Patent Application
20180010806
Generally, the present invention relates to the field of food preparation appliances. More specifically, the present invention relates to an oven door comprising a user interface for displaying information.
Ovens for food preparation are well-known in prior art. Said ovens comprise a base body forming an oven cavity with a cavity opening for receiving the food to be prepared. In addition, the oven comprises a door for closing the cavity opening. The oven door acts as thermal barrier to keep the heat energy in the cavity during operation of the oven. Typically, oven doors are at least partially transparent in order to enable the user to control the food preparation process within the closed cavity. State of the art ovens comprise a user interface usually located above the oven door and attached to the oven base body for providing information to the user, e.g. baking temperature, baking period etc.
German patent application DE 10 2011 007 407 A1 discloses a household appliance comprising a LCD display at the household appliance door.
It is an objective of the embodiments of the invention to provide an oven door and an oven with a graphical user interface providing an enhanced visibility of displayed information and improved thermal insulation properties. The objective is solved by the features of the independent claims. Preferred embodiments are given in the dependent claims. If not explicitly indicated otherwise, embodiments of the invention can be freely combined with each other.
According to an aspect, the invention relates to an oven door for closing an oven cavity. The oven door comprises a first and a second door wall element. The first door wall element is arranged at the outer side of the oven door and comprises or is constituted by a transparent door glass. In other words, the first door wall element is at least partially transparent. Said door wall elements are arranged at a distance from one another thereby forming a space between each other. An electronic display is arranged in said space between the first door wall element and the second door wall element in order to provide information to a user in front of the oven door. Said information is provided through the transparent first door wall element. The oven door further comprises an image capturing device, said image capturing device being arranged between the first and second door wall element in order to record images of the interior of the oven cavity. Said image capturing device is coupled with the electronic display in order to display the recorded images. Said oven door is advantageous because information can be displayed at the oven door which provides a greater display area than a display being integrated in a panel above the oven door. By using an image capturing device, the oven door may be opaque and improved heat insulation means can be used within the oven door leading to an improved efficiency of the oven. In addition, the heat impact on the electronic display is lowered.
Preferably, the electronic display may be a colour display having a large display size in order to display all relevant information at the same time. In addition, the resolution of the display may allow to show multimedia content e.g. like videos. The electronic display may be a customizable display giving the user the freedom to place icons, buttons and windows as desired. The electronic display may cover the whole or only a part of the oven door. Thereby, an improved usability of the oven is achieved.
According to embodiments, a thermal insulation is placed between the first door wall element and the second door wall element. Said thermal insulation may use any insulation material suitable for usage within the oven door, specifically glass wool or stone wool material. Thereby, the heat impact on the electronic display being arranged behind (averted from the oven cavity) said thermal insulation is significantly reduced and the efficiency of the oven is improved.
According to embodiments, the thermal insulation comprises an opaque material. So, in other words, due to the opaque thermal insulation, the user is not able to have a look through the oven door into the oven cavity. Monitoring of the food to be cooked or baked is only possible based on the recorded images reproduced and shown at the electronic display.
According to embodiments, the electronic display and the image capturing device are arranged in a space between the first door wall element and the thermal insulation. Thereby, the electronic display and the image capturing device are integrated within the oven door and shielded against thermal heat of the oven cavity.
According to embodiments, the thermal insulation comprises a capturing aperture for enabling the image capturing device to capture and additionally to record images of the oven cavity for current and later use. The image capturing device is able to receive optical information of the oven cavity through said capturing aperture and the second door wall element and provide said optical information (also modified by image processing) at the electronic display.
According to embodiments, the image capturing device is arranged at an upper portion of the oven door in order to record images according to an inclined top-down view of the oven cavity. Thereby, the electronic display may show the original view the user may have in case of a transparent oven door.
According to embodiments, an optical entity is placed in the optical path between the image capturing device and the oven cavity, said optical entity being configured to modify the optical capturing area of the image capturing device. The optical entity may be any transparent device configured to refract light when passing said device or reflect light. For example, said optical entity may be a lens, a prism, a mirror or the like. Thereby a wide angle image capturing can be realized.
According to embodiments, the optical entity is configured to shield the image capturing device against thermal impact, i.e. protect the image capturing device against heat of the oven cavity. Said shielding/protecting may be realized by insulating properties of the optical entity, e.g. by a cavity included in the optical entity. Said cavity may be filled with an inert gas or may be evacuated.
According to embodiments, the oven door comprises passive and/or active cooling means for providing an airflow flowing through a space between the door wall elements, specifically through the space between the first door wall element and the thermal insulation. By means of said airflow, the electronic display and/or the image capturing device is cooled in order to lower the heat impact on said devices.
