at the outside intercom through the use of DTMF "Touch-Tones" digits encoders and decoders, unless the building occupant decides to use the fully automatic feature on that aspect of the control-board.

8. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 7, that will, if being used as per OPTION 2 settings, include an analogic voice delay of 50 miliseconds or more on the audio coming from the answering party on the telephone network line in order to compensate the 40 miliseconds delay taken by the DTMF "Touch-Tone" decoder, thereby ensuring that the visitor will not hear the DTMF "Touch-Tones" over his intercom and thereby giving no clue to the visitor that he is actually talking to someone outside of the premises.

9. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 8, that will, whether preset to OPTION 1 or OPTION 2 always be on stand by status on the telephone network line, "listening" so that if the phone rings, it will automatically unhook the line and "listen" for control DTMF "Touch-Tones" which will be confirmed back automatically by the control-board on the phone line by a synthetized voice, for remote programming purposes, inasmuch as the telephone line connected to the control board of this communications interconnect system is NOT in call-forward to another number.

10. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 9, that will also alow retransmission of video signals from an outside video camera through compatible local or distant transmission cabling and receiving facilities.

11. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 10, that will be equiped with "Current Surge Protectors" on all its exterior connection ports.

12. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 11 that will not be hindered in any of its functions whether the visitor rings only once or numerous times per visit.

13. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 12 that will, when set in the "present" status, automatically link existing inside intercom, if any, to the outside intercom.

14. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 13 that will include a CPU chip as its main control component.

15. A discreet communications interconnect system as claimed in claims 1 through 14 that will allow a multiple access building to have all its outside intercoms connected to the same control board and be answered on a first-entrance-door-ring-first-linked access basis.
In relation to the drawings that are illustrating the realisation of this invention,-FIGURE 1 represents the different options available to the building occupant to answer is visitor whether the answering party is on or away from the premises.
FIGURE 2 represents the various user-friendly programming controls and connection ports accessable to the building occupant for easy and rapid installation.

The visitor, fig.1(1), comes to the door and rings the bell, fig.1(2). If the building occupant is "present", his control-board, fig.1(4), Status switch, fig.2(2), being set to the "present"
position, he either goes to the door and answers in person or he answers through his interior intercom system, fig.1(5), fig.1(8), via the outside intercom, fig.1(3), at the door.

If the building occupant wants to leave and wishes to use his radio-communication system, fig.1(6), in conjonction with his door answering interconnect system, fig.1(4), he would first set the 1 to 5 minute time-out timer inside the control-board to his liking, he would then set the Link-Option switch, fig.2(3), to OPTION 1 position, the Mode switch, fig.2(4), to the appropriate position to ensure compatibility with the sppecifics of his radio-communication system, and the "Status" switch, fig.2(2), to the "absent" position. When the visitor, fig.1(1), rings the door bell, fig.1(2) a caracteristic tone-signal will be transmitted to the answering party's radio-com. unit, fig.1(9). He will then be able to tall, back and forth to his visitor by radio via the outside intercom , fig.1(3), at the door until the exchange is over. The radio-link will automatically disconnect after 1 to 5 minutes of radio silence.

If the building occupant wants to leave and wishes to be reached on his cellular phone or at another predetermined phone number, fig.1(10), of any private or public telephone network, fig.1(7) by a eventual visitor, fig.1(1), via the outside intercom system, fig.1(3), at the door, he sets the Link-Option switch, fig.2(3), to OPTION 2 position, the "Touch-Tone"-"Pulse" switch, fig.2(6) to the desired setting, the "Audio-Path" switch, fig.2(5), to the desired setting, he programs the destination phone number on the "key-pad", fig.2(8), making certain from the digital display, fig.2(7), that he has in fact programmed the right number.
He then sets the "Status" switch, fig.2(2), to the "absent"
position and he is ready to go. When the visitor, fig.1(1), rings the door bell, fig.1(2), the pre-programmed phone number is automatically dialed by the "control-board". fig.1(4). The answering party, fig.1(10), answers the phone not yet knowing who the calling party is. He then hears a caracteristic "DING-DONG"
like tone over the phone. If the control board is set to "Automatic audio path" the communication is automatically established with the visitor. If the control board is set to "DTMF Touch-Tone audio path", the answering party then transmits the "*" digit on the telephone "touch-Tone" key-pad, thereby establishing audio path with the visitor. The conversation can then take place in a normal phone-like manner. The conversation can be muted and unmuted at will by the answering party by again transmitting the "*" digit on the telephone "Touch-Tone" key-pad. When completed, the comunication is automatically terminated by hang-up from the answering party if the "control board" "audio path" switch, fig.2(5), is set to "automatic" position, or it will be terminated by the answering party when he transmits the "#" digit on the "Touch-Tone" key-pad of his telephone and then hanging-up, if the "audio-path" switch is set to the "DTMF Touch-Tone" position.

If the control board has been set to the "Absent" "Status" and to the OPTION 2 telephone link, and if the building occupant is away from the premises anywhere in reach of a "Touch-Tone"
telephone connected to the telephone network, he can at will change the destination phone number programmed on the control board by simply calling the phone number of the line connected to the control board, wait for the "unhooked signal" and tranmit the new phone number using the "Touch-Tone" key-pad of the phone. The new destination phone number will be confirmed back on the phone line by a "Voice-Synthesizer" in the control-board, after which the line will automatically be hung-up. This feature will obviously not be available if the phone number of the line connected to the control board happens to be in "Call-Forwarding" mode to another number.

One should of course make sure that the main power switch, fig2.(1), is always "ON", unless the system is not being used.

Outside connections from the control board, fig.2(9), 2(10), 2(11), 2(12), 2(13) and 2(14) are designed to alow easy trouble free installation.