Patent ID: 7058477

Claim:
An occupancy response system with a central control device adapted to control space conditioning equipment affecting a conditioned space, the central control device located at a single physical location in one of multiple rooms comprising the conditioned space, where remote sensors are located in physical locations substantially apart from the central control device, the improvement comprising: A) two or more environmental sensors adapted to measure a local environmental condition and generate signals indicating its value; B) two or more occupancy sensors adapted to detect occupancy of space around an environmental sensor and generate signals indicating occupancy; C) either the central control device and one or more of the remote sensors or two or more of the remote sensors each comprise an environmental sensor and an occupancy sensor; D) a central processor for the central control device including: 1) a central processing unit; 2) a real time clock; 3) a memory coupled to said central processing unit for storing a central control program and data, said data including at least one of the values of the environmental conditions sensed by the environmental sensors; and 4) an input/output unit coupled to the central processing unit, to the space conditioning equipment for issuing control signals thereto, and to a reception interface adapted to receive signals representing environmental conditions at a remote sensor; E) a remote processor for each of the remote sensors including a central processing unit, a real time clock, a memory coupled to said central processing unit for storing a transmission control program, and an input/output unit coupled to the central processing unit and to a transmissions interface adapted to send to the central control device signals representing environmental conditions from a coupled environmental sensor; and F) for the central control device or remote sensors having environmental sensors and occupancy sensors, their input/output units further including a sensor input coupled to an environmental sensor and an occupancy input coupled to an occupancy sensor; G) the control programs causing a coupled central processing unit to selectively: 1) detect occupancy or vacancy of a nearby space from signals from a coupled occupancy sensor; 2) read current signals from a coupled environmental sensor and transmit them for storage in the memory of the central control device only if occupancy is detected; 3) for the central control program, calculate an average of the received environmental sensor values and use the average result as a control value which is compared with a setpoint stored in the memory of the central control program to determine actuation of the space conditioning equipment.