Use of visual building alarm system to display public information to building visitors

[0002] Most public buildings require a fire alarm annunciator or visual alarm display (VAD) to be provided in an easily accessible location. The display is used for information purposes by a fireman, called to the building due to the detection of a possible fire alarm condition. The visual alarm display (hereinafter VAD) indicates critical systems information such as for example, the location of a possible fire, the failure of an HVAC (heating, ventilation, air-conditioning) component and its location, or a break in and its location, due to a burglar, the latter systems information being used by the police rather than the fire department. Heat sensors, smoke or other detectors scattered throughout large buildings are typically connected to a control panel, which can be located in a control room or security office. Some control panels are electrically coupled to a CRT video display screen which functions as the aforesaid visual alarm display VAD mentioned above, for advantageously visually indicating the geographical area layout and location and the type of alarm sensor generating the alarm condition. These types of public building alarm systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,189,394, issued to Walter et al., incorporated by reference herein.

[0003] The VAD, although generally required in a large public building to aid the fire or police department personal, summoned to the building during an emergency, is usually not noticed by the public visitors to the building. Although the VAD must be readily accessible to such fire and police department personnel, it is often wall mounted and off to the side, rather than being positioned in a prominent place in the lobby or entrance area.

[0004] Accordingly, the aforesaid VAD is rarely in use, since the generation of alarm conditions only occurs during a small percentage of the time. In accordance with the present invention, I use the VAD, during normal or idle time when no alarm condition exists, to display general information of interest to visitors to the public building, such as corporate information provided by tenants in an office building, public service messages, stock market and weather reports, ball game scores, the building directory of a large shopping mall having constantly changing tenants and special sales by mall tenants, or any other general information of interest to the public. The operator of the office building or shopping mall could also display other general information such as advertising, to obtain income which could help pay for the cost and maintenance of the alarm system, which could facilitate distributor sales of the alarm systems.

[0005] Upon the generation of an actual alarm condition, the alarm condition visual display is immediately enabled, over riding the display of general information of interest to the public, and is used in the usual manner as explained above, by the fire or police department to locate and proceed to the area where the alarm condition is occurring. In view of the required reliability of the VAD, a test/over-ride button actuated relay or bypass gate is provided so that the system would be tested from time to time, to manually over-ride the public general information display and display the various alarm stations being monitored. A fireman responding to an alarm call could also over ride the public information display with this same test button, should a relay become stuck or a switching circuit fail to operate.

[0006] The various features and advantages of the invention will become more apparent upon study of the following description, taken in conjunction with the drawing in which the sole FIGURE schematically illustrates a preferred embodiment of the invention.

[0007] Referring now to the sole figure, kiosk 2 is provided in a high traffic area of a building such as the lobby 1 of an office building or central area of a shopping mall or airport. A visual display screen 3 is formed within the kiosk for providing the information of general interest most of the time as described above. The general information originates from internet or other public information source 4, coupled to the display 3, via normally open or enabled gate 6. This is indicated by an “on” condition on lead 10.

[0008] A prior art array of alarm detectors 5, such as fire or smoke detectors, HVAC fault detectors, burglary detectors or the like, are typically coupled to control panel 7, which in turn is coupled to video display format circuitry 12 for formatting an appropriate alarm condition signal to be displayed by display screen 3. The latter signal could represent a map of various building locations, icons of equipment therein and alarm conditions as in the prior art. As well known in this alarm art, the display formatting circuitry 12 could comprise a microprocessor or PC with appropriate software. See the following patents incorporated by reference.

[0009] In U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,305 to Ishikuro, a system is described in column 1, that displays various rooms, appliances, and windows of the rooms in a house. Upon the detection of an alarm condition such as a burglar breaking a window, a fire or gas leak etc., a security screen to be viewed, over rides the normal viewed screen, to display (announce) the detected alarm condition. U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,364 to Kenet, is somewhat like the Ishikuro teaching in that displayed rooms with their heating/cooling components are displayed and alarm conditions such as sensed smoke and fire are also displayed upon the sensing of an alarm condition. However, these two patents are not directed to alarm systems for public buildings, and information of interest to the public visiting the public buildings, involved in the present invention.

[0010] The remaining components illustrated, relate to the screen display control system for causing the kiosk screen display 3 to display the formatted alarm condition, which can be in map format, in response to the production of an alarm condition signal, transmitted over alarm bus 9 from control panel 7, which activates gate control circuit 8, to in turn enable and open alarm display gate 11, and cause the formatted alarm display data to be forwarded to the display screen 3. At this time, gate control circuit 8 disables or closes the public information gate 6, via conductor 10, to block farther transmission of the general interest data to the kiosk display screen. A test or fireman's over-ride device 13 should be provided, to pent periodic testing to ensure that the system is operating properly and that no components are functioning improperly; e.g. a stuck relay.

[0011] Since variations of the foregoing will readily occur to workers in the alarm design art, the scope of the invention is to be restricted solely to the terms of the following claims and art recognized equivalents thereof.