JPH06174860A - Alarm clock - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an alarm clock which provides a high-grade alarm and has a long-life battery. CONSTITUTION:An alarm timepiece is provided with a first alarm means 1 comprising a false sound generating circuit 1a, an amplifier 1b and a speaker 1c, etc., a second alarm portion 2 lower in power consumption than the first alarm means 1 and comprising a 'Beep' generating circuit 2d and a piezoelectric buzzer 2a, etc., and a voltage detecting circuit 3 for detecting the voltage of a battery 3a used as the power source of the first and second alarm means 1, 2. A control portion 4 normally produces an alarm using the first alarm means 1 in response to the output of the voltage detecting circuit 3. When the voltage detecting circuit 3 detects a voltage lower than a predetermined value the alarm is produced using the second alarm means 2 in place of the first alarm means 1.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an alarm clock.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Currently commercially available alarm clocks include an onomatopoeia generation device and an amplifier which read out the onomatopoeia data such as voices stored in a ROM according to a reference clock at the alarm time and sequentially perform D / A conversion and output. Also, there are those that generate an artificial sound as an alarm sound using a speaker, and those that generate an buzzer sound or the like by a piezoelectric buzzer upon receiving an output from an oscillator divided by a frequency dividing circuit at an alarm time. The former is characterized by high-quality sound, and the alarm time is announced by singing wild birds and playing a melody, while the latter is characterized by economic efficiency and informs the alarm time by a simple buzzer sound. It can be used for a long time by replacing the battery once.

[0003]

However, the former uses the artificial sound generating device, the amplifier and the speaker as the source of the alarm sound, and consumes more power than the latter, so that the cycle of battery replacement is short and the economy is low. There is a problem in terms of.

The latter is superior in power consumption but inferior in sound quality, and both the former and the latter have advantages and disadvantages.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a sound alarm timepiece having both high quality sound and a long battery life.

[0006]

[Means for Solving the Problems] First sounding means and first sounding means
Second sounding means having lower power consumption than the sounding means, detecting means for detecting the voltage of a battery used as a power source for the first sounding means and the second sounding means, and an output of the detecting means. Accordingly, the above-described object is achieved by providing a control means for selectively using the first sounding means and the second sounding means to perform a warning sound.

The control means normally causes the first sounding means to make a sound, and when the detecting means detects a value lower than a predetermined voltage value, the second sounding means replaces the first sounding means.
It is preferable to control so as to generate an alarm sound by using the sound generating means.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An alarm clock according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of this embodiment. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a first sounding means, a ROM for controlling data of onomatopoeia such as wild bird singing used as an alarm sound, and D An onomatopoeia generation circuit 1a including an A / A converter, an amplifier 1b, and a speaker 1c. The first sounding means 1 has the same structure as a sounding unit used in an alarm timepiece which currently uses a pseudo sound as an alarm sound, which is generally commercially available, and consumes a current of 40 m.
It is about A.

Reference numeral 2 is a second sounding means, which is a piezoelectric buzzer 2.
a, a capacitor 2b connected in parallel therewith, transistors 2c and B for opening and closing the power supply line to the piezoelectric buzzer 2a
It comprises an eeep sound generating circuit 2d. Beep sound generation circuit 2
For example, d intermittently generates a rectangular wave of several KHz, and this output turns on and off the transistor 2c to cause the piezoelectric buzzer 2a to generate a beep sound. The current consumption of the second sounding means is about 1 mA.

Reference numeral 3 is a voltage detection circuit as a detection means, which is composed of a comparison circuit and the like, and comprises a first sounding means 1 and a second sound generation means.
The voltage of the battery 3a used as the power source of the sound generating means 2 is detected, and when the voltage becomes lower than the threshold value, the output is changed from "1" to "0".

Reference numeral 4a is a timekeeping section, which measures the current time. Reference numeral 4b is a display unit for displaying the current time measured by the time measuring unit 4a by moving a pointer with an analog clock or the like or by digital display on a liquid crystal display device or the like. An input unit 4c is provided with input switches for time adjustment, alarm time setting, stop of alarm sound, and the like. An alarm time storage unit 4d stores the alarm time.

Reference numeral 4 is a control unit, which is a CPU, RAM, RO
A clock generator 4 composed of M etc. and a crystal oscillator etc.
It receives the clock signal from e and controls the entire device.
Further, the control unit 4 includes an AND gate an1 and an AND gate a.
A control means is configured with n2 and the inverter In.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described.

Now, the current time is displayed on the display unit 4b, and the alarm time is set in advance on the input unit 4c.
It is assumed that the alarm time is stored in the alarm time storage unit 4d. At this time, the control unit 4 always keeps the timekeeping unit 4
The current time measured by a is compared with the alarm time stored in the alarm time storage unit 4d.
When the current time to be counted of is coincident with the alarm time, the coincidence signal "1" is output to the terminal A.

