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The disclosure and prior art relates to doorknob devices and more particularly pertains to a new doorknob device for illuminating a doorknob in a darkened environment.
An embodiment of the disclosure meets the needs presented above by generally comprising a doorknob that is rotatably mounted on a door for opening the door. A light emitter is coupled to the doorknob. The light emitter is comprised of a fluorescent material thereby facilitating the light emitter to emit light in a darkened environment. In this way the light emitter illuminates the doorknob thereby making the doorknob visible to a user a night.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the disclosure 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 disclosure that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
The objects of the disclosure, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the disclosure, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure.
The disclosure will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:
With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to
As best illustrated in
A light emitter 22 is provided and the light emitter 22 is coupled to the doorknob 12. The light emitter 22 is comprised of a fluorescent material thereby facilitating the light emitter 22 to emit light in a darkened environment. In this way the light emitter 22 makes the doorknob 12 visible to a user a night. The light emitter 22 has a contact surface 24 and an emitting surface 26, and the contact surface 24 is continuous such that the light emitter 22 forms a closed ring. The contact surface 24 is bonded to the distal surface 21 of the knob 18 having the light emitter 22 surrounding a center of the knob 18 and has the emitting surface 26 being exposed. Moreover, the emitting surface 26 is concavely arcuate with respect to the contact surface 24 such that the emitting surface 26 presents a rounded profile. The light emitter 22 may be in integrated component of the doorknob 12 during manufacturing, or the light emitter 22 may be a retrofitted component to existing doorknobs.
In an alternative embodiment 28 as shown in
In use, the light emitter 22 absorbs electromagnetic radiation in the spectrum of visible light during daytime hours, thereby “charging” the light emitter 22. Thus, the light emitter 22 emits the electromagnet radiation in the spectrum of visible light during nighttime hours, or other phenomenon the places the doorknob 12 in a darkened environment. In this way the doorknob 12 is visible to a user in a darkened environment, such as an individual waking at night to go to a bathroom, thereby facilitating the user to manipulate the doorknob 12. Moreover, the fluorescent nature of the light emitter 22 facilitates nighttime illumination of the doorknob 12 without the need for electronic circuitry or an electronic power source.
With respect to the above description then, it is to be realized that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of an embodiment enabled by the disclosure, to include variations in size, materials, shape, form, function and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by an embodiment of the disclosure.
Therefore, the foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the disclosure. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the disclosure to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the disclosure. In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be only one of the elements.
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