This application claims priority to and the benefit of European Patent Application No. 20161147.2, titled “An Intercom System and Station,” filed Mar. 5, 2020, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.

The present invention relates to an intercom system and station of the type used in access control and security.

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION

Safety conscious home and business owners typically elect to install entrance door or gate intercom devices that provide means for video and audio communications with visitors. Such devices enable visible and audio authentication of visitors before access to a home or premises is permitted or refused by the occupant.

Intercom systems are generally configured for two-way communication between connected stations, in which a station provided at an entrance doorway or gate to a home or premises is communicatively coupled with another station provided within the home or premises. Visitors to the home or premises interact with the station at the doorway or gate and the occupant operates the intercom station within the home or premises to verify the identity of the visitor and decide whether to grant access to the home or premises.

Some intercom systems rely solely on two-way voice communication for verification and others use video streamed from a camera provided at the door or gate station so that an occupant may view the streamed video images on a display to verify the identity of a visitor and take the desired action regarding access.

Use of mobile devices executing suitable application software may also be adapted so that home or business owners may view visitor activity on the display of their own device, even when not physically in their home or premises. However, these known intercom systems and devices suffer from the drawback they are not time sensitive in terms of the delivery of communications, particularly where a camera is being used to steam live video footage to station within the home or premises.

Moreover, they typically rely on costly dedicated application software, cloud peer to peer servers (which incur monthly fees) plus the maintenance of smart phone apps, the latter of which also cause some less technically apt users, challenges rendering the solution provided expensive to buy and install as well as complex to maintain and run.

GB2439105A discloses a doorbell providing different alert signals for different occupants of a premise. The said doorbell comprises a display to identify occupants of a premise to a visitor and also provides different alert signals to the occupants according to which occupant is selected by the visitor via the display. An internal unit comprises an electronic memory (non-volatile memory) for storing a plurality of distinctive alert signals that are mapped to an occupant's identity. The doorbell is also said to include a microphone enabling the visitor to leave an audio message for an occupant and a communication device for providing further alert signal to a mobile communication device of the occupant selected via the display. The doorbell further comprises a digital camera to send one or more images of the visitor to the mobile communication device, via Bluetooth connection, and/or to capture and store an image of the visitor in memory.

However, a skilled person would readily appreciate that the entire arrangement for two-way communication according to GB2439105A will easily take more than 15 seconds to process and send the image and call of the visitor to the occupant's communication device as the image is first required to be saved in the non-volatile memory and then transmitted via Bluetooth connection. By the time this entire process would occur, there are chances that the visitor might have left the premises presuming no answer from the occupant.

The present invention aims to alleviate the time lag in the two-way communication process and significantly improve the time sensitivity by reducing the time for the entire two-way communication to under 10 seconds.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an intercom system and station that goes at least some way toward overcoming the above problem and that will provide the public and/or industry with a useful alternative.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Aspects of the present invention will become apparent from the ensuing description which is given by way of example only.

The present invention relates to an intercom system for two-way communication between intercom stations so that home and/or business owners may view visitor activity, even when not physically in their home or premises.

According to the invention, there is provided an intercom system for two-way communication between intercom stations, the intercom system comprising:a first intercom station comprising one or more processor means and having means for receiving and viewing a multimedia message (MMS) and means for two-way voice communication,a second intercom station comprising one or more processor means, camera means and means for two-way voice communication with the first intercom station,wherein, when activated, the second intercom station is operable to activate the camera means to take a picture of the user and to send the picture taken to the first intercom station in an MMS and automatically and substantially simultaneously attempt to connect via a voice call to the first intercom station, and wherein the first intercom station is operable to display the picture and substantially simultaneously receive the voice call connection attempt from the second intercom station when the MMS is received, andwherein the first intercom station comprises means to reject or accept the voice call, wherein if the voice call is accepted then two-way voice communication between the first and second station is enabled, and if the voice call is rejected then two-way voice communication between the first and second station is not enabled.

