Patent ID: 7840130

Claim:
A system, comprising: multiple cameras, each operable to generate a video signal; an intermediate node operable to communicate wirelessly with at least some of the cameras; a monitoring system; and multiple gateway nodes each operable to communicate with the monitoring system over a wired network and to communicate with at least some of the cameras; wherein: the cameras and the gateway nodes are operable to communicate wirelessly; each of the cameras is operable to send a message to the monitoring system via a plurality of wireless communication paths and at least one of the gateway nodes; a first subset of the cameras and gateway nodes operate in a first wireless subnetwork and a second subset of the cameras and gateway nodes operate in a second wireless subnetwork; the monitoring system comprises a process controller; the messages comprise alarm messages; and the intermediate node is operable to multiplex the video signals from the cameras to the monitoring system by sending the video signal from only one camera at a time to the monitoring system, wherein the multiplexing is based at least upon an alarm signal issued by one of the cameras.