According to embodiments, the electronic display is a liquid crystal display (LCD), a transparent thin film electroluminescent display or an LED-matrix display, OLED or the like.
According to embodiments, the oven door comprises background lighting means for providing backlight to the electronic display if needed. Thereby, the optical properties of the electronic display are improved.
According to embodiments, the oven door comprises one or more control units for controlling the operation of the electronic display and/or the image capturing device. The control units may be integrated within the oven door, i.e. may be arranged between the first and second door wall element.
According to embodiments, the LED-on-glass display comprises a plurality of LED elements adhered to the inner surface of the first glass pane, the LED elements being coupled with a control unit via transparent electrical conductive lines. The transparent electrical conductive lines may be formed by printing, sputtering or depositing indium tin oxide (ITO) or carbon- or silver nanotubes ink directly on the first glass pane. Thereby, a highly transparent electronic display is achieved.
According to embodiments, the oven door comprises a control unit for controlling the operation of the electronic display, the control unit being adapted to communicate with an oven control unit. Said oven control unit may be arranged in the base body of the oven. Said control unit may be configured to control the electronic display such that desired information is displayed at said display.
According to embodiments, the electrical connections or wiring of the electronic display and/or a control unit for controlling the electronic display are arranged behind a non-transparent area of the first door wall element. Said non-transparent area may be constituted by a non-transparent printing on the first door wall element. Thereby, said elements are hidden and not visible by a user being located in front of the oven door.
According to embodiments, the oven door comprises a user control interface, said user control interface being at least partially located in the area of the electronic display, the user control interface being adapted to detect user interactions for controlling the oven. In other words, the user control interface may be also provided behind the first door wall element. The user control interface may be a touch sensor or a gesture control interface. Thereby, the user not only receives information displayed at the electronic display but is also able to control the oven by touching a certain area or region (e.g. a displayed button) of the door glass.
According to embodiments, the user control interface is arranged between the first door wall element and the electronic display. The user control interface may be a touch sensor laminated on a door glass forming the first door wall element or being comprised within the first door wall element. Thereby, a touch-sensitive user interface included in the oven door is achieved.
According to embodiments, the user control interface comprises a touch-sensitive interface of resistive or capacitive type, an infrared touch interface or a touch interface based on surface acoustic waves. By means of said types of user control interfaces touch positions can be detected. Said touch positions may be correlated with certain control information in order to determine the desired user input.
According to other embodiments, the user control interface comprises optical touch and/or gesture recognition means. Said optical touch and/or gesture recognition means make use of infrared transmitters and infrared cameras for determining the touch or approximation position of an object (e.g. the finger of a user). Advantageously, the user input may also be achieved by approximation of an object (e.g. the user's finger) to a certain section of the user control interface, i.e. touching of the user control interface may not be necessary.
According to a further aspect, the invention refers to an oven for preparing food. Said oven comprises an oven cavity and an oven door for closing the oven cavity. The oven door is configured according to the embodiments described above.
According to further embodiments, the electronic display of the oven door is electrically coupled with a control unit and/or power supply arranged in the oven base body via an electrical wiring, an inductive coupling, door contacts and/or wireless transmission means. Also a mixture of wireless and wired connections is possible. For example, the electric power is transmitted using a cable connection whereas the control signal transmission between the oven door and the oven base body is realized by wireless signal transmission, e.g. Bluetooth.
The terms “essentially”, “substantially” or “approximately” as used in the invention means deviations from the exact value by +/−10%, preferably by +/−5% and/or deviations in the form of changes that are insignificant for the function.
The various aspects of the invention, including its particular features and advantages, will be readily understood from the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings, in which:
The present invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which example embodiments are shown. However, this invention should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Throughout the following description similar reference numerals have been used to denote similar elements, parts, items or features, when applicable.
The oven door 10 further comprises an electronic display 12 for displaying graphical information, e.g. alphanumeric characters, symbols etc. in the area of the oven door 10. The electronic display 12 may be integrated in the sandwich-like structure between said first and second door wall element 11.1, 11.2. More in detail, the electronic display 12 may be arranged behind the first wall element 11.1 which may comprise a transparent door glass or may be constituted by a transparent door glass. Therefore, the first wall element 11.1 (in the following also referred to as door glass) is at least partially transparent, i.e. the user is able to see through the first wall element 11.1 and receive information provided by the electronic display 12. Preferably, the arrangement of the electronic display 12 is chosen such that the electronic display 12 is located as far as possible away from the oven cavity 2.
In order to avoid a significant impact of heat emitted by the oven cavity 2 and therefore keep the temperature of the electronic display 12 below a certain temperature threshold (said temperature threshold depends on the technology of the electronic display, e.g. below 100° C. for thin film electroluminescent displays (TASEL) or below 50° C. for liquid crystal displays (LCD)) the oven door 10 comprises heat isolation means. Said heat isolation means may be adapted to shield the electronic display 12 from heat emitted by the oven cavity 2. The heat isolation means may be any means which are adapted to reduce the heat impact to the electronic transparent display 12, specifically a non-transparent thermal insulation 14.
For example, said heat isolation means may comprise any heat-shielding material, specifically stone wool or glass wool. For example, the heat isolation means may comprise multiple layers including a metallic sheet material layer in order to lower the heat impact on the electronic display 12.
In order to enable a user to watch at the food to be cooked or backed despite of the fact that the oven door 10 is opaque, an image capturing device 13 is arranged within the oven door 10. More in detail, the image capturing device 13 is arranged in the space between the first wall element 11.1 and the second wall element 11.2. More in detail, the image capturing device 13 may be arranged between the first wall element 11.1 and said thermal insulation 14. As shown in
The image capturing device 13 may be arranged in the upper part of the oven door 10, preferably horizontally centred. Thereby, the viewing angle, respectively, the viewing direction of the image capturing device 13 is similar to the user's perspective (inclined top-down perspective).
In order to enhance the optical image capturing, an optical entity, specifically an optical entity 15 may be provided in the optical path between the oven cavity and the image capturing device 13. The optical entity 15 may be any transmissive optical device that affects the transmission path of a light beam through refraction. Specifically, the optical entity 15 may be a lens unit, a prism, a mirror or the like. By means of said optical entity 15, capturing of wide-angle images of the interior of the oven cavity may be possible by means of a single image capturing device 13. Alternatively, it may be possible to use multiple image capturing devices 13 and compose an image based on multiple images provided by said image capturing devices 13. Said composing may be done based on well-known image processing procedures. Said multiple image capturing devices 13 may be arranged in a vertical column or a horizontal row.
Said optical entity 15 may further comprise heat-shielding properties, i.e. may be adapted to shield the image capturing device 13 against detrimental heat impact. For example, the optical entity 15 may comprise a cavity which may be filled with an inert gas. The cavity reduces the heat transfer from the oven cavity to the image capturing device 13. In this way, a thermal overload of the image capturing device 13 can be prevented. Instead of using inert gas or the like, it may be also possible to evacuate the cavity.
Advantageously, the oven door 10 may comprise cooling means for cooling said electronic display 12. The cooling means may comprise a fan or blower for conveying air through the space in which the electronic display 12 is located. The air stream provided by the fan or blower may cool the electronic display 12, the image capturing device and further electronics included in said space thereby avoiding an overheating of said display. Also heat sinks and/or heat pipes may be used for enhancing the cooling effect.
For displaying information at, respectively, in the area of the door glass, different kinds of electronic displays 12 may be used. For example, a electronic display 12 (LCD, OLED or a like) may be used.
According to a first embodiment, a transparent or non-transparent screen or display may be used for displaying information at the oven door (cf.
For displaying information, transparent LCDs relay on the fact of blocking or permitting the passage light through the LCD panel. In other words, transparent LCDs are passive display systems, i.e. an external source of illumination is needed to obtain a visible image on said transparent LCD. So, for displaying information, background illumination is necessary. Transparent LCDs differ from non-transparent LCDs on the fact that they do not include any background illumination because when applying background illumination, the transparency of the display is compromised. So, when using a transparent LCD external background illumination means are necessary. Therefore, it may be possible to include any background illumination means (e.g. LEDs) in the space between the electronic display 12 and the second door wall element 11.2, specifically, between the electronic display 12 and the thermal insulation 14.
According to another embodiment, the electronic display 12 may be constituted by a transparent thin film electroluminescent display (TASEL). In contrary to the transparent LCD display, TASEL is an active display, i.e. the display is adapted to emit light. More specifically, the TASEL comprises a plurality of pixels or segments which may emit light when activated. Thus, there is no need for background illumination. A further advantage of TASEL displays is the ruggedness (for example withstanding temperatures up to 100° C.) and the longer lifespan.
According to another embodiment, the electronic display 12 may be constituted by a LED-on-glass display 20. An exemplary LED-on-glass display 20 is shown in
The LED devices or LED chips 21 may be arranged such that alphanumeric segments are formed. Alternatively, the LED devices or LED chips 21 may form a dot matrix type display. For achieving a transparent display, the LED devices or LED chips are electrically connected by means of transparent electrical conductor traces or wires 22. Said transparent electrical conductor traces or wires 22 may be printed, sputtered or deposited directly on the surface of the glass pane at which the LED devices or LED chips 21 are also adhered to. For example, indium tin oxide (ITO), carbon- or silver-nanotubes inks may be used for forming said transparent electrical conductor traces or wires 22.
