Room occupancy fire alarm indicator means and method
First Claim
1. A method of setting a fire alarm in a building having a number of rooms, each room having a fire sensor adapted to provide an indication of whether there is a fire in the room, said method comprising determining if fire indications have been provided for one or more rooms, and if fire indications have been set for more than one room then immediately providing a fire alarm, but if a fire indication has been provided for only one room, then providing a fire alarm only if said fire indication continues for a short selected period of time, thereby to reduce the likelihood of false alarms.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Rooms in a building each have a heating, ventilating and air conditioning system (HVAC), a room control unit having a temperature controller, and various sensors. The control unit monitors the presence of persons in the room, determines the season, sets back the temperature in an empty room by a variable amount which the HVAC can restore in a given time, and restores the temperature to the previous user request when the user returns but to a standard temperature if the user has newly checked in. An outside hallway panel briefly displays, when interrogated by a maid, a person'"'"'s presence. By monitoring maid requests, door status and maid activity, the unit indicates on a room map whether the room is being cleaned, clean, or ready to rent. By establishing the heat loss/gain (l/g) factor of a room with the HVAC off and comparing it with the time to heat or cool the room, HVAC failures are determined. By comparing a room'"'"'s l/g factor with those of its neighbors, room environment failures are determined. A fire alarm is displayed immediately if more than one unit or more than one sensor reports fire; otherwise a fire alarm display is delayed briefly to reduce false alarms. Fire spreading is displayed on a screen room map showing in red rooms over a certain temperature. For fire, the hallway panels indicate those rooms where a person is present.
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Citations
14 Claims
- 1. A method of setting a fire alarm in a building having a number of rooms, each room having a fire sensor adapted to provide an indication of whether there is a fire in the room, said method comprising determining if fire indications have been provided for one or more rooms, and if fire indications have been set for more than one room then immediately providing a fire alarm, but if a fire indication has been provided for only one room, then providing a fire alarm only if said fire indication continues for a short selected period of time, thereby to reduce the likelihood of false alarms.
- 6. A method of indicating to firefighting and other personnel whether a room is occupied in a building having a plurality of rooms, each room having presence sensing means therein to sense the presence or absence of a person in said room, there being a passage area outside but immediately adjacent each room, said building having a fire alarm, there being an indicating light in said passage area immediately adjacent each room, said method comprising determining when said fire alarm has been operated, and if said fire alarm has been operated, then operating said indicating lights outside those rooms in which a person is present to indicate to a person in said passage area the presence of a person in said room.
- 13. A method of indicating the presence or absence of persons in a group of rooms, each room having means for determining the presence of a person therein, said method comprising displaying on a screen a map of said rooms with each room identified by its number, indicating on said map each room where a person is present by differentiating the display for such room from the display of rooms where no person is present, and including the step, if there is a fire in a room, of further displaying an indication of said fire in the display for such room, so that both presence and fire are indicated on the same screen.
Specification