Patent ID: 7342488

Claim:
A system for providing home awareness, the system comprising: a sensor associated with a household amenity; a control signal portion generated at the sensor in response to an event occurrence associated with the household amenity; a text message generated at the sensor in response to the event occurrence, the text message providing data about the event occurrence in form of values expressed as upper nibbles and lower nibbles; a wireless signal generated at the sensor, the wireless signal including the control signal portion and the text message; a database including a representation of a character code table for translating the values expressed as upper nibbles and lower nibbles into characters for display; a monitoring unit having access to the database, responsive to receiving the wireless signal, for performing one of: (i) passing an existing video feed through the monitoring unit, the existing video signal originating independently of the sensor and including content differing from the data about the event occurrence, and (ii) superimposing the characters for display into line 21 of a vertical blanking interval of the existing video signal at a position indicated by the control signal portion; and a display unit connected to the monitoring unit, the display unit for displaying the existing video signal and the existing video signal with the superimposed characters for display providing the data about the event occurrence.