Preferably, the intercom system comprises a plurality of first intercom stations and a plurality of second intercom stations.

Preferably, the voice call is an analogue voice telephone call.

Alternatively, the voice call is a Voice over LTE (VoLTE) call.

Preferably, the second intercom station is provided as a control panel device. The second intercom station, e.g. control panel device, is preferably wall or gate mounted.

In a preferred embodiment, the second intercom station comprises a call button that when pressed activates the camera means.

Preferably, first intercom station is selected from among a mobile phone, tablet, laptop or the like.

The term “mobile phone” is intended to include smart phones.

Preferably, the second intercom station further comprises storage means, including a static random-access memory (SRAM) and a synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM), wherein the picture taken by the camera means is first saved to the SRAM and then to the SDRAM. The pictures taken by the camera means are thus locally stored at the second intercom station.

Preferably, lighting means is provided adjacent or beside the camera means of the second intercom station, wherein activating the camera means simultaneously activates the lighting means. The lighting means is preferably provided by one or more LEDs. However, this is not to be considered limiting and other lighting means are contemplated within the scope of the invention.

In another aspect of the present invention there is provided an intercom station comprising:one or more processor means, camera means and means for two-way voice communication,wherein, when activated, the intercom station is operable to activate the camera means to take a picture of the user and to send the picture to a remote processor device in an MMS and automatically and substantially simultaneously attempt to connect via a voice call to the remote processor device,wherein if the voice call is accepted then two-way voice communication between the intercom station and remote processor device is enabled, and if the voice call is rejected then two-way voice communication between the intercom stations is not enabled.

According to the invention, users do not need third party applications executing on their mobile phone, laptop, or tablet, operating as the first intercom station, in order to see the visitor as they would with other products.

The present invention provides a security solution through a user's existing provider contract, e.g. mobile phone contract, by relying on the use of MMS and two-way voice communications. This avoids the need for third party applications and associated server costs.

Preferably, the intercom station is provided as a control panel device. The intercom system, e.g. control panel device, may be wall or gate mounted.

Preferably, the intercom station comprises a call button that when pressed activates the camera means.

Preferably, the intercom station comprises an LCD screen with up and down scroll buttons to locate a desired home or premises.

Preferably, lighting means is provided adjacent or beside the camera means of the second intercom station, wherein activating the camera means simultaneously activates the lighting means. The lighting means is preferably provided by one or more LEDs. However, this is not to be considered limiting and other lighting means are contemplated within the scope of the invention.

Preferably, the intercom station comprises storage means, including a static random-access memory (SRAM) and a synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM), wherein the picture taken by the camera means is first saved to the SRAM and then to the SDRAM.

The present invention provides an intercom system having an intercom station with a SIM card inside and a cellular modem. When the call button of the second intercom station is pressed the camera means will take a snapshot of the visitor. The intercom will then send the image as an MMS to the home or premises owner operating first intercom station. The visitor will be played a voice message, such as “please wait while your call is being connected”.

After that voice message is played, the intercom station will call the first intercom station, being the home or premises owner, in what is a traditional voice call. Such a call may be in two formats depending on connectivity in the area. The first is a standard analogue voice telephone call, and the other is VoLTE (Voice over LTE) which is a HD quality voice connection likely to be the new standard in voice calling in the future.

On the receiving side, the first intercom station receives a picture message (MMS) on their phone or other device on which they can view the visitor, and in a matter of seconds later, or preferably substantially simultaneously, they will receive a call from the second intercom station. The user of the first intercom station may elect to answer the call or not based on the video information from the picture and make a decision regarding access to the home or premises.

Thus, the intercom system for two-way communication as per the present invention implements a technique of double memory buffering (static random-access memory followed by synchronous dynamic random-access memory) such once the photograph is taken, the picture is captured in fast acting RAM memory and instantly transmitted to the modem for sending to the phone. Meanwhile and in parallel, the image is also processed for storage in flash memory, which takes much longer. This has allowed the message to be sent without the delay of saving to non-volatile memory first.

