Monitoring And Controlling A Cooking Environment
Various embodiments are disclosed. A cooking vessel may include a cover, thermionic power converter, and a handle having a memory, a transmitter, and an IR light emitting diode. An infrared image sensor may be used with the IR light emitting to determine a location of the cooking vessel. A sensor and a transmitter may be disposed in the vessel cover to detect and transmit an indication of a boil condition. A system may include a sensor to detect a weight of a cooking vessel and a receiver to receive from the cooking vessel a memory-stored property of the cooking vessel, and a processing unit. The processing unit may determine a weight of the food and a predicted cooking time. The system may include a projected user interface and a proximity sensor. An apparatus may include an image sensor to capture a reference image and current images of a surface. A location of a cell on the surface may be determined from the images.
The present application claims the benefit under 35 USC Section 119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/325,088, filed Apr. 16, 2010, entitled “Projected User Interface.” The present application is based on and claims priority from this provisional application, the disclosure of which is hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
FIELDThis application relates generally to monitoring a cooking process and controlling a cooking environment. More particularly, this application relates to monitoring a cooking process and controlling a cooking appliance in a safe and convenient manner.
BACKGROUNDA person preparing a meal typically uses three major work areas in a kitchen and a variety of minor areas. The three major areas are the cleaning area (sink), the cooking area (range or cooktop) and the cold storage area (refrigerator). The minor areas include storage areas for food, cookware, serving ware, and the like. Preparing a meal typically involves performing multiple tasks in these locations more or less simultaneously. Further, it is not uncommon for the person preparing the meal to also be supervising children, interacting with others located inside or outside of the kitchen, or leaving a work area or the kitchen itself for various reasons and for various lengths of time. Monitoring or controlling one or more cooking processes simultaneously can be a problem, especially if the person is not present in the cooking area.
Accordingly, there is a need for apparatus and methods for monitoring a cooking process and controlling a cooking environment. Moreover, there is a need for apparatus and methods for monitoring a cooking process and controlling a cooking appliance in a safe and convenient manner.
SUMMARYOne embodiment is directed to a cooking vessel. The cooking vessel may include a vessel handle. A memory may be disposed in the vessel handle to store a vessel parameter. A transmitter may be disposed in the vessel handle to transmit the vessel parameter. The cooking vessel may also include a thermionic power converter to provide electrical energy to the memory and transmitter. In one embodiment, the vessel handle may include at least one IR light emitting diode. An infrared image sensor and the IR light emitting may be used to determine a location of the cooking vessel. In one embodiment, the cooking vessel may include a cooking vessel cover. A sensor may be disposed in the cooking vessel cover to detect a boil condition in the cooking vessel. In addition, a transmitter may be disposed in the cooking vessel cover to transmit a message indicative of a detected boil condition.
Another embodiment is directed to a cooking vessel. The cooking vessel may include a vessel handle, which may include at least one IR light emitting diode. An infrared image sensor and the IR light emitting may be used to determine a location of the cooking vessel. The cooking vessel may also include a thermionic power converter to provide electrical energy to the IR light emitting diode. In one embodiment, at least two IR light emitting diodes are provided and arranged in a pattern in the vessel handle, the pattern corresponding with a particular one of two or more cooking vessels. Thus, the pattern may be used to identify the cooking vessel. In one embodiment, the at least one IR light emitting diode emits a particular sequence of IR light pulses identifying the cooking vessel. The at least one IR light emitting diode may emit radiation at a single frequency so as to be distinguishable from other IR radiation. In one embodiment, cooking vessel may include a cooking vessel cover. The cooking vessel cover may have a sensor and a transmitter disposed in the cover. The sensor may detect a boil condition in the cooking vessel. The transmitter may transmit a message indicative of a detected boil condition. In another embodiment, the cooking vessel may include a cooking vessel cover, which includes a vessel cover handle. The vessel cover handle may have at least one IR light emitting diode disposed in the handle. The presence of the cooking vessel cover is determined if an infrared image sensor detects the at least one IR light emitting diode in the handle.
One embodiment is directed to a system that may include a user interface, sensor, receiver, and processing unit. The user interface may receive an input of a type of food. The sensor may detect a weight of a cooking vessel. The receiver may receive from the cooking vessel a property of the cooking vessel. The processing unit may determine a weight of the food in the cooking vessel from the sensed weight of the cooking vessel and the received property of the vessel. The received property of the vessel may include a tare weight of the vessel. In addition, the processing unit may determine a predicted cooking time based on the input food type and the determined weight of the food. In one embodiment, the may include a cooking vessel having a vessel handle. The vessel handle may have a memory and a transmitter disposed in the handle. The memory may store a vessel property and the transmitter may transmit the vessel property to the receiver. The vessel property may include a vessel size. In one embodiment, the processing unit may determine the predicted cooking time based the input food type, the weight of the food, and the vessel size. In one embodiment, the system may include a projector to project the user interface onto a display surface. In addition, the system may include a proximity sensor to detect whether a user is present in a particular area. The proximity sensor may provide a signal to a device indicative of whether the user is present in the particular area. The device may be communicatively coupled with the projector and the proximity sensor. The device may control the projector to scale the size of the projected user interface according to whether the user is detected in the particular area. In one embodiment, the system may include a sheet of glass-ceramic material having a top surface, at least one heating element, and an electrical conductor apparatus disposed parallel to the top surface in sheet of glass-ceramic. In addition, system may include a detection circuit coupled with the electrical conductor apparatus. The detection circuit may determine whether moisture is present on the top surface and may signal the processing unit if the detection circuit determines that moisture is present on the top surface. In one embodiment, the processing unit, in response to receipt of the moisture detection signal, causes an indication to be rendered in a user interface indicating that moisture is detected on the cooktop surface. In one embodiment, the indication indicating that moisture is detected on the cooktop surface is rendered in a user interface of a portable multifunction computing and communication device. In one embodiment, the processing unit, in response to receipt of the moisture detection signal, causes a command to be sent to an appliance to control the appliance.
Yet another embodiment is directed to an apparatus that includes an image sensor and a device. The image sensor may capture a reference image and one or more current images of a surface. A location of a cell on the surface may be positionally defined in the reference and current images. The device may be communicatively coupled with the image sensor. The device may determine whether pixels of the cell in the reference image and pixels of the cell in a current image differ. If the pixels of the cells in the respective images differ, the device may provide a signal. In one embodiment, the signal may include an indication of the location of the cell on the surface. In one embodiment, the apparatus may include a processing unit communicatively coupled with the device to receive the signal. The processing unit, in response to the signal, may enable a heating element corresponding with the location of the cell to be energized. In addition, the heating element may be configured to heat a particular one of two or more regions. In this context, the processing unit, in response to the signal, may enable a particular one of the two or more regions to be energized. In one embodiment, the device may determine whether a parameter exceeds a particular threshold. The parameter corresponds with the number of pixels of the cell in the current image that differ from corresponding pixels of the cell in the reference image. The device may provide the signal when the parameter exceeds the particular threshold. In one embodiment, the device ay identify a reference cooking vessel based on one or more of the size, shape, and value of the pixels of the cell in the current image.
In the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of this description. In the several figures, like referenced numerals identify like elements. The detailed description and the drawings illustrate exemplary embodiments. Other embodiments may be utilized, and changes may be made to the exemplary embodiments, without departing from the spirit or scope of the subject matter presented here. In addition, any disclosed embodiment may be combined with any other disclosed embodiment whether or not this description expressly discloses the combination. The following detailed description is therefore not to be taken in a limiting sense, the scope of the claimed subject matter being defined only by the claims.
