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

A public building alarm system for displaying information relating to potential alarm conditions within or about a public building area, employs an alarm condition display screen for informing a fireman, for example, of the nature and location of a possible fire. For the vast majority of the time, in the absence of an alarm condition, display control circuitry causes the alarm display screen to display information of general interest to the public, in high traffic areas of the building frequented by persons visiting the building. This is in contrast with alarm conditions of no interest to the general public. Such information can include advertising, enabling the building owner to collect advertising revenues to help offset the cost of the alarm system. Upon the occurrence of an alarm condition, the alarm condition display is immediately substituted for the information of general interest display. A fireman or building operator can also produce this substitution by means of a prominent "system test" button adjacent the display.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
 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.
 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.
 SUMMARY OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION
 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.
 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.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.