Automatic temperature and humidity regulation – With timing element – Timer other than clock
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-14
2001-03-06
Wayner, William (Department: 3404)
Automatic temperature and humidity regulation
With timing element
Timer other than clock
C236S094000, C165S109100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06196467
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to wireless communication with at least a controller portion of a thermostat.
Industrial application of heating, air conditioning and fan operations are significantly different from residential in especially the following manner. Industrial installations, as used herein, refer to the type of building or associated buildings so large as to maintain separately controlled equipment to condition air temperature or movement for personnel comfort or equipment maintenance. The separate controls are typically fairly widely separated devices fixed to a wall, sensing temperature or some other environmental parameter and controlling the heating, air conditioning or fan operation. Industrial installations include such locations as hotels, hospitals, office buildings, schools, and manufacturing or assembly plants. The separate controllers are typically thermostats unconnected by wire or wireless communication.
It has been an unpleasant and recurring chore that changing the settings of the several thermostats required that personnel walk to each of the thermostat locations and enter one or several parameter changes for each thermostat. With the advent of programmable thermostats comprising the several forms of sophisticated ramp-ups, set backs, occupation anticipation and departure modes, as well as the many other forms of economizing features developed in the prior art, the personnel in an industrial installation charged with making the thermostat changes is required to memorize and repeat the data entry and viewing steps to assure that each change was made and registered in the thermostat's programming.
To charge this task to the unskilled worker has meant entrusting that person with the potential of wasting significant energy in unnecessary heating or air conditioning and/or compromising personnel comfort with improper parameter entry. A single mistaken entry by even a skilled but inattentive employee in the course of changing or checking the thermostat settings will cause the same problems. With the power of programmable thermostats comes the potential of causing important and difficult to diagnose problems, problems that are multiplied with changes made in each separately programmed thermostat.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,979,060 describes a control apparatus for automatically enabling and disabling the thermostatic control of a plurality of industrial building temperature control units. A programmable timer is provided for adapting the control apparatus to a desired building use schedule. A manually operable override switch is also provided to allow for temperature control during unscheduled building occupancies and additional circuitry automatically disables the override switch to prevent the control apparatus from remaining overridden for an extended period of time in the event the override switch is not reset. The several thermostats described as controlled by the system of this patent are wired together and are intended to be controlled at some time period by a single programmed instruction flowing along a common wired connection to the several thermostats.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,599 describes a method for control override isolation or opening of steam supply valves for steam heated radiators in a residence by operation of a handheld infrared control device. A central heating control system includes a control panel housing a timer. The timer has three program sequences for controlling three groups of radiators each group being independently controlled. The control panel also includes switch units which are selectively operable to isolate each radiator. The switch units are triggered by infrared signals transmitted by a portable control unit. The signals may be received directly by the panel or indirectly through spaced windows coupled to the control panel by an optical fiber network.
It has not been known to solve the problem of repeated programming of transmission-isolated thermostats in industrial installations.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention allows the user to quickly and repeatedly program one receiver controller device at least controlling one or more heating or cooling devices for one desirably separate zone of occupation to another such receiver controller device set at least controlling another separate set of heating or cooling devices for another desirably separate zone of occupation. The realities of present day industrial and commercial buildings is that they comprise many such separate zones of occupation with separate heating or cooling devices controlled with separate controllers due to the diverse nature of the desired temperatures, dead bands for controlling such temperatures, temperature and device operation ramping, times of occupation, economization measures imposed for each zone, and the many similar aspects of thermostatic control described herein and in the prior art.
With at least two receiver controller devices in transmission-isolated locations having at least some programming parameters in common with each other, the user will prefer to be relieved from the task of making the same programming inputs and/or menu scrolling followed by programming inputs at each location. The present invention comprises means for the user to make such changes in a mobile unit and wirelessly transmit them to the desired receiver controller device, where the information is stored and used to control the heating or cooling devices. With respect to the most efficient overall method of making this transmission, it is presently preferred to use infrared transmission and reception of data and program parameters between the transmitting programming device and the receiving controller device.
In one example, the present invention comprises single program input wireless transmission from a transmitter programming device without an information display screen to a receiver controller device with such a screen and lacking or having disabled or locked out program input means located on or about the device. In a further embodiment of this example, the parameters of the program transmitted from the transmitting programming device are stored in its memory, whereby all or a portion of those parameters are wirelessly transmissible in single or continuous transmission to other receiver controller devices with or without an information display screen. An information display screen as used herein infers other digital and analog devices which permit human perception of the information or changing program parameter. As a further embodiment of this example, the transmitting programming device may comprise means for selectively storing for continuous transmission to a receiver controller device only those program parameters which had changed since a prior wireless programming of the receiver controller device, such selective transmission achieving reduction in transmission time and reduction in potential transmission errors. As a further embodiment of this example, the receiver controller device comprises wireless transmission means and the transmitting programming device comprises wireless reception means whereby transmissions of program parameters from the programming device to the control device are re-transmitted to the programming device for comparing with the transmission from the programming device, providing also visual or audible means in the programming device for notification of successful or imperfect transmission of the parameters from the programming device to the controller device.
In another example, the present invention also comprises continuous wireless transmission of a plurality of program inputs stored in a memory of a transmitter programming device to the memory of a receiver controller device for control of heating or air conditioning devices controlled by the controller device. As a further embodiment of this example, all the parameters for a programmable thermostat are transmitted in a continuous wireless transmission from the memory of a transmitter programming device to the memory of a receiver controller de
Bohm Grant
Dushane Steve
Staples John
Zimmerman Terry
Bracken David T.
Wayner William
LandOfFree
Wireless programming or programmable thermostat mobile unit... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Wireless programming or programmable thermostat mobile unit..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Wireless programming or programmable thermostat mobile unit... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2506399