Patent ID: 7161478

Claim:
A method of calculating a backup battery capacity requirement for an alarm system, the method comprising: receiving user inputs at a computer aided drawing system, the user inputs specifying a first alarm appliance and a second alarm appliance, the user inputs specifying an electrical connection between the first alarm appliance and the second alarm appliance; receiving a first supervisory mode current drain associated with the first alarm appliance, a first alarm mode current drain associated with the first alarm appliance, a second supervisory mode current drain associated with the second alarm appliance, and a second alarm mode current drain associated with the second alarm appliance; adding the first supervisory mode current drain and the second supervisory mode current drain to a plurality of supervisory mode current drains to create a sum of supervisory mode current drains; adding the first alarm mode current drain and the second alarm mode current drain to a plurality of alarm mode current drains to create a sum of alarm mode current drains; multiplying the sum of supervisory mode current drains by a first predefined constant indicative of a number of hours to create a supervisory mode capacity; multiplying the sum of alarm mode current drains by a second predefined constant indicative of a number of minutes to create an alarm mode capacity; adding the supervisory mode capacity and the alarm mode capacity to create a combined capacity; and multiplying the combined capacity by a third predefined constant to create the backup battery capacity requirement for the alarm system.