Thermostat Direction Display for Emergency Indoor Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Building occupants lack a method to navigate effectively during emergencies such as lockdowns, floods, or tornadoes, and finding specific rooms in complex building layouts is challenging due to the absence of directional guidance beyond exit signs.
Innovation Solution
A thermostat equipped with a user interface, communications interface, and processing circuit that receives emergency and building event information to generate and display priority directions, utilizing GPS coordinates to provide route guidance and audio instructions, and includes a battery controller for operation during power disconnection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a thermostat is wall-mounted in a fixed location, then it provides stable HVAC control, but it cannot be easily moved or taken during emergencies for portability
Solution Approach 1:
The thermostat is designed with a removable wall-mounting mechanism that allows it to transition from a fixed mounted state during normal operation to a portable handheld state during emergencies. The device maintains its mounting bracket for stable installation but includes features like a release mechanism and battery backup that enable easy removal and portability when needed.
2Device complexity
If the thermostat provides only standard HVAC control functions, then the device remains simple, but it cannot provide emergency navigation or building event directions
Solution Approach 1:
The thermostat is designed as a multi-functional device that combines traditional HVAC control with emergency alert and navigation capabilities. It receives and processes multiple types of information including weather alerts, building emergency notifications, and floor plan data, then provides both temperature control and directional guidance functions through its display and audio interfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines previously separate functions (HVAC control, emergency alerts, navigation guidance) into a single integrated thermostat device. The processing circuitry merges multiple information sources and the display system combines temperature information with emergency directions, creating a unified interface that provides both climate control and safety navigation.
3Loss of information
If the thermostat displays multiple emergency directions simultaneously, then all emergency information is provided, but the user cannot determine which direction to follow first
Solution Approach 1:
The processing circuitry pre-prioritizes multiple emergency directions before presenting them to the user. When multiple emergencies are detected, the system automatically ranks them by severity and urgency, then displays them in a predetermined priority order with the most critical direction appearing first, eliminating the need for users to sort through unorganized information.
Data Source
AI summary
A thermostat in a building includes a user interface, a communications interface, and a processing circuit. The user interface is configured to present information to a user. The communications interface is configured to receive emergency information and building event information from a network. The processing circuit is configured to generate one or more emergency directions based on the emergency information and one or more building event directions based on the building event information. The processing circuit is configured to select a highest priority direction based on the emergency directions and the building event directions and cause the user interface to display the highest priority direction.