Home control system and interphone system

• US 4,665,544 A
• Filed: 09/04/1985
• Issued: 05/12/1987
• Est. Priority Date: 09/05/1984
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Inventors: Honda, Yoshiyuki, Minagawa, Yoshiji, Uemura, Kazuho, Inoue, Masahiro, Esaki, Mitsunobu
• Primary Examiner(s): Rubinson, Gene Z.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Schuster, David R.
• Application Number:
  US06/772,580
• Time in Patent Office: 615 Days
• Field of Search: 179/2 A, 179/2 R
• US Class Current: 379/102.03
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/2642 Domotique, domestic, home control, automation, smart house
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/1418 Removal detected by failure in electrical connection between the appliance and a control centre, home control panel or a power supply
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 19/00 Alarms responsive to two or more different undesired or abnormal conditions, e.g. burglary and fire, abnormal temperature and abnormal rate of flow
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/08 using communication transmission lines G08B13/19658, G08B21/0286, G08B25/016 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2803 Home automation networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/282 based on user interaction within the home receiver circuitry for displaying additional information being controlled by a remote control apparatus H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2838 Distribution of signals within a home automation network, e.g. involving splitting/multiplexing signals to/from different paths adaptations of television systems for transmission by electric cable for domestic distribution H04N7/106; hybrid transport H04L12/6418; home network arrangements specially adapted for distribution of digital video signals H04N7/24
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2845 Telephone line
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/00 Telephonic communication systems specially adapted for combination with other electrical systems

Abstract

A home control system includes a pair or plural pairs of home information transmission path (referred to as home bus); information outlets provided at the home bus which serve as connection nodes for appliances; and a plurality of room monitor controllers (hereinafter referred to as RMC) each having a built-in interface unit which has a control function element peculiar to respective rooms and carries out communication control between the information outlets and the appliances.

Claims

1. A home control system for the prevention of theft and fire in rooms and for the control of appliances installed in each room, comprising:

(a) home information transmission paths connecting the rooms,

(b) connection means attached to said home information transmission paths for connecting the applicances and the like to said transmission paths, and

(c) a plurality of monitor controllers, having interface units and connectable to said information transmission paths, installed in selected rooms for transmitting and receiving information between one another along the transmission paths through the connection means, and controlling the appliances while monitoring conditions of the rooms and out-putting signals in accordance with the conditions, and wherein;

(1) one of said monitor controllers operates as a parent controller of other of said monitor controllers,

(2) the parent controller has means for communicating with the selected ones of said monitor controllers which are connected with the parent controllers by way of said information transmission paths, one by one in an order of predetermined addresses and at a repeated frequency, whereby the parent controller recognizes and monitors each of the other of said monitor controllers connected to the system, and

(3) the parent controller having register means for registering the other of said controllers recognized and monitored by the present controller and automatically registering new monitor controllers added to the system.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said communicating means recognizes and monitors the other of said controllers at each cycle of said repeated frequency, whereby said register means is updated to add or delete monitor controllers added to or deleted from the system.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the parent controller includes means for transmitting response-demanding signals in the order of said predetermined addresses to the other of said controllers, said parent controller also including means for determining if each of said other controllers is connected to the system or not by the existence or non-existence of response from the other of said controllers.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the registering means of said parent controller includes means for adding to said registering means a new monitor controller connected to the system and not previously registered, when receiving an indication of abnormality in a room transmitted from said new monitor controller to said parent controller.

5. A control system for the prevention of theft and fire in a plurality of rooms and also for the connecting of selected ones of said rooms by interphones, comprising:

(a) home information transmission paths connecting the rooms,

(b) connection means attached to said information transmission paths for connecting the paths to a corresponding interphone, and

(c) an innerface unit connected to each interphone in said selected rooms, each interface unit further being connected to the information transmission path through said connecting means; and

wherein,

(1) one of said interphones operates as a parent interphone to the other interphones in the system,

(2) a recognition means included in said parent interphone for communicating through said information transmission paths, with the other of said interphones one by one in accordance with predetermined addresses and at a predetermined frequency in order to recognize said other interphones connected to said system, and

(3) registering means included in said parent interphone for registering said other interphones recoginized by said recognition means and communicating with said other interphones having been registered.