Patent Application
20120299314
The present invention relates to door locks, and particularly, to door locks with a sensor for sensing its locking status.
Conventional alarm systems use a magnetic sensor to sense if a door is open or close. In such conventional system, a magnet is mounted either on a door or on a door frame. A magnetic sensor is then mounted on a corresponding position of the door frame or the door, so that when the door is in a closed position, the magnet comes to the vicinity of the magnetic sensor for being sensed thereby. The magnetic sensor may transmit a door status signal, either through a wire or wirelessly, to a remote control unit. Even though the conventional alarm systems can detect whether the door is closed, it cannot detect whether the door is locked.
As such, what is desired is door lock sensor assembly that can detect a lock's locking status and can be easily fitted into conventional locks.
The present invention discloses a door lock assembly capable of sensing its locking status. The door lock assembly comprises a magnet embedded in a bolt, the bolt being mounted to a door panel, and being able to move between a first position and a second position without a movement of the door panel, when in the first position the bolt being extended into a recess secured to a door frame for locking the door, when in the second position the bolt being retracted out of the recess for unlocking the door, and a magnetic sensor mounted in the recess and configured to detect a presence of the magnet when the magnet being in the first position and to detect an absence of the magnet when the magnet being in the second position.
Alternatively, the bolt can be ferromagnetic, and the magnetic sensor in the recess can simultaneously generate and detect magnetic field. Then a presence or absence of the ferromagnetic bolt can be detected by the magnetic sensor to represent a locking status of the door lock assembly.
The construction and method of operation of the invention, however, together with additional objects and advantages thereof, will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.
The drawings accompanying and forming part of this specification are included to depict certain aspects of the invention. A clearer conception of the invention, and of the components and operation of systems provided with the invention, will become more readily apparent by referring to the exemplary, and therefore non-limiting, embodiments illustrated in the drawings, wherein like reference numbers (if they occur in more than one view) designate the same elements. The invention may be better understood by reference to one or more of these drawings in combination with the description presented herein. It should be noted that the features illustrated in the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale.
The following will provide a detailed description of a sensor equipped door lock assembly that can detect the locking status thereof. The sensor equipped door lock assembly is formed by conveniently installing a sensing assembly in a conventional door lock assembly.
Referring again to
The door panel 102 and the door frame 132 are conventionally made of wood material for residential applications, and aluminum for commercial applications. The bolt 118 is typically made of aluminum or brass. Since a goal of the present invention is to add a locking status function to a conventional door lock assembly, a sensing mechanism is retrofitted onto the conventional bolt 118 and in the recess 145 as described in detail below according an embodiment of the present invention.
Referring to
In essence, the movement of the bolt 118 along with the magnet 212 is to change the magnetic field near the magnetic sensor 227. The change is then detected by the magnetic sensor 227 for determining whether the bolt 118 is in the vicinity of the magnetic sensor 227. Then alternatively, the magnetic sensor 227 can both generate and detect a magnetic field, and the bolt 118 has a ferromagnetic part that can interfere with the magnetic field when in the vicinity of the magnetic sensor 227. However, if the magnetic field in such alternative system is constantly electrically generated by the magnetic sensor 227, power consumption will be too high for a battery operation. A power saving solution is to generate and detect the magnetic field intermittently, i.e., the magnetic field's generating and detecting circuit are activated only for a short period of time in a predetermined time interval. Similarly, detecting the magnet 118 by the magnetic sensor 227 can also be intermittent.
The above illustration provides many different embodiments or embodiments for implementing different features of the invention. Specific embodiments of components and processes are described to help clarify the invention. These are, of course, merely embodiments and are not intended to limit the invention from that described in the claims.
Although the invention is illustrated and described herein as embodied in one or more specific examples, it is nevertheless not intended to be limited to the details shown, since various modifications and structural changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention and within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims. Accordingly, it is appropriate that the appended claims be construed broadly and in a manner consistent with the scope of the invention, as set forth in the following claims.