The LED-on-glass display 20 may be coupled with a control unit adapted to drive the LED devices or LED chips 21 in order to display information on the oven door 10.
Typically, electronic displays 12 comprise electrical contacts, electrical wires and/or electrical circuits/circuit boards at their edges. In order to avoid the visibility of said elements arranged at the edges, said contacts, electrical wires and/or electrical circuits/circuit boards are arranged behind nontransparent sections of the first door wall element 11.1. Preferably, the first door wall element 11.1 comprises a non-transparent section at at least one edge of the glass pane behind which the electrical contacts, electrical wires and/or electrical circuits/circuit boards are hidden. Said non-transparent section may be obtained by a dark printing at the rear side of the glass pane. As shown in
In order to control the oven, the oven door 10 may further comprise a user control interface 30. Said user control interface 30 may be included in the oven door 10 between the first and second door wall element 11.1, 11.2. By means of the user control interface, the user is able to control the oven 1, for example activate a certain baking program or choose the desired baking temperature. Preferably, the areas, at which the electronic display 12 and the user control interface 30 are provided at the oven door 10, may overlap in order to be able to detect touch or approximation of control means (e.g. the finger of a user) in the display area.
According to an embodiment, the user control interface 30 may be an infrared touch screen. As shown in
According to another embodiment, the user control interface 30 may be a touch sensor of resistive or capacitive type. For realizing said touch sensor, a touch-sensitive layer may be placed behind the first door wall element 11.1 (door glass) or may be integrated within the door glass. Preferably, the touch-sensitive layer may be placed behind or laminated to the door glass. In case of a resistive type of touch sensor, a control unit coupled with the touch-sensitive layer may be adapted to localize the touch position based on a local change of electrical resistance in the area of the touch-sensitive layer. In case of a capacitive touch sensor type, a control unit coupled with the touch-sensitive layer may be adapted to localize the touch position based on a local change of electrical capacitance in the area of the touch-sensitive layer.
Another type of touch sensor may comprise a transparent ink printed at an area of the door glass, preferably at the inner side of the door glass. Said ink may comprise electrical properties which change when touching the door glass in the area of said printing. A control unit coupled with said touch sensor may detect and localize said change of electrical properties in order to associate said touch event with a certain control input of the user. Preferably, a touch sensor using transparent ink may be used in connection with a LED-on glass display (
According to yet another embodiment, the user control interface 30 may include a surface acoustic wave touch sensor. The surface acoustic wave touch sensor may comprise acoustic wave generator means and acoustic wave receiving means. More in detail, the surface acoustic wave touch sensor may comprise at least a first acoustic wave generator for generating acoustic waves in a horizontal direction (x-direction) and a second acoustic wave generator for generating acoustic waves in a vertical direction (y-direction). Similarly, the surface acoustic wave touch sensor may comprise at least a first acoustic wave detector for detecting acoustic waves in a horizontal direction (x-direction) and a second acoustic wave detector for detecting acoustic waves in a vertical direction (y-direction). The location of touching the touch sensor may be determined based on a variation of surface acoustic waves received by said acoustic wave detectors.
It is worth mentioning that the upper-mentioned types of touch sensors may be transparent for light in the visible wavelength range and said touch sensor and the electronic display may be arranged above one another. Thereby it is possible for a user to provide user input by means of the touch sensor in the display area. Said touch sensors may be of single touch type or multi-touch type.
According to another embodiment shown in
The electrical connections between the oven door 10 and the oven base body 3 for providing power and control signals to the electronic display 12, respectively, the user control interface 30 may be realized by means of wires or in a wireless way. Also combinations of wired and wireless connections are possible.
The wired connection between the oven door 10 and the oven base body 3 may be realized by means of cablings through the door hinges or electrical connectors at the oven door 10 and the oven base body 3 wherein an electrical contact between an electrical connector at the oven door 10 and a corresponding electrical connector at the oven base body 3 is established when the oven door 3 is closed.
Wireless data transmission may be realized using wireless LAN or Bluetooth technology. Also proprietary wireless data transmission technologies may be possible. Wireless power transmission may be, for example, realized by means of inductive coupling.
Above, embodiments of an oven door according to the present invention as defined in the appended claims have been described. These should be seen as merely non-limiting examples. As understood by a skilled person, many modifications and alternative embodiments are possible within the scope of the invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15154457.4 | Feb 2015 | EP | regional |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP2016/052675 | 2/9/2016 | WO | 00 |
