JPH07212457A - Automatic answering telephone set - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an automatic answering telephone set capable of recording business messages on an interactive basis. CONSTITUTION:A response message is divided into plural small messages and stored and the small message are capable of being transmitted in an order from the head side. Then, for an incoming call at the time of an automatic answering recording mode, a control circuit 10 performs a series of control for letting the leading small message transmitted from a response message transmission circuit 6 first, letting the business message transmitted from an opposite party side thereafter recorded by a business recording circuit 7 and then letting the next small message transmitted from the response message transmission circuit 6 when the recording completion of the business message is detected by the presence/absence of voice by a voice signal detection circuit 8 until the last small message is transmitted and then the business message for the small message is recorded in the business recording circuit 7.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an answering machine which sends a response message to an incoming call in an answering machine recording mode and records a message message sent from the other party through a telephone line. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the recent diversification of life, telephones have come to have various functions in addition to the conventional simple call function. For example, an answering machine is extremely convenient for a person who tends to be away from home due to double-income work, which has been increasing rapidly in recent years, in that he / she can surely receive the requirements that were put on his / her absence. For that reason, answering machines have recently become rapidly popular in ordinary households.

This answering machine is usually provided with a recording section for recording a response message, so that in response to an incoming call in the answering machine recording mode, the response message recorded in this recording section is sent to the other party. Has become. After sending all the response messages, the message message sent from the other party is recorded in the message recording unit.

[0004]

As described above, in the conventional answering machine, after all the response messages are transmitted,
Since the message from the other party is recorded, after the response message is sent, it becomes a one-sided conversation with the talker on the other side, which is extremely difficult to speak. Also, if the phone you are trying to talk to is in answering machine recording mode and the sender did not anticipate at all, you do not know what to speak and you can hang up at that point. It often happens.
This is because the conventional answering machine has one-sided conversation with the talker on the other side as described above.

The present invention was devised to solve such a problem, and an object thereof is to provide an answering machine capable of interactively recording a message of a message.

[0006]

In order to solve the above problems, the answering machine of the present invention sends a response message to the other party in response to an incoming call in the answering machine recording mode and is sent from the other party through a telephone line. In an answering machine for recording a message to be received, a reply message sending circuit that divides the reply message into a plurality of small messages and stores them, and sends these small messages in order from the head side, A message recording circuit that records a message, a voice signal detection circuit that detects the presence or absence of a voice signal that is the message, and a small message at the beginning from the response message transmission circuit for an incoming call in the answering machine recording mode. And then record the message message sent from the other side by the message recording circuit. When the end of the recording of the message is detected by the presence / absence of voice by the voice signal detection circuit, a series of controls such as sending the next small message from the response message sending circuit is performed after sending the last small message. A control circuit for performing recording of a message for a message in the message recording circuit is provided.

[0007]

The response message sending circuit divides the reply message into a plurality of small messages and stores them, and also sends these small messages in order from the head side. Specifically, the response message storage unit is configured by an IC memory. Further, the recording unit for recording the message of the message recording circuit is also composed of the IC memory.

In the above structure, when the answering machine is set in the answering machine recording mode, if there is an incoming call through the telephone line, the control circuit controls the response message sending circuit for the incoming call and stores it in the storage section. Send a small message at the beginning of the message to the telephone line. The content of this small message at the beginning is, for example, a message such as "I am absent now. Please give me your name if you are in need." After the transmission of the small message at the beginning is completed, the control circuit controls the message recording circuit to enable the recording. Therefore, a message message sent from the other party (in this case, the message message containing only the name) is recorded by the message recording circuit. At this time, the message recording circuit confirms the end of the message and automatically stops the recording operation.
Such a function is a function normally provided in the conventional 1C recording.

On the other hand, in the voice signal detection circuit, when the end of the message is detected by the presence or absence of voice, a detection signal is sent to the control circuit. The control circuit controls the response message sending circuit again based on this detection signal,
Send a small message next to the beginning to the telephone line. The content of this small message is, for example, a message such as "Please have a message." The content of the next small message is, for example, a message such as "Please give us the telephone number of the contact.", And the content of the next small message is, for example, "Please contact us if you have any other contact information. . "And other messages. In the control circuit, such a series of controls is sent up to the last small message, and when the message for the last small message is recorded in the recording section of the message recording circuit, all the controls are terminated. That is, the answering machine returns to the standby state in the answering machine recording mode again.

