Patent Application
20250040700
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to a heating device.
Pools, spas, hot tubs, and the like are often used for recreational purposes. Such devices may having a heating system associated therewith to heat water in the devices, thereby increase user enjoyment and comfort. Sometimes such devices are used in colder climates, and a user of such devices may be cold upon exiting the heated hot tub, pool, or spa.
While existing pools, spas, hot tubs, and the like are suitable for their intended purposes, the need for improvement remains, particularly in providing improved user experiences to users of pools, spas, hot tubs, and the like.
According to one aspect of the disclosure, an exterior garment warmer is provided. The exterior garment warmer comprises a plurality of walls, a door, an upper portion, and a lower portion together forming an interior portion of the exterior garment warmer. A heating element is disposed within at least one of the plurality of walls, the heating element configured to selectively heat the interior portion of the exterior garment warmer. Wherein the exterior garment warmer is configured to be disposed in an outdoor environment.
According to another aspect of the disclosure, a system is provided. The system comprises a pool or spa and a controller associated with the pool or spa. An exterior garment heater is provided having a plurality of walls, a door, an upper portion, and a lower portion together forming an interior portion of the exterior garment warmer. A heating element is disposed within at least one of the plurality of walls, the heating element configured to heat the interior portion of the exterior garment warmer. Wherein the exterior garment warmer is configured to be disposed in an outdoor environment.
According to yet another aspect of the disclosure a system is provided. The system comprises an exterior garment heater. The exterior garment heater comprises a plurality of walls, a door, an upper portion, and a lower portion together forming an interior portion of the exterior garment warmer. A first heating element is disposed within at least one of the plurality of walls, the first heating element configured to heat the interior portion of the exterior garment warmer. Wherein the exterior garment warmer is configured to be disposed in an outdoor environment. A controller is associated with the exterior garment heater.
These and other advantages and features will become more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the drawings.
The subject matter, which is regarded as the disclosure, is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification. The foregoing and other features, and advantages of the disclosure are apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
The detailed description explains embodiments of the disclosure, together with advantages and features, by way of example with reference to the drawings.
Embodiments described herein provide for an exterior garment warmer according to one or more embodiments described herein.
Sometimes, pools, spas, hot tubs, and the like are used in colder climates, and a user of such devices may be cold upon exiting the heated hot tub, pool, or spa. Although a user may use a towel, robe, or other garment to dry off and warm up in such situations, the cold climate may cause the towel, robe, or other garment to be cold, which causes an undesirable user experience.
One or more embodiments described herein improve user experiences using pools, spas, hot tubs, and the like by providing an exterior garment warmer to warm robes, towels, or other garments. When the user exits the pool, spa, hot tub, or the like, the user can retrieve a warmed garment, such as a robe or towel, from the exterior garment warmer.
Referring now to
The exterior garment warmer 100 includes walls 101 and doors 102 disposed between a lower portion 103 and an upper portion 104. Although two doors 102 are shown, other embodiments may have other numbers of doors. For example, the exterior garment warmer 100 can include a single door, barn-door style door, or an accordion-type folding door for example. Further, while the illustrated embodiment shows each door coupled to the walls by one or more hinges along a single side, other types of door arrangements may be used, such as a bi-fold door for example. The walls 101 and doors 103 are made from a suitable material for use in an exterior environment, such as wood or a plastic (e.g. high density polyethylene) for example.
Together, the walls 101, the doors 102, the lower portion 103, and the upper portion 104 form an interior portion 105 of the exterior garment warmer 100. The interior portion 105 can be heated using heater coils 106, which are disposed on or with-in the walls 101. The heater coils 106 may be a wire element that generates heat in response to the passing of an electrical current (e.g. resistance heating) According to one or more embodiments described herein, the heater coils 106 can be disposed on or with-in the lower portion 103, the upper portion, and/or the doors 102. The heater coils 106 can be powered by a power source 107, which can be a battery, a solar panel, a connection to an external power source, such as grid power from an electric power provider, and/or the like including combinations and/or multiples thereof. It should be appreciated that while the heater coils 106 are described as being resistive heating elements, this is for example purposes and other heating elements may be used, such as but not limited to conduits carrying heated mediums (e.g. water). In an embodiment, the heating elements may be fluidly coupled to the spa to receive warm/hot fluid that is then flowed through the heating elements within the walls 101. In this embodiment, the exterior garment warmer 100 may include fittings and valves to connect the garment warmer to the spa in a manner known in the art.
