Not Applicable.
Not Applicable.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to structures made to contain vehicles including garages that utilize a large door for the ingress and egress of vehicles or persons to or from said structures. More specifically, the present invention relates to means for indicating the status of a garage door; more specifically, the present invention relates to means for indicating whether a garage door was closed or opened, at any distance from the garage door.
2. Description of Related Art
The prior art contains garage door status indicators and is comprised of art which contains angle sensing art or actual video surveillance art, or else a combination of both. The prior art however is limited to means for continual monitoring of garage door status, communicating said status either through a home alarm system or else within transmission ranges of up to 100 miles and receivers capable of receiving said transmissions. Often the prior art requires that a transmitter is in constant use at enormous ranges, indicating at all times an open, closed or partially closed status requiring considerable power use and impacting component longevity. The prior art purports to offer progressively inexpensive alternatives without considering power usage.
There does not exist in the prior art, however, the present invention which comprises a means for recording the closed/open status of a garage door used in conjunction with a transmitter, receiver, and garage door sensor such that said status is recorded when said receiver departs the transmission/receiving range of said transmitter and receiver. An operator can thereby travel any distance from the garage door and rely on the recorded status to determine if the garage door was closed. A transmitter is required to only provide a low power, one-quarter mile range signal.
The general purpose of the foregoing application is to describe an improved garage door status indicator, including the ability to record the status of a garage door as having been closed or left open after having departed any distance from the garage door.
Given the maximum usable range of a typical garage door remote control (approximately 100 meters) and the 15-20 second typical duration required for a garage door to travel from fully open to fully closed, an operator will reasonably travel less than one-tenth of a mile before a typical garage door is fully closed after using the remote control to close said garage door. Using this approximation, a transmitter and corresponding receiver operate to communicate within a one-quarter mile range of each other. A sensor operates to close an electric circuit when a garage door is fully closed; said circuit is deployed between transmitter and sensor so that when said circuit is closed a door status signal is transmitted to a remote receiver using a specific frequency indicating that the garage door is open. The transmitter emits at all times or intermittently at a lower power level and range as the door status signal, a second signal (herein designated as the “range signal”) on a separate and distinct frequency from the door status signal.
Employed with said receiver is a means for recording the garage door status after an operator has left the one-quarter mile transmission/receiving range, and a visual and/or audio indicating means for communicating said recorded status. Said status recording means comprises, in part, a switching means which operates to control power to the indicating means where loss of range signal causes the switching means to redirect power to the indicating means from the door status signal receiving means to said recording means. Said switching means comprises, in part, the range signal receiving means and thereby communicates with the transmitter via said range signal which is sent at all times from the transmitter. When the range signal receiving means ceases to receive a signal, the switching means diverts power to the indicating means from the status recording means instead of the status signal receiving means. Said indicating means may include, in part, an operator deployable switch that connects power from indicating means to LED lighting means for the purpose of displaying door “Open” status, door “Closed” status, and “In Range” status.
The characteristics and utilities of the present invention described in this summary and the detailed description below are not all inclusive. Many additional features and advantages will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art given the following drawings, specifications and claims. There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
In this respect, by explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception, upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Further, the purpose of the foregoing abstract is to enable the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the public generally, and especially the scientists, engineers and practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence of the technical disclosure of the application. The abstract is neither intended to define the invention of the application, which is measured by the claims, nor is it intended to be limiting as to the scope of the invention in any way.
It is therefore a purpose of the present invention to indicate the status of a garage door as open or closed.
It is therefore another purpose of the present invention to be robust and able to be inexpensively produced.
It is therefore another purpose of the present invention to operate with any of several types of sensor used to indicate that a garage door is closed or open; types of sensor may include but are not limited to: magnetic, lever type, pressure, conductive elastomer, and any other device which may close a circuit in connection with a garage door bottom or side surface and a transmitter.
It is therefore another purpose of the present invention to operate with any of several types of sensor which may be located on the garage floor proximally to where the bottom edge surface of the garage door meets the garage floor, or on the side of the garage door opening to be used in conjunction with the side edge surface of a garage door.
It is therefore another purpose of the present invention to incorporate a receiver portion into a garage door remote control unit; to incorporate a receiver portion into an automobile feature control or alarm system; or to utilize a receiver as a stand alone device.
It is therefore another purpose of the present invention to operate using any signal generating device as a transmitter, wherein a radio frequency transmission signal is made at any usable frequency to communicate with a receiver.
It is therefore another purpose of the present invention to be energy efficient in design and use: use of a transmitter that only operates up to power signals up to a one-quarter mile range; use of a one-quarter mile range receiver that requires nominal battery or other power; and use of an operator deployable switch to activate indicator display LEDs so that they are not always being powered.
It is therefore another purpose of the present invention to make available at all times, an indication of the status of a garage door perceived either as a current status when within the one-quarter mile range of a transmitter, or as a recorded status after the point when an operator leaves the one-quarter mile range of a transmitter and ceases to receive a signal from it.
It is therefore another purpose of the present invention to be able to indicate at all times whether the receiver is within transmission range of the transmitter.
The present invention may be better understood, and its numerous features and advantages made apparent to those skilled in the art by referencing the accompanying drawings. For ease of understanding and simplicity, common numbering of elements within the illustrations is employed to identify an element in the different drawings.
Enclosed by the receiver casing are electronic circuit means including but not limited to: a door status signal receiving means which operates to receive a radio frequency signal transmitted upon garage door opening; a range signal receiving means for receiving a separate and distinct radio frequency signal from that of the door status signal frequency (herein the ‘range signal’); a record status means which has power sent through it when the door status signal receiving means receives a signal, and which is electrically switched closed continuously where the door status signal receiving means receives a signal and where the range signal receiving means does not receive a signal, and remains closed when the door status signal receiving means ceases to receive a signal; and a switching means that: 1) resets the recording means when the range signal receiving means regains a range signal and 2) diverts power from either the door status signal receiving means or the record status means to an indicating means that is employed to send power to diodes, (for example the illustrated LED indicators 510 and 520). In an alternative embodiment, a signal processing means is employed, in part, to control the switching means and the recording means.
The previous is a detailed description of illustrative embodiments of the present invention. As these embodiments of the present invention are described with references to the aforementioned drawings, various modifications or adaptations of the methods and or specific structures described may become apparent to those skilled in the art. All such modifications, adaptations, or variations that rely upon the teachings of the present invention, and through which these teachings have advanced the art, are considered to be within the spirit and scope of the present invention. Hence, these descriptions and drawings are not to be considered in a limiting sense, as it is understood that the present invention is in no way limited to the embodiments illustrated.
A garage door status indicator and recorder comprising: