Telecommunications – Carrier wave repeater or relay system – Portable or mobile repeater
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-11
2002-04-16
Kincaid, Lester G. (Department: 2685)
Telecommunications
Carrier wave repeater or relay system
Portable or mobile repeater
C455S507000, C455S088000, C455S557000, C455S423000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06374079
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is in the field of automated home and vehicle control systems and pertains more particularly to of methods and apparatus for providing RF communications between distributed device-control modules and a base station within a communications cell wherein the distributed control modules are controlled from a remote location on a data packet network (DPN).
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The field of creating successful and sustainable web-portals has become exponentially more competitive and difficult by each passing month as thousands of new web-based business ideas are launched each week. Truly useful services and ideas are becoming increasingly difficult to find and, furthermore, to sustain in such a competitive environment. Typically such portals include search engines, travel services, lifestyle content providers, news services, retailers, and the like whose business revolves around a pure software and service model. Very few of these commercial web-sites involve hardware, and none are designed to standardize the deployment and control of every single piece of home or vehicle-based automation and sensor hardware now in existence or that will be coming into existence produced by any manufacturer and based upon any standard.
There are only very few web sites that allow a consumer to control a very limited number of home automation devices, and such web-sites, which are not built entirely from scratch by those few capable consumers who are skilled enough in the art to do so on their own, simply exist in order to assist Win in the sales of their specific and proprietary home automation devices.
The present invention provides a way for consumers to extend the functionality of new and existing home automation devices and systems, and provides a common look and feel to all these such disparate devices and systems, allowing consumers with very little skill in the art to easily compare, choose, purchase and control such automation devices with a single and very accessible user experience.
In embodiments of the new invention, once a user learns how to program a home watering system using the web site's interface, that same user will be able to program a VCR in almost exactly the same syntax and fashion. The web site provided in the preferred embodiment of the new invention employs a natural-language programming interface that is driven by limited and non-confusing selections from drop down menus that will reconfigure themselves based upon the user's previous drop down menu selections. Other features to the preferred embodiment of this web site include a Virtual Device Applications Builder, which allows the user to input his desired home automation goals, and will then allow him to manipulate, test and view the resulting system in exactly the same way he would a real system. Once the user is satisfied with the virtual configuration of his devices, the web-site provides a laundry list of specific hardware choices, from any and all available devices and manufacturers, and allows the user to purchase this list of items on-line. Moreover, once purchased, the web instructs the user in the configuration and installation of the devices, and ultimately allows the user to control this system via the Internet on this preferred embodiment of the web site. This web site additionally offers objective third-party editorial content evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of competing devices and standards that the users of the site could use in making their selection of systems and hardware.
The opportunity for this invention arise from a combination of the rapid rise and deployment of the Internet's infrastructure in general, and specifically that the home automation market, in the inventor's opinion, is much too fragmented for any single hardware manufacturer to dominate and become the de facto standard in the home automation market. The field of home sensor/actuator-controlled home systems has become more complex and sophisticated as electronic hardware also becomes more complex and sophisticated.
Systems provided for home installation and use include alarm systems, watering systems, lighting systems, heating and air conditioning systems, pool systems, and so on. Of these systems, there are varying degrees of automation and programmability features that are built in to each separate system in the current state of the art, and in a variety of wiring, communication, and control standards and protocols. For example, an automated and programmable watering system may have an electronic control box that is wired to each distributed actuator that controls distributed watering components. Such a box may use a programmable timer function to control how often and what areas covered by the physical components of the system will be watered. A client or user will typically set-up each part of the system to actuate at specific times for a specific length of time as is well known in the art.
The above example represents an actuator-control system. In some more advanced watering systems, a rain sensor may be provided and integrated to such a system so that watering may be temporarily discontinued or reduced such as during periods of extended rain. The rain sensor, picking up precipitation, would override the actuator and shut down watering until the next timed watering interval.
An example of a sensor-control system would be an alarm system. An alarm system responds to signals from sensors distributed within an area the system is designed to protect. Types of sensor capability used in an alarm system may vary widely from system to system. Some use photoelectric beams. Others use laser technology. Still others use movement and/or audio detectors or physical circuits, which when broken, trigger the alarm. There are many methods as is well understood by the skilled artisan.
In typical prior art implementation, a sensor and/or actuator-control system of the types described above are made available to consumers by usually separate enterprises, which provide all of the hardware and wiring necessary for function of such systems. Each system will have a control box provided and adapted to allow a home or business owner to program and implement any functions provided by the system. If a user has more than one type of system installed then he or she will have more than one control box to program and use. In typical prior art systems each control box must be programmed on-site and changed on-site if different settings are desired.
More recently, with the advent of powerful home computers, many companies that provide home automated systems have provided means including software, whereby a user may program a system from his or her personal home computer. In this way, a user is not required to physically interface with a control box in order to make changes to a system. In these types of systems a cable, such as a serial cable, is provided from a control box to a PC. By utilizing a software program, a user may send commands to the control box (adapted to receive serial commands) associated with a system such that programming and monitoring may be conducted from the PC.
With the advent of the well-known Internet network, some companies have provided a means to control home systems from a remote computer using the Internet as a conduit, and a home computer as a host. In this way a user may make changes and control home-system function from the office or from a mobile computer such as a Laptop computer. In some cases, this is accomplished through a company hosted web-site, which typically only supports this proprietary hardware standard and is intended to help increase sales of the hardware, but is not intended to be a web-portal through which a user can control and monitor home systems. In other cases, the method used is direct computer-to-computer linking.
Although companies that provide home automation systems have been moving toward remote access for controlling such systems, such companies typically provide only access to proprietary system components, which allow
Boys Donald R.
Central Coast Patent Agency Inc.
Kincaid Lester G.
PNI Corporation
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