The exterior garment warmer 100 can include one or more attachment elements or hooks 108, such as for hanging robes, towels, or other garment. For example one or more hooks 108 can be installed on one or more of the walls 101, the doors 102, and/or the upper portion 104 within the interior portion 105 of the exterior garment warmer 100. The hooks 108 enable a garment, such as a robe or towel, to be hung within the exterior garment warmer 100 so that the garment can be warmed using the exterior garment warmer 100. In an embodiment, the hooks may be configured to be offset from the surface of the walls 101 to allow air flow between a garment (when hung on the hook) and the adjacent wall. According to one or more embodiments described herein, additional hooks (not shown) can be installed on an exterior portion of the exterior garment warmer 100 for hanging garments, such as a robe or towel. According to one or more embodiments described herein, the interior portion 105 of the exterior garment warmer 100 can include one or more shelves, one or more bars, and/or the like including combinations and/or multiples thereof, for hanging garments, such as a robe or towel.
According to one or more embodiments described herein, an internal light 109 can be installed within the interior portion 105 of the exterior garment warmer 100 to illuminate the interior portion 105. The internal light 109 can be turned on/off manually by a user, such as using a switch (not shown), and/or automatically, such as using a sensor associated with the doors 102. For example, the internal light 109 can turn on when one or more of the doors 102 is opened and can turn off when the doors 102 are closed.
According to one or more embodiments described herein, the walls 101, the doors 102, the lower portion 103, and/or the upper portion 104 maybe insulated (e.g. with an open or closed cell foam), which assists with retaining heat within the exterior garment warmer 100.
According to one or more embodiments described herein, the exterior garment warmer 100 may also include an optional heater 110 to heat the internal portion 105 of the exterior garment warmer 100. The heater 110 can provide thermal energy instead of and/or to supplement the heater coils 106. In an embodiment, the heater 110 is a convection (e.g. air) based heating device including one or more resistive heating elements and a fan that passes cooler air over the heating elements and flows the warmed air into the interior portion 105.
It should be appreciated that the embodiment of the exterior garment warmer 100 shown in
Turning now to
The controller 204 can be any suitable device for controlling the pool/spa 202. For example, the controller 204 can be a microprocessor-based device. The controller 204 can be integral or external to the pool/spa 202. The controller 204 can include various components, modules, engines, etc., which can be implemented as instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium, as hardware modules, as special-purpose hardware (e.g., application specific hardware, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), application specific special processors (ASSPs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), as embedded controllers, hardwired circuitry, etc.), or as some combination or combinations of these. According to aspects of the present disclosure, features and functionality of the controller 204 can be a combination of hardware and programming. The programming can be processor executable instructions stored on a tangible memory, and the hardware can include a processing device (not shown) for executing those instructions. Thus, a system memory (not shown) can store program instructions that when executed by the processing device implement the engines described herein.
The controller 204 can control aspects of the pool/spa 202, such as a heater to heat water within the pool/spa 202, a pump to circulate water within the pool/spa 202, a light to illuminate the pool/spa 202, a salt cell to control chlorine within the pool/spa 202, and/or the like including combinations and/or multiples thereof.
The controller 204 can also control aspects of the exterior garment warmer 100. For example, the controller 204 can selectively enable and/or disable the heater coils 106, the internal light 109, and/or the heater 110. The controller 204 can be communicatively coupled to the exterior garment warmer 100 via a link 206. The link 206 can be a direct or indirect wireless and/or wired communications link. According to one or more embodiments described herein, the controller 204 can cause the exterior garment warmer 100 to initiate warming (e.g., to enable one or more of the heater coils 106 and/or the heater 110) when the pool/spa 202 is turned on. Similarly, the controller 204 can cause the exterior garment warmer 100 to stop warming (e.g., to disable one or more of the heater coils 106 and/or the heater 110) when the pool/spa 202 is turned off. According to one or more embodiments described herein, the controller 204 can be used to schedule when the exterior garment warmer 100 is warming, such as by scheduling a date and/or time for initiating and/or stopping warming.
