Patent ID: 8633802

Claim:
A programmable communicator device comprising: a wireless communications circuit for communicating through an antenna over a communications network; a programmable interface for establishing a communication link with at least one monitored technical device; an authentication module for authenticating one or more programming instructions initially contained in an at least one transmission sent from a programming transmitter and received by the programmable communicator device, the one or more programming instructions including a coded number and an at least one telephone number or Internet Protocol (IP) address corresponding to an at least one monitoring device, wherein the authentication module authenticates the one or more programming instructions by determining if at least one programming instruction contains the coded number, the authentication module authenticating the one or more programming instructions if at least one programming instruction includes the coded number; a permitted callers programming module for causing a memory module to store the at least one telephone number or IP address included within the one or more programming instructions as one of one or more permitted callers if the authentication module authenticates the one or more programming instructions by determining that at least one programming instruction includes the coded number; wherein the programmable communicator device uses an identity module for storing a unique identifier that is unique to the programmable communicator device; wherein at least one transmission from a programming transmitter containing the one or more programming instructions is a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or other packet switched data message; wherein the programmable communicator is configured to process data received from the at least one monitored technical device; and wherein the programmable interface is programmable via wireless transmissions comprising one or more General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or other packet switched data messages.