The coincidence signal is generated by AND gate an1 and
The voltage is output to the AND gate an2 and also to the voltage detection circuit 3 to operate it. The voltage detection circuit which receives the coincidence signal detects the voltage of the battery 3a, compares the detected value with a threshold value of a predetermined voltage, and the detected value is higher than the threshold value, that is, the life of the battery 3a has a margin. If there is, "1" is output, and if it is below the threshold value, that is, if the life of the battery 3a is very short, "0" is output. The threshold value is appropriately determined according to the characteristics of the voltage with respect to the usage time of the battery used as the power source. The output of the voltage detection circuit 3 is output to the AND gate an1 and the AND gate an2 via the inverter, and the AND gate an1 opens with respect to the output “1” of the voltage detection circuit to output the coincidence signal from the control unit 4. Output and AND to output "0"
The gate an2 opens and outputs a coincidence signal.

That is, when the voltage of the battery 3a is higher than the threshold value, the coincidence signal "1" is output to the first sounding means 1 via the AND gate an1. As a result, the onomatopoeia circuit 1a is activated, the onomatopoeia data is sequentially read from the ROM, D / A converted by the D / A converter, and output. This is reproduced as an artificial sound by the amplifier 1b and the speaker 1c. As a result, an onomatopoeia such as a beautiful wild bird singing is played as an alarm sound.

At this time, in the first sounding means 1, the amplifier 1
Since b is used, a current value of 40 mA is required.

On the other hand, the battery life becomes short and the battery 3
When the voltage of a becomes equal to or lower than the threshold value, the coincidence signal "1" is output to the second sounding means 2 via the inverter In and the AND gate an2. As a result, the beep sound generation circuit 2d is activated to intermittently generate a rectangular wave of several KHz,
Piezoelectric buzzer 2a by turning on and off the transistor 2c
Generates a beep sound and notifies the alarm time.
The second sounding means 2 consumes a current value of about 1 mA, and can generate an alarm sound with lower power consumption than the first sounding means 1.

As described above, the present invention is based on the voltage detection circuit 3
When the battery voltage is detected by, and the life of the battery has a margin according to the detected value, the first sounding means 1 plays an onomatopoeia, notifies the alarm time, and the battery life is very short. The second sounding means 2 which consumes far less power than the first sounding means 1 emits a beep sound to inform the alarm time. For this reason, usually, the alarm time is reported with a high-quality sound by making an onomatopoeic sound, and even when the battery life is short, the second sounding means 2 generates an alarm sound with a small power consumption. , It is possible to generate an alarm sound without causing problems such as the volume reduction of the alarm sound due to the voltage drop of the battery or the stoppage of the alarm sound generation like the alarm clock using the onomatopoeia that is generally available on the market. .

Further, the alarm sound is replaced by a beep sound instead of an onomatopoeia, which also serves as a notification that the battery replacement time is approaching.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the first sound generating means 1 and the second sound generating means 2 have onomatopoeic generation circuits 1a and 1B, respectively.
Although an independent sound source such as an eeep sound generation circuit 2d is provided,
The same effect can be obtained by providing the onomatopoeia generation circuit 1a in the preceding stage of the terminal A shown in FIG. 1 and using it as a common sound source for the first sounding means 1 and the second sounding means 2. In this case, at the alarm time, the coincidence signal “1” is directly transmitted to the onomatopoeia generation circuit 1
It is output to a and activates it. Here, the voltage of the battery 3a is higher than the threshold value and the output of the voltage detection circuit 3 is "1".
, The output of the onomatopoeia generation circuit 1a is AND gate an
1 is output to the amplifier 1b, an artificial sound is played, the voltage of the battery 3a is equal to or lower than the threshold value, and the output of the voltage detection circuit 3 is “0”, the output of the artificial sound generation circuit 1a is the inverter In. Also, the transistor 2c is turned on and off via the AND gate an2 to generate an alarm sound from the piezoelectric buzzer 2a.

Although the present invention is applied to the alarm clock in the above-described embodiment, the present invention is not limited to the alarm time reporting, but may be used for the hour reporting.

[0024]

According to the present invention, the alarm sound timepiece is provided with the first sounding means and the second sounding means, and the detecting means for detecting the voltage of the battery as the power source. When the detection means detects a value lower than a predetermined voltage value, the second sounding means, which consumes less power than the first sounding means, is used instead of the first sounding means to sound the sound. Since the sounding is performed, the first sounding means can sound the sound by the second sounding means even if the voltage value drops to such an extent that the sound cannot be sounded, and the battery is used efficiently. Extends the battery replacement cycle and is economically effective. In particular, as the first sounding means, the onomatopoeic data such as the voice stored in the ROM is sequentially read according to the reference clock,
When an onomatopoeia generator that reads out, D / A converts and outputs, and a device that produces an onomatopoeia using an amplifier and a speaker is used, an alarm clock that provides both high-quality sound and economy is provided. It becomes possible.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an alarm clock according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 1st sounding means 2 2nd sounding means 3 Detection means 4 Control means

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A first sounding means, a second sounding means consuming less power than the first sounding means, and a voltage of a battery used as a power source for the first sounding means and the second sounding means. And a control means for making a sound by selectively using the first sounding means and the second sounding means according to the output of the detecting means. 2. The control means usually outputs a sound by using the first sounding means, and when the detecting means detects a value lower than a predetermined voltage value, the second sounding means replaces the first sounding means. The alarm clock according to claim 1, wherein the alarm sound is produced by using the sounding means.