Turning now to
The controller 212 can control aspects of the exterior garment warmer 100. For example, the controller 212 can selectively enable and/or disable the heater coils 106, the internal light 109, and/or the heater 110. The controller 212 can be communicatively coupled to a user computing device 214 via a link 216. The link 216 can be a direct or indirect wireless and/or wired communications link. The user computing device 214 can be a smart phone, remote control, tablet computer, laptop computer, wearable computing device, and/or the like including combinations and/or multiples thereof. A user can input commands, such as using an interface of the user computing device 214, to control the exterior garment warmer 100. According to one or more embodiments described herein, the controller 212 can cause the exterior garment warmer 100 to initiate warming (e.g., to enable one or more of the heater coils 106 and/or the heater 110) responsive to a command received from the user computing device 214. Similarly, the controller 212 can cause the exterior garment warmer 100 to stop warming (e.g., to disable one or more of the heater coils 106 and/or the heater 110) responsive to a command received from the user computing device 213. According to one or more embodiments described herein, the controller 212 can be used to schedule when the exterior garment warmer 100 is warming, such as by scheduling a date and/or time for initiating and/or stopping warming via the user computing device 214.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the disclosure. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It should also be noted that the terms “first”, “second”, “third”, “upper”, “lower”, and the like may be used herein to modify various elements. These modifiers do not imply a spatial, sequential, or hierarchical order to the modified elements unless specifically stated.
Various embodiments are described herein with reference to the related drawings. Alternative embodiments can be devised without departing from the scope described herein. Various connections and positional relationships (e.g., over, below, adjacent, etc.) are set forth between elements in the following description and in the drawings. These connections and/or positional relationships, unless specified otherwise, can be direct or indirect, and the embodiments described herein are not intended to be limiting in this respect. Accordingly, a coupling of entities can refer to either a direct or an indirect coupling, and a positional relationship between entities can be a direct or indirect positional relationship. Moreover, the various tasks and process steps described herein can be incorporated into a more comprehensive procedure or process having additional steps or functionality not described in detail herein.
The following definitions and abbreviations are to be used for the interpretation of the claims and the specification. As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,” “including,” “has,” “having,” “contains” or “containing,” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a composition, a mixture, process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is not necessarily limited to only those elements but can include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such composition, mixture, process, method, article, or apparatus.
Additionally, the term “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance or illustration.” Any embodiment or design described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs. The terms “at least one” and “one or more” may be understood to include any integer number greater than or equal to one, i.e. one, two, three, four, etc. The terms “a plurality” may be understood to include any integer number greater than or equal to two, i.e. two, three, four, five, etc. The term “connection” may include both an indirect “connection” and a direct “connection.”
The terms “about,” “substantially,” “approximately,” and variations thereof, are intended to include the degree of error associated with measurement of the particular quantity based upon the equipment available at the time of filing the application. For example, “about” can include a range of ±8% or 5%, or 2% of a given value.
For the sake of brevity, conventional techniques related to making and using one or more of the embodiments described herein may or may not be described in detail herein. In particular, various aspects of computing systems and specific computer programs to implement the various technical features described herein are well known. Accordingly, in the interest of brevity, many conventional implementation details are only mentioned briefly herein or are omitted entirely without providing the well-known system and/or process details.
The descriptions of the various embodiments have been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope of the described embodiments. The terminology used herein was chosen to best explain the principles of the embodiments, the practical application or technical improvement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodiments described herein.
While the disclosure is provided in detail in connection with only a limited number of embodiments, it should be readily understood that the disclosure is not limited to such disclosed embodiments. Rather, the disclosure can be modified to incorporate any number of variations, alterations, substitutions or equivalent arrangements not heretofore described, but which are commensurate with the spirit and scope of the disclosure. Additionally, while various embodiments of the disclosure have been described, it is to be understood that the exemplary embodiment(s) may include only some of the described exemplary aspects. Accordingly, the disclosure is not to be seen as limited by the foregoing description, but is only limited by the scope of the appended claims.
The present application is a nonprovisional application of, and claims the benefit of, U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 63/530,149 filed on Aug. 1, 2023, the contents of which are incorporated by reference herein.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63530149 | Aug 2023 | US |
