Temperature sensing devices and wireless communication improvements for cooking appliances
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Solution Overview
Problem
Most cooking appliances, such as barbeques, smokers, ovens, and grills, act as Faraday cages or attenuate wireless signals from food thermometers, making it difficult to receive accurate temperature measurements and cooking instructions remotely.
Innovation Solution
A wireless signal repeater is installed on or as part of a cooking appliance, featuring an interior antenna inside the cooking chamber and an exterior antenna on the appliance's exterior. This repeater retransmits wireless signals, improving signal strength and range for remote devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If a wireless food thermometer transmits signals from inside the cooking chamber, then temperature data can be provided to remote devices, but the cooking appliance acts as a Faraday cage and attenuates the wireless signal
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a wireless signal repeater as an intermediary device that receives weak signals from inside the cooking chamber through the wall, amplifies them, and retransmits them to remote devices. The repeater includes an interior antenna positioned near the cooking chamber wall to capture attenuated signals, signal amplification circuitry to boost the weak signals, and an exterior antenna to retransmit the amplified signals outside the appliance, effectively overcoming the Faraday cage effect.
2Ease of operation
If wireless signals are transmitted through the cooking appliance wall, then remote monitoring is enabled, but the signal range and strength are significantly reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The wireless signal repeater serves as a mediator that extends the communication range