Various alarm systems are becoming increasingly popular in residential areas. The most common forms of sensors in residential areas and homes are fire and smoke detectors and intrusion or burglar alarms. In addition there is an increasing use of devices which monitor the status of various appliances in the home, such as a gas-fired water heater, gas-fired furnace, freezers and the like. Similar alarm systems are used in industry. As the systems are expanded at each location, it becomes more and more important to have the ability to manage these sensors, preferably in a centralized way so that a single monitoring device may determine the status of all of the sensors to establish whether they are operative at all times and to establish when an alarm is sounded, the type of the alarm and its whereabouts.
This has resulted in the demand for a central monitor which can communicate with all forms of sensors in a home or industrial installation. To accomplish this objective, transmitters have been devised for coupling with the various sensors and transmitting information to a receiver of a central monitor system. The information transmitted may identify the type of alarm and its location. In industrial applications, radio transmitters are not frequently used, because it is easy to install wiring to hook up the various sensors directly with the central monitor system. However in the home, wiring is unattractive and with the use of radio receivers and transmitters, the wiring is eliminated.
However, since a vast number of sensors are used for a variety of applications, such as fire/smoke detectors, burglar alarm systems, temperature sensors and others, this large number of sensors presents several challenges, among which:                Management—to be able to retrieve and process all readings obtained from the various sensors;        Installation and power—to be able to overcome the problems associated with the wiring required for the sensors' assemblies, or alternatively be able to overcome the problems associated with rather complex wireless systems. In addition, if wireless systems are implemented, the sensors are associated with transmitters that normally have their own power supply which is separate from the sensor. Typically, it involves locating the transmitter outside of the sensor, adding to the bulkiness of the overall system and detracting from the attractiveness of various sensors which are visible, such as the smoke and the intrusion detectors;        Cost—the system price increases rather rapidly with the increasing number of the sensors used, and the associated requirement to be able to communicate with this increasing number of sensors.        
Typically, in most of the alarm systems used nowadays, sensors are installed at specific points in the premises and are capable to forward data to a central point, where the data received is processed. Today's a typical alarm system topology is a star topology (although mesh topology is also known) whether wired or wireless, and wherein the latter type of systems (wireless) are also known to be implemented in a mesh topology.
Still, the novel monitoring/alarm systems proposed by the present invention, overcomes the above and other drawbacks of prior art systems.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds