Patent Application
20060015347
Not applicable.
Not applicable.
The present invention relates to an in-store display of merchandise, such as door chimes, having a MP3 player in conjunction with an insignia button board, motion sensor, or other signaling device for sounding chimes, speech, or other sounds.
Current practices for displaying door chimes involves having an in-store display comprised of a sound board and a button board. Each individual chime base or actual product is mounted to the sound board and hardwired to a specific push button or buttons on the button board that activates a specific chime when pressed. An in-store chime display typically has several chimes on display which requires that the sound board holding the chimes to be quite large. Additionally, since these in-store displays have the actual chimes producing the sounds mounted on the sound board, a transformer needs to be mounted on the sound board to supply power to each individual chime since they are low-voltage. If wireless chimes are being displayed, they currently need to be specially modified to convert them to hardwire use so that RF interference is eliminated. Therefore, the wireless chimes also need to be mounted on the soundboard and have power leads attached to the transformer. Since each chime is hardwired to a push button and a transformer the resulting display has a complex and cumbersome wiring arrangement. The result is an expensive and complex display requiring much labor to assemble, modify, and maintain.
These current practices require significant labor and expense to install a chime onto a sound board or to retrofit the sound board with a new chime sound. The resulting display is large and can become unaesthetic. Other problems associated with the current practices is that the soundboards need be displayed in a large area which takes up floor space and limits the locations where the in-store display may be placed. Additionally, the sounds actually come from the chimes mounted on the soundboard and consequently the in-store display must be placed in a location where it will still provide good sound quality for the customer. This further limits the locations where such an in-store display may be placed. These current practices are labor intensive, costly, difficult to retrofit with new chime sounds, undependable, difficult to place within the store, and unaesthetic.
Current practices of displaying merchandise other than door chimes often times require significant labor, expense, and floor space. Therefore, it is contemplated that this invention may be used to display a variety of items within a store where the current practices of displaying such items exhibit some of the aforementioned problems and where some of these problems will be addressed by the present invention.
One object of the present invention is to create an in-store display of door chimes that requires less labor and cost to install, modify, and maintain.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a smaller and more versatile in-store display requiring less floor space.
A further object of the present invention is to create a more aesthetic in-store display of door chimes.
These objects and others are accomplished according to the present invention by providing a Chime MP3 Display. The MP3 sound module chime display of the present invention includes a microcontroller housing which houses a microprocessor controlled electronic sound module and a reprogrammable digital storage device such as a multimedia media memory card or flash card. The microcontroller housing has front and rear control access panels. The front control access panel provides volume control switches, an electronic port such as a USB port for loading or deleting sound files, and a ribbon cable receptacle for connecting a button board. The rear access panel provides a power supply receptacle, a removable digital storage device, and a speaker output terminal block.
A ribbon cable extends from the ribbon cable receptacle to a button board. The button board has the insignia or a description of each chime and associated button or buttons. The button board is the only portion of the present invention that needs to be on display to the customer. The inventive design does not need to hold the actual chime bases as in the prior art since the sounds of each chime are stored on the digital memory device or MP3 sound module. Hence, the Chime MP3 Display provides for an aesthetic in-store display of chimes that requires minimal floor space.
The configuration of the MP3 Player provides for easy operation. The customer pushes a button, electronic input means, on the button board display to hear a specific chime sound as indicated by the insignia. The push of the button triggers an input signal to the MP3 microprocessor. The microprocessor's firmware then sends the specific MP3 file or chime tune on the digital storage device that is associated with the pushed button to a digital to audio signal converter. This audio signal is then sent to an amplifier which drives the speakers. Optionally, a speaker unit may be used which houses the signal converter, amplifier, and speaker. The speakers may be mounted anywhere near the button board display to provide quality sound. The firmware is capable of scrolling through several different tunes for a specific electronic input so that all of the tunes for a chime that has multiple tunes may be heard.
The present invention provides for an in-store display of doorbell chimes. The Chime MP3 Display has a display board with buttons and associated insignia or description of the particular chime to sound. The display board may be of almost any size or shape and consequently can be designed to take up very little floor space. The buttons are wired to a microprocessor that is in electronic communication with a digital storage device (i.e. multimedia memory card, flash card, etc.) and speakers. When a button is pressed, the microprocessor sends the associated MP3 file from the digital storage device to the speakers. This provides for a significant cost savings over the prior art by avoiding the wiring, maintenance, and floor space costs incurred by putting the actual doorbell chimes on a board to sound.
The Chime Display of the present invention may best be described with reference to the figures.
As can be readily seen, the chime display of the present invention allows for a user to hear the doorbell sounds associated with a plurality of chimes associated with buttons 201 and insignias 202 without the necessity of a completely wired replica doorbell chime display utilizing the actual products. The digital storage media 108 of the present invention stores a plurality of sound files associated with each button 201 and insignia 202 so that a customer may hear the associated doorbell chime.
These figures provide for a single embodiment of the present invention. As one skilled in the art can appreciate, there are many alternative embodiments of the present invention. For instance, front panel 400 and rear panel 300 could be combined by having a single top panel which would provide for the microcontroller 100 access. The housing 200 could provide for a larger surface area on the front panel 400 or rear panel 300 providing enough area to place all of the controls or microcomputer 100 access ports 401 on a single panel thus eliminating one of the access panels. Alternatively, electronic port 401 could be a USB, serial or parallel port or even be eliminated. This may then require digital storage media 108 to be removed to be reprogrammed, yet the present invention would still provide a useful and novel function. Therefore, the figures serve to describe only a single embodiment of the present invention and do not serve to limit the many alternative embodiments claimed herein. In fact the present invention may be used to display a variety of merchandise within a store and still be within the scope of the presently claimed invention. For example, a heater system could be displayed by the present invention where the electronic input device 201 may have buttons 201 on a button board 102 and/or a motion sensor associated with specific electronic files that describe the heater with a sensory output device such as an audio/visual output device that may deliver voice (i.e. description or instructions), graphics, video, or other audio/visuals.