The system 38 may include one or more control devices 42. The control device 42 may include transceiver 58 for communicating wirelessly or via electric wire or fiber optic cable with other appliances, sensors, or devices. The control device 42 may include one or more processing units 60. A processing unit 60 may be CPU, DSP, hardware logic, state machine, or the like. A processing unit 60 may be operable to execute instructions, e.g., software. The control device 42 may include a memory 62. The memory 62 may store data or instructions for execution by a processing unit 60. The memory 62 may be a volatile or non-volatile memory. Exemplary memories 62 include flash memory chips and drives, floppy disks, memory cards, hard drives, RAMs, ROMs, EPROMs, compact disks, and magnetic tapes. The control device 42 may include a user interface 64. The user interface 64 may include devices for receiving input from a user, such as a keyboard, pointing device (e.g., mouse), joy stick, click wheel, touch screen, microphone, or camera. The user interface 64 may include devices for providing information to a user, such as a display screen, projector, speaker, or device for providing information to somatosensory (tactile) receptors of a user's skin, e.g., vibration, pressure. In one embodiment, a control device 42 may be mounted in a fixed location. In one embodiment, a control device 42 may be a portable multifunction computing and communication device.
Referring again to
The system 38 may include one or more cooking vessels 46. A cooking vessel 46 may include a transceiver 74 for communicating wirelessly or via electric wire or fiber optic cable with other devices. In addition, a cooking vessel 46 may include any one or more of an infrared light emitting diode (“IR LED”) 76, a memory 78, or a thermionic power converter 82.
The system 38 may include one or more cooking vessel lids 48. A cooking vessel lid 48 may include a transceiver 84 for communicating wirelessly or via electric wire or fiber optic cable with other devices. In addition, a cooking vessel lid 48 may include any one or more of an IR LED 86, a motion sensor 88, and a thermionic power converter 90.
The transceiver 114 may transmit a property or condition of a vessel or a vessel lid to a receiver. The transceiver 114 may be one of the previously mentioned transceivers 74, 84. The memory 116 may store a vessel size, a vessel weight, a vessel capacity, a vessel type, or other parameter. In one embodiment, the transceiver 114 and memory 116 may be a known RFID (radio-frequency identification) device. The motion sensor 120 may be an angular rate or gyroscopic sensor that may be used for sensing rotation. The angular rate sensor 120 may sense rotation about one or more axes. Alternatively, the motion sensor 120 may be an acceleration sensor that senses linear acceleration along one or more axes of the sensor. In one embodiment, the motion sensor 120 may include both an angular rate sensor and an acceleration sensor. In an illustrative embodiment, both an acceleration sensor and angular rate sensor may be provided as part AH-6100LR, which includes a 3-axis QMEMS quartz gyro sensor and a 3-axis accelerometer in a single integrated circuit. The AH-6100LR part is available from Epson Electronics America, Inc., San Jose, Calif. In yet another embodiment, the motion sensor 120 may include a pressure sensor. The pressure sensor may positioned at the base of a handle so that a pressure sensing portion of the sensor is located within a cooking vessel so that is may sense pressure within the vessel.
The thermionic power converter 108 may exploit the known thermionic emission phenomena to generate electric power from a heat gradient between a vessel or vessel lid and a handle. The thermionic power converter 108 may include, in one embodiment, an array of p-type and n-type Bismuth Telluride pellets layered between a pair of ceramic substrates molded to fit the curves of the vessel body 100 and the cooking vessel lid 104. The thermionic power converter 108 (or battery 118) may provide an electric current to the IR LED 112, transceiver 114, memory 116, motion sensor 120, or other device integrated with or attached to a vessel or vessel lid. In addition, the thermionic power converter 108 may provide an electric current to the battery 118 to re-charge or top-up the battery 118. Advantages of including a thermionic power converter are that it may: (a) reduce the need for charging the battery 118 using an external power source; and (b) eliminate the need for battery 118 in some embodiments.