If the other party hangs up during a call in the answering machine recording mode, the recording operation is terminated at that point, and the waiting state in the answering machine recording mode is restored again. As described above, in the answering machine of the present invention, the response message is divided into a plurality of small messages, and the small messages are sequentially transmitted from the beginning, thereby recording the message message in an interactive form with the talker on the other side. Is able to.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration of an answering machine of the present invention. In the figure, a speech network circuit 3 is connected via a hook switch 2 to a telephone line 1 for connecting to a telephone of the other party (not shown), and a speech circuit 4 is bidirectionally connected to the speech network circuit 3. It is connected. Further, a handset having a microphone and an earpiece (not shown) is bidirectionally connected to the communication circuit 4.

Further, the speech network circuit 3 includes
The output of the response message sending circuit 6 is connected, and the output of the speech network circuit 3 is connected to a message recording circuit 7 and a voice signal detecting circuit 8 for detecting the presence or absence of a voice signal which is a message. ing. An incoming call detection circuit 9 for detecting a ringing signal sent from the other party's telephone is connected to the telephone line 1, and the output of the incoming call detection circuit 9 is a control circuit 10 for controlling the operation of the entire telephone. It is connected to the.

A response message sending circuit 6 and a timer circuit 11 are bidirectionally connected to the control circuit 10, and the output of the control circuit 10 is a communication circuit 4, a message recording circuit 7, and a hook switch 2. And the switching control terminals of. The output of the audio signal detection circuit 8 is guided to the control circuit 10. The response message sending circuit 6 is configured to divide the response message into a plurality of small messages for storage and to send these small messages in order from the head side. Specifically, the response message storage unit is configured by an IC memory. In addition, as the contents of the response message, in this embodiment, the first small message is a message saying "I am absent now. Please give me your name." Message, the next small message is "Please give me the telephone number of the contact", and the last small message is "If you have any other messages, please." Has become.

Further, the recording unit for recording the message of the message recording circuit 7 is also IC like the memory of the response message.
It is composed of memory. In addition, the control circuit 10
Is configured to include software that operates on a computer. Although not shown in the figure, the message message recorded in the message recording circuit 7 can be appropriately reproduced from the built-in speaker. Further, the response message stored in the storage unit of the response message sending circuit 6 is not limited to the above-mentioned four divisions, and the content of the response message can be arbitrarily changed by the user.

Next, the operation of the answering machine having the above construction in the answering machine recording mode will be described with reference to the flow chart shown in FIG. When a call signal is sent through the telephone line 1 when the answering machine recording mode is set, this call signal is detected by the incoming call detection circuit 9, and the incoming call detection signal is sent to the control circuit 10. The control circuit 10
Based on this incoming call detection signal, the hook switch 2 is off-hooked to connect the telephone line 1 to the telephone (steps S1 and S2).

After that, the control circuit 10 controls the response message sending circuit 6 to send the first small message stored in the storage unit to the telephone line 1 (step S).
3). As a result, a reply message "I'm out of the office. Please give me your name if you want to use it." Is sent to the talker on the other side. After this, the control circuit 10
Controls the message recording circuit 7 after the transmission of the small message at the beginning to enable recording (step S).
4). On the other hand, the other party's talker sends a message such as “I am xx” to the telephone line 1 according to the instruction of the response message.

Therefore, when this message is input to the message recording circuit 7, the message recording circuit 7 receives it and starts recording, and the message (in this case, "I am xx
is. Message only) is recorded (step S
5, S6). The message recording circuit 7 confirms the end of the message and automatically stops the recording operation. The function of starting and stopping recording as described above is a function normally provided in the conventional IC recording.

On the other hand, the voice signal detection circuit 8 sends a detection signal to the control circuit 10 when the end of the message is detected by the presence or absence of voice (step S7). Based on this detection signal, the control circuit 10 controls the response message sending circuit 6 again to send a small message next to the beginning to the telephone line 1 (step S8). As a result, a response message "Please have a message." Is sent to the other party's talker. The other party's talker follows the instructions in this response message and reads "XXXXX ...
・. A message such as “” will be sent to the telephone line 1. Therefore, when this message is input to the message recording circuit 7, the message recording circuit 7 receives it and restarts recording, and records the message (step S).
9, S10).

