PBX-Based Environmental Control Using Telephony Signals
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Enterprises face challenges in managing facilities costs effectively while maintaining comfortable working conditions, as existing methods often require costly retrofits and do not efficiently adapt to changing occupancy and environmental needs.
Innovation Solution
A data-processing system, such as a private branch exchange, leverages existing telecommunications infrastructure to monitor endpoint usage and audio content, generating control signals for environmental conditions like temperature and lighting, thereby optimizing energy use and comfort without extensive retrofitting.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If existing telecommunications infrastructure is used to monitor and control environmental conditions, then facilities costs are reduced and employee comfort is maintained, but the system requires integrating new control functions into existing telecommunication equipment
Solution Approach 1:
The private branch exchange is enhanced to perform both its traditional call-routing function and new environmental monitoring and control functions. The exchange monitors telecommunications endpoints to detect occupancy and generates control signals for environmental conditions, allowing one system to serve multiple purposes and reduce the need for separate dedicated infrastructure.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention combines the telecommunications infrastructure with the facilities management system by integrating occupancy detection and environmental control capabilities into the existing private branch exchange, merging previously separate functions into a unified system that reduces overall complexity and cost.
2Ease of manufacture
If telecommunications endpoints are used to detect occupancy and generate control signals, then costly sensor network retrofits are avoided, but the system must accurately interpret telecommunications signals to determine occupancy status
Solution Approach 1:
The system monitors telecommunications endpoints for specific signals (off-hook conditions, call connections) that indicate occupancy, using this feedback information to dynamically adjust environmental controls. The exchange continuously receives signals from endpoints and uses this information to generate appropriate control signals for environmental conditions.
Solution Approach 2:
The private branch exchange acts as an intermediary that translates telecommunications endpoint signals into occupancy detection information. Rather than directly interpreting raw endpoint data, the exchange uses its existing call-handling logic to determine occupancy status, accurately inferring presence from telecommunication activity patterns.
3Productivity
If the private branch exchange monitors endpoint usage and audio content to control environmental conditions, then employee comfort is optimized in real-time, but the system processes and analyzes additional data streams
Solution Approach 1:
The system selectively monitors only the necessary aspects of telecommunications endpoint activity (off-hook conditions, call connections, basic audio presence) rather than analyzing all possible data streams. This partial monitoring approach provides sufficient occupancy and comfort information while minimizing data processing requirements and avoiding unnecessary information overload.
Data Source
AI summary
A technique is disclosed that enables the managing of environmental conditions within an enterprise workplace and, in doing so, provides an improvement in facilities cost management over some techniques in the prior art. A data-processing system such as a private-branch exchange monitors the workplace by using one or more telephones, or other “telecommunications endpoints” to which the exchange is connected, in the workplace area. The exchange determines whether people are present in the workplace area by monitoring which endpoints are in use. Additionally, the exchange monitors the sounds that are received by the microphones of the endpoints. Based on knowing which endpoints are in use, the exchange generates control signals for the purpose of controlling one or more environmental conditions such as temperature, lighting, and so forth. In some embodiments of the present invention, the exchange examines the audio content of the received signals and bases the control signals on the audio content analyzed.