The infrared image sensor 70 and cooktop 124 may be installed at particular locations so that the infrared image sensor and cooktop are in a fixed spatial relationship with one another. A digital image captured by the infrared image sensor 70 may have fixed dimensions. For example, a frame may have dimensions of 640×480 pixels. Images captured by the infrared image sensor 70 may be mapped to the cooktop 124. The infrared image sensor 70 may capture infrared radiation emitted from one or more IR LEDs 112 disposed in a vessel handle 102 and lid handle 106. Accordingly, so long as the fixed spatial relationship between the infrared image sensor 70 and cooktop 124 is maintained, spatial locations of a vessel handle 102 and lid handle 106 on the cooktop may be determined from the pixel coordinates of the IR LED image in a captured frame. In some embodiments, the infrared image sensor 70 is positioned to one side of the cooktop 124, which may result in a keystone distortion effect. It is contemplated that a captured frame may be inverse-warped to prevent or minimize keystone distortion. From the sensed spatial location of one or more IR LEDs, a location of the cooking vessel may be determined. Further, the sensed spatial locations of one or more IR LEDs may be used to infer whether a cooking lid 104 has been placed on a cooking vessel.
In one embodiment, a vessel handle 102 or a lid handle 106 may include two or more IR LEDs. A particular number or pattern of IR LEDs may be used to designate and distinguish among different types and sizes of vessels, as well as different types and sizes of vessel handles. As one non-limiting example, the number of IR LEDs may designate vessel capacity, e.g., one IR LED corresponding with ½ liter, two IR LEDs corresponding with 1 liter, etc. In addition, in one embodiment an IR LED 112 may be disposed in a vessel handle 102 and lid handle 106 along with control circuitry to transmit a sequence of pulses of infrared light that represent specific binary codes. These binary codes may correspond to vessel size, vessel weight, vessel capacity, vessel type, or any other property or parameter stored in a memory integrated into a cooking vessel or vessel lid, e.g., memory 78, 116. In addition, a binary code may correspond with a sensed condition. A particular number or pattern of IR LEDs or a particular sequence of infrared light pulses may be captured by the infrared image sensor 70 and decoded by a controller associated with the infrared image sensor. Decoded information pertaining to a vessel or vessel lid property may be communicated to a control device along with other sensed parameters, such as vessel location. One advantage of determining the location of a cooking vessel on a cooktop is that power to a heating element may be inhibited unless a cooking vessel is detected in the same location as the heating element, making for a safer cooking environment. An advantage of determining the location a vessel lid is that detecting the presence of a vessel lid may be used to help determine cooking time in an automated fashion.
In operation 236, it may be determined whether pixels of the cell in the reference image and pixels of the cell in a current image differ. This difference may be determined in one or more ways. The operation 236 may include comparing pixels of a cell of the reference frame and of a current frame on a pixel-by-pixel basis. The operation 236 may include comparing values derived from the pixels of the particular cell in the reference and current frames, e.g., the respective average pixel values. The pixels of the frames may be defined in gray scale or color and the operation 236 may include comparing a particular component value of the pixels of the reference and current frames. For example, operation 236 may include comparing the green color channel for RGB pixels or the luminance channel for YUV pixels. The determination of whether pixels of the cell in the reference image and pixels of the cell in a current image differ may include determining whether the pixels values differ by an amount greater than a particular threshold. In one embodiment, the determination of whether pixels of the cell in the reference image and pixels of the cell in a current image differ may include determining whether the pixels of the cell in a current image substantially match a visual property of a cooking vessel, e.g., color, color pattern, or shape. In another embodiment, the determination of whether pixels of the cell in the reference image and pixels of the cell in a current image differ may include determining whether the pixels of the cell in a current image substantially match a visual property of an object other than a cooking vessel, e.g., the pixels of the cell in a current image may be determined to substantially match pixel values known to correspond with human skin color. In this embodiment, a determination that pixels of the cell in a current image substantially match a visual property of an object other than a cooking vessel may be treated as equivalent to a difference not being detected, i.e., an inference may be made that a cooking vessel is not present on the cooktop 124. If a difference is not detected, the method 230 returns to operation 234. If a difference is detected, it may be inferred, in one embodiment, that a cooking vessel is present on the cooktop 124 in the location corresponding with the cell, and the method 230 advances to operation 238.