On the other hand, the voice signal detection circuit 8 sends a detection signal to the control circuit 10 when the end of the message is detected by the presence or absence of voice (step S11).
At this time, the control circuit 10 confirms whether or not the sent small message is the last one. If the sent small message is not the last one, the control signal from the voice signal detection circuit 8 is sent. Based on the detection signal, the response message sending circuit 6 is controlled again to send the next small message to the telephone line 1 (step S8). As a result, a response message "Please give us the telephone number of the contact" is sent to the talker on the other side.

According to the instruction of the response message, the talker on the other side sends a message such as "the telephone number of the contact is XXXXX-XXXXX" to the telephone line 1. Become. Therefore, when this message is input to the message recording circuit 7, the message recording circuit 7 receives the message and starts recording again, and records the message (in this case, the telephone number of the contact). (Steps S9 and S10).

On the other hand, when the voice signal detection circuit 8 detects the end of the message according to the presence or absence of voice (step S11), it sends a detection signal to the control circuit 10.
At this time also, the control circuit 10 confirms whether or not the sent small message is the last one. If the sent small message is not the last one, the control circuit 10 sends the voice signal detection circuit 8 The response message sending circuit 6 is controlled again based on the detection signal of (1) to send the next small message (the last small message in this embodiment) to the telephone line 1 (step S8). As a result, a response message "Please contact me if you have any other message" is sent to the talker on the other side.

According to the instruction of this response message, the talker on the other side sends other contact information to the telephone line 1 as a message when necessary.
Therefore, when this message is input to the message recording circuit 7, the message recording circuit 7 receives the message and starts recording again, and records the message (in this case, other message) ( Steps S9 and S10). At this time also, the control circuit 10 confirms whether or not the sent small message is the last small message. In this case, since it is the last small message, after the recording of the message, the control message is finished. The recording operation is terminated, the hook switch 2 is turned on, and the standby state in the answering machine recording mode is restored again (step S13).

As a result, in the recording section of the message recording circuit 7, only the message message of the talker on the other side is continuously recorded in the order of "name, message, contact, other message". Will be. In addition, in step S5 and step S9, if the message is not sent,
At that point, the recording operation is terminated, the hook switch 2 is hooked on, and the standby state in the answering machine recording mode is restored again (step S13). As described above, in the answering machine of the present invention, the response message is divided into a plurality of small messages, and the small messages are sequentially transmitted from the beginning, thereby recording the message message in an interactive form with the talker on the other side. Is able to.

Note that the timer circuit 11, which is not always necessary in the present invention, determines that this is the end of the message even if the transmission of the message by the talker on the other side is interrupted for a moment. It is provided to avoid. That is, for example, 1 second to several seconds after the end of sending the message from the talker on the other side, the timer circuit 1
The next operation is not performed until the count is 1, so that a malfunction due to a momentary interruption of the message is prevented.

[0025]

The answering machine of the present invention divides the reply message into a plurality of small messages and stores them.
These small messages can be sent in order from the head side. Then, in response to an incoming call in the answering machine recording mode, the first small message is sent from the response message sending circuit, and then the message message sent from the other party is recorded by the message recording circuit, and this message message is recorded. When the end is detected by the presence / absence of voice by the voice signal detection circuit, a series of controls such as sending the next small message from the response message sending circuit is performed. Since it is configured to perform recording until the recording section of the message recording circuit, it is possible to record the message message in an interactive form with the talker on the other side. As a result, even a person who is unfamiliar with the answering machine can easily send the message. In addition, by adopting such an interactive form, the recorded contents for each message are recorded in a fixed order, so that there is an effect that it becomes very easy to hear when playing back and listening.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration of an answering machine of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart for explaining the operation of the answering machine of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 6 Response message sending circuit 7 Message recording circuit 8 Voice signal detection circuit 9 Incoming call detection circuit 10 Control circuit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An answering machine that sends a response message to an incoming call in an answering machine recording mode and records a message message sent from the other party through a telephone line. The response message sending circuit is capable of dividing and storing the small messages in order, and sending these small messages in order from the head side thereof, the message recording circuit for recording the message, and the message. A voice signal detection circuit that detects the presence or absence of a voice signal, and a small message at the beginning is sent from the response message sending circuit in response to an incoming call in the answering machine recording mode, and then a message message sent from the other party The message recording circuit records the message, and when the recording of this message is completed, the voice signal detection circuit detects Then, a series of controls such as sending the next small message from the response message sending circuit is performed until the message for the small message is recorded in the message recording circuit after sending the last small message. An answering machine, which is provided with a control circuit for performing the operation.