TWO WAY VOICE COMMUNICATION THROUGH GSM WITH ALARM COMMUNICATION

• US 20110065414A1
• Filed: 09/15/2009
• Published: 03/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tyco Fire & Security GmbH (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Original Assignee: Tyco Safety Products Canada Limited (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Inventors: Frenette, Stephan, Patel, Jitendra
• Granted Patent: US 8,396,446 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/404.1
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/004 Alarm propagated along alternative communication path or using alternative communication medium according to a hierarchy of available ways to communicate, e.g. if Wi-Fi not available use GSM
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/006 Alarm destination chosen according to type of event, e.g. in case of fire phone the fire service, in case of medical emergency phone the ambulance
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/14 Multichannel or multilink protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/04 with alarm systems, e.g. fire, police or burglar alarm systems

Abstract

An alarm system senses alarm conditions on a premises, reports the occurrence of an alarm condition to a remote monitoring facility and for selected alarm conditions establishes two way voice communications with a person at the monitored premises or elsewhere. Multiple modes of communication are available such as public switched telephone (audio or audio modulated data), GSM (cellular audio), GPRS (cellular packet data), GSM/SMS (cellular text), etc. The programmed processor selects the network and communication protocol to rely on data communications if only data reporting is required. When two way voice communications will be required, the processor can select a network (e.g., GSM) that can be used for both data and audio communications.

Claims

1. An alarm system for protecting a premises in conjunction with a remote service, comprising:

at least one sensor located at the premises, the sensor producing a sensor signal indicative of an alarm condition;

an alarm controller coupled to the sensor, the alarm controller comprising a processor coupled to a memory, the processor configured to determine whether or not a respective alarm condition requires a two way voice communication with the remote service based on information stored in the memory associated with the respective alarm condition;

a communications interface coupled between the controller and at least one communications network, wherein the communications interface is responsive to the controller to transmit an alarm reporting signal to the remote service over the communications network, and wherein at least for an alarm condition that does not require said two way voice communications, the alarm reporting signal comprises a reporting message.

2. The alarm system of claim 1, wherein the reporting message identifies the alarm condition and the premises.

3. The alarm system of claim 1, wherein the reporting message is transmitted to the remote service using one of addressing and identifying indicia identifying the alarm condition and the premises.

4. The alarm system of claim 1, wherein the reporting message is transmitted to the remote service using one of a TCP/IP network, a text message network, and modulation of one of an audio frequency and radio frequency network.

5. The alarm system of claim 4, wherein the reporting message is transmitted using a Groupe Spé

cial Mobile Short Message Service (GSM/SMS) protocol on a wireless data communication network.

6. The alarm system of claim 5, further comprising at least one telephone receiver set disposed at the premises, and wherein the communications interface is configured to bridge the telephone receiver set into voice communications with the remote service after reporting an alarm condition that requires said two way voice communications.

7. The alarm system of claim 4, wherein the reporting message is transmitted as a digital message on a network that is capable of carrying two way voice communication, the system further comprising at least one telephone receiver set disposed at the premises, and wherein the communications interface is configured to engage the telephone receiver set in voice communications with the remote service after reporting an alarm condition that requires said two way voice communications.

8. The alarm system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further operable to distinguish among alarm conditions that require operation of one of an audible and visible alarm signal at the premises.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the information pathways include GSM audio communications service, and at least one of GSM/SMS short message service and GSM/GPRS general packet radio service;

wherein the reporting is conducted over one of said GSM/SMS and GSM/GPRS services; and

wherein the voice communications are conducted over the GSM audio communications service.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the information pathways further include public switched telephone network PSTN service, and wherein the reporting is conducted by audio modulated signaling over a PSTN call connection and the voice communications are conducted by two way voice transmission over a same said PSTN call connection after said reporting.

9. A method for protecting a premises having an alarm system responsive to sensors on the premises, in conjunction with a monitoring facility, comprising:

distinguishing among multiple alarm conditions that can occur at the premises by associating with at least sonic of the alarm conditions a requirement to report respective said alarm conditions to the monitoring facility and associating with certain of the alarm conditions a requirement to attempt to establish voice communications between the monitoring facility and the premises when such certain alarm conditions are reported;

storing in one of a program of a control processor and a program memory associated with the control processor, an indication of a result of said distinguishing among multiple alarm conditions;

receiving at the control processor a signal from one of the sensors associated with one of the multiple alarm conditions;

determining from said one of the control processor and the program memory whether said one of the multiple alarm conditions requires an attempt to establish said voice communications;

for an alarm condition that requires said attempt to establish said voice communications, ranking multiple information transmission pathways between the monitoring facility and the premises, including with respect to capability to effect two way voice communications and data communications over a same connection;

determining which of the information pathways is available;

reporting the alarm condition and identifying the premises in a digital message over an available one of the information pathways selected by said ranking; and

,

establishing said voice communications over said one of the information pathways selected by the ranking.