In operation 238, the size or shape of the cooking vessel may be determined. In some embodiments, the operation 238 is optional. The operation 238 may determine size of the cooking vessel in one or more ways. The operation 238 may include determining a number or a percentage of pixels of a cell of the current frame having their values changed from the reference frame. In addition, it may be determined whether the number or percentage exceeds a particular threshold. For example, if 90 percent of pixels have changed values, it may be determined that a cooking vessel has a first size, and if 60 percent of pixels have changed values, it may be determined that a cooking vessel has a second size. Continuing the example, the first size may correspond with heat region 220 of heating element 52-1 in
In operation 240, a signal indicative of one or more of the size, location, or shape of the cooking vessel may be generated. Alternatively, the signal generated in operation 240 may include an identification of a cooking vessel. In some embodiments, the signal may be provided to a control device 42 or a heating element control unit 54. In operation 242, a control device 42, heating element control unit 54, or other device, in response to receiving the signal, may generate a control instruction for an appliance. In one embodiment, the control instruction may enable a heating element corresponding with the cell location to be energized. In one embodiment, a heating element may include two or more heat regions, e.g., heat regions 220 and 222 of heating element 52-1 in
The cooktop 124 shown in
The proximity detector 146 senses proximity of a person to a particular area, e.g., a cooktop 124. Referring to
In one embodiment, the size of the second user interface 142 may be automatically adjusted according to whether the sensed position of a human user is in an area near the cooktop 124, e.g., area 150. See
The cooktop 124-1, 124-2 may be formed from a glass-ceramic or other suitable material. The electrical conductor arrangement 200 may be formed from a sheet or wire of any suitable electrically conductive material, such as but not limited to copper. In one embodiment, the electrical conductor arrangement 200 may be introduced into the glass-ceramic during the process of manufacturing the glass-ceramic cooktop 124, e.g., while the glass-ceramic material is in a non-solid state. In an alternative embodiment, the glass-ceramic cooktop 124 may be comprised of two layers, the electrical conductor arrangement 200 being sandwiched between the two layers. In this embodiment, the two layers may be bonded together chemically, mechanically, or in another suitable manner.
The connectors 206, 208 of the electrical conductor arrangements 200-1, 200-2 may be electrically coupled with a drive circuit (not shown). In one embodiment, the drive circuit may include an oscillating circuit that is employed to apply an excitation signal to the electrical conductors and a measurement circuit to measure a frequency, the frequency being proportional to capacitance. Alternatively, the drive circuit may include an impulse circuit that is employed to apply a voltage impulse to the electrical conductors and a measurement circuit to measure an output voltage, the output voltage being proportional to capacitance. In other embodiments, any known drive circuit for sensing a change in capacitance may be employed. The capacitance sensed by a drive circuit may cause a signal indicative of whether or not moisture is present on the cooktop to be provided to a control device 42.
A control device 42 may receive a signal from the drive circuit indicative of whether or not moisture is present on the cooktop, the presence of moisture being inferred from a change in capacitance. In response to this signal, the control device 42 may signal a user that moisture is present on the cooktop or that food cooking on the cooktop has boiled over. The signal provided to the user may include displaying or playing a visual or audible signal, or presenting a tactile signal to the user. The user signal may be in the form of an alert, an alarm, or a message for a user. The user signal may be rendered via any suitable user interface. In one embodiment, the signal sent by the control device 42 may be sent to an appliance and may include a command to control the appliance. For example, the signal may be sent to transceiver 56, which relays the signal to a particular heating element control unit 54 spatially associated with the detected moisture. In response to the signal received from the control device 42, the heating element control unit 54 may cause power to a cooking element 52 to be reduced or turned off. An advantage of providing moisture detection in a cooktop is that it allows a user to be automatically alerted of a boil over condition without regard to the user's location. In addition, it provides the advantage of automatically controlling a heating element to eliminate the boil over condition.
