Digitized voice alerts

• US 9,883,001 B2
• Filed: 08/01/2016
• Issued: 01/30/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verna IP Holdings, LLC (Ortiz & Lopez PLLC)
• Original Assignee: Verna IP Holdings, LLC (Ortiz & Lopez PLLC)
• Inventors: Verna, Anthony, Ortiz, Luis M., Lopez, Kermit D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tweel, Jr., John A
• Application Number:
  US15/224,930
• Publication Number:
  US 20170034295A1
• Time in Patent Office: 547 Days
• Field of Search: 340945
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/02 Alarms for ensuring the safety of persons
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/012 using recorded signals, e.g. speech G08B25/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/10 using wireless transmission systems G08B25/009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18504 Aircraft used as relay or high altitude atmospheric platform
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/38 Arrangements for distribution where lower stations, e.g. receivers, interact with the broadcast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/105 Multiple levels of security
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/04 with alarm systems, e.g. fire, police or burglar alarm systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/042 Public Land Mobile systems, e.g. cellular systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]

Abstract

Methods, systems, and processor-readable media for providing instant/real-time voice alerts automatically to remote electronic devices. An activity can be detected utilizing one or more sensors. A text message indicative of the activity can be generated and converted into a digitized voice alert. The activity can also be a live utterance (e.g., a live announcement), which can then be instantly converted into a digitized voice alert for automatic delivery in a selected series of languages following the base language (e.g., English). The combined digitized voice alert can then be instantly transmitted through a network for broadcast of consecutive alerts (e.g., English followed by Spanish followed by Vietnamese, etc.) to one or more remote electronic devices that communicate with the network for an automatic audio announcement of the digitized voice alert through the one or more remote electronic devices.

Claims

1. A system for providing instant voice alerts automatically to remote electronic devices, said system comprising:

a processor;

connection to and communication through a packetized data network;

a data bus coupled to said processor; and

a computer-usable medium embodying computer code, said computer-usable medium being coupled to said data bus, said computer program code comprising instructions executable by said processor and configured for;

registering remote electronic devices to receive notifications via wireless data communications networks from the monitoring system including data files comprising digitized voice alerts;

detecting an activity at a premises utilizing at least one sensor via a monitoring system also located at the premises and connected to the packetized data network;

generating and converting a text message indicative of said activity into a data file that can be rendered on a remote electronic device as a digitized voice alert; and

transmitting said data file through the packetized data network for receipt by at least one remote electronic device that is registered to communicate remotely with the monitoring system and to receive messages over the packetized data network for rendering of the digitized voice alert from the data file and that communicates with said data network via wireless data communications, wherein the data file is processed at the at least one remote electronic device for an automatic audio announcement of said digitized voice alert through said at least one remote electronic device.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said at least one sensor communicates wirelessly with at least one of the monitoring system, an intelligent router, and a server, that in turn communicates with said data network.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one sensor includes at least one of:

a security sensor, a surveillance sensor, a smoke detector, a fire detector, a carbon monoxide detector, an energy usage monitoring sensor, a door or window opening sensor, a flood sensor, and communicates with an intelligent router that communicates with said packetized data network.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein said at least one sensor includes at least one of:

a security sensor, a surveillance sensor, a smoke detector, a fire detector, a carbon monoxide detector, an energy usage monitoring sensor, a door or window opening sensor, a flood sensor, and communicates with said at least one remote electronic device through said packetized data network.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein said instructions are further configured for broadcasting said digitized voice message through said at least one remote electronic device in at least one language based on a language setting in a user profile.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said instructions are further configured for allowing a pre-selection of said at least one language in said user profile.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein said instructions are further configured during a set up of said at least one remote electronic device for selecting said at least one language from a plurality of different languages.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein said instructions are further configured for converting said digitized voice message into more than one language from among a plurality of languages for broadcast of said digitized voice alert in consecutively different languages through said at least one remote electronic device.

9. A processor-readable medium storing code representing instructions to cause a processor to perform a process to automatically provide an instant voice announcement to remote electronic devices, said code comprising of instructions operating on a premises monitoring system to:

detect a condition or activity at a premises utilizing at least one sensor via a monitoring system also located at the premises and connected to a data network;

prepare a digital file containing digitized voice message as a live announcement regarding the condition or the activity;

automatically convert said digital file into a packetized digitized voice message indicative of said live announcement;

associate said digitized voice message with a text message to be transmitted through a data communications network to a plurality of remote electronic devices that are authorized to communicate with said data communications network and are registered to receive text messages from the premises monitoring system; and

transmit said text message with said digitized voice message through the data network from at least one of a server in communication with said monitoring system or said monitoring system for receipt and processing by said plurality of electronic devices for automatic playback of said digitized voice message through at least one remote electronic device among said plurality of remote electronic devices upon receipt of said text message with said digitized voice message at said at least one remote electronic device among said plurality of remote electronic devices.