As used in this description, the term “transceiver” may include only a transmitter, only a receiver, or both a transmitter and a receiver.
The methods and variations on these methods described above may be implemented in hardware, software, or in a combination of hardware and software. Software for execution by processing unit to implement all or part of any method described above may stored in any of the memories described in this specification.
It should be understood that the embodiments described above may employ various computer-implemented operations involving data stored in computer systems. These operations are those requiring physical manipulation of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. Further, the manipulations performed may be referred to in terms, such as producing, identifying, determining, or comparing.
Any of the operations described in this specification that form part of the embodiments are useful machine operations. As described above, some embodiments relate to a device or an apparatus specially constructed for performing these operations. It should be appreciated, however, that the embodiments may be employed in a general purpose computer selectively activated or configured by a computer program stored in the computer. In particular, various general purpose computer systems may be used with computer programs written in accordance with the teachings herein. Accordingly, it should be understood that the embodiments may also be embodied as computer readable code on a computer readable medium.
A computer readable medium is any data storage device that can store data which can be thereafter read by a computer system. Examples of the computer readable medium include, among other things, flash drives, floppy disks, memory cards, hard drives, RAMs, ROMs, EPROMs, compact disks, and magnetic tapes.
Although the present invention has been fully described by way of the embodiments described in this specification with reference to the accompanying drawings, various changes and modifications will be apparent to those having skill in this field. Therefore, unless these changes and modifications depart from the scope of the present invention, they should be construed as being included in this specification.
Claims
1. A cooking vessel, comprising:
- a vessel handle;
- a memory disposed in the vessel handle to store a vessel parameter;
- a transmitter disposed in the vessel handle to transmit the vessel parameter; and
- a thermionic power converter to provide electrical energy to the memory and transmitter.
2. The cooking vessel of claim 1, further comprising at least one IR light emitting diode disposed in the vessel handle, wherein a location of the cooking vessel is determined with the infrared image sensor.
3. The cooking vessel of claim 1, further comprising:
- a cooking vessel cover;
- a sensor disposed in the cooking vessel cover to detect a boil condition in the cooking vessel;
- a transmitter disposed in the cooking vessel cover to transmit a message indicative of a detected boil condition.
4. The cooking vessel of claim 3, wherein the sensor includes a gyroscopic sensor.
5. The cooking vessel of claim 3, wherein the sensor includes an acceleration sensor.
6. A cooking vessel, comprising:
- a handle; and
- at least one IR light emitting diode disposed in the handle,
- wherein a location of the cooking vessel is determined with an infrared image sensor.
7. The cooking vessel of claim 6, further comprising a thermionic power converter to provide electrical energy to the at least one IR light emitting diode.
8. The cooking vessel of claim 6, wherein the at least one IR light emitting diode includes at least two IR light emitting diodes arranged in a pattern, the pattern corresponding with a particular one of two or more cooking vessels.
9. The cooking vessel of claim 6, wherein the at least one IR light emitting diode emits a particular sequence of IR light pulses identifying the cooking vessel
10. The cooking vessel of claim 6, wherein the at least one IR light emitting diode emits radiation at a single frequency.
11. The cooking vessel of claim 6, further comprising:
- a cooking vessel cover;
- a sensor disposed in the cooking vessel cover to detect a boil condition in the cooking vessel; and
- a transmitter disposed in the cooking vessel cover to transmit a message indicative of a detected boil condition.
12. The cooking vessel of claim 11, wherein the sensor includes a gyroscopic sensor.
13. The cooking vessel of claim 11, wherein the sensor includes an acceleration sensor.
14. The cooking vessel of claim 6, further comprising:
- a cooking vessel cover including a vessel cover handle; and
- at least one IR light emitting diode disposed in the vessel cover handle,
- wherein the presence of the cooking vessel cover is determined with the infrared image sensor.
15. A system, comprising:
- a user interface to receive an input of a type of food;
- a sensor to detect a weight of a cooking vessel;
- a receiver to receive from a cooking vessel a property of the cooking vessel; and
- a processing unit to determine a weight of the food in the cooking vessel from the sensed weight of the cooking vessel and the received property of the vessel, the received property including a tare weight of the vessel, and a predicted cooking time based on the input food type and the weight of the food.
16. The system of claim 15, further comprising:
- a cooking vessel having a vessel handle;
- a memory disposed in the vessel handle to store a vessel property; and
- a transmitter disposed in the vessel handle to transmit the vessel property to the receiver.
17. The system of claim 16, wherein the vessel property includes a vessel size and the processing unit determines the predicted cooking time based the input food type, the weight of the food, and the vessel size.
18. The system of claim 15, further comprising:
- a projector to project the user interface onto a display surface; and
- a proximity sensor to detect whether a user is present in a particular area and to provide a signal to a device indicative of whether the user is present in the particular area; and
- the device, communicatively coupled with the projector and the proximity sensor, to control the projector to scale the size of the projected user interface according to whether the user is detected in the particular area.
19. The system of claim 18, wherein the display surface is a surface of the appliance.
20. The system of claim 18, wherein the display surface is a surface adjacent to the appliance.
21. The system of claim 15, further comprising:
- a sheet of glass-ceramic material having a top surface;
- at least one heating element;
- an electrical conductor apparatus disposed parallel to the top surface in the sheet of glass-ceramic; and
- a detection circuit coupled with the electrical conductor apparatus, the detection circuit to determine whether moisture is present on the top surface and to signal the processing unit if the detection circuit determines that moisture is present on the top surface.
22. The system of claim 21, wherein the processing unit, in response to receipt of the moisture detection signal, causes an indication to be rendered in a user interface indicating that moisture is detected on the cooktop surface.
23. The system of claim 21, wherein the processing unit, in response to receipt of the moisture detection signal, causes an indication to be rendered in a user interface of a portable multifunction computing and communication device indicating that moisture is detected on the cooktop surface.
24. The system of claim 21, wherein the processing unit, in response to receipt of the moisture detection signal, causes a command to be sent to an appliance to control the appliance.
25. An apparatus, comprising:
- an image sensor to capture a reference image and one or more current images of a surface, a location of a cell on the surface being positionally defined in the reference and current images; and
- a device communicatively coupled with the image sensor, the device to determine whether pixels of the cell in the reference image and pixels of the cell in a current image differ and to provide a signal if the pixels of the cells in the respective images differ.
26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the signal includes an indication of the location of the cell on the surface.
27. The apparatus of claim 26, further comprising a processing unit communicatively coupled with the device to receive the signal, the processing unit, in response to the signal, to enable a heating element corresponding with the location of the cell to be energized.
28. The apparatus of claim 27, wherein the heating element may be configured to heat a particular one of two or more regions and the processing unit, in response to the signal, enables a particular one of the two or more regions to be energized.
29. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the device determines whether a parameter corresponding with the number of pixels of the cell in the current image that differ from corresponding pixels of the cell in the reference image exceeds a particular threshold, and provides the signal when the parameter corresponding with the number of pixels of the cell in the current image that differ from corresponding pixels of the cell in the reference image exceeds the particular threshold.
30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the device identifies a reference cooking vessel based on one or more of the size, shape, and value of the pixels of the cell in the current image.
Type: Application
Filed: Feb 25, 2011
Publication Date: Oct 20, 2011
Inventors: George Lyons (Langley), Manfred Wittmeir (Aichach)
Application Number: 13/034,954
International Classification: H05B 1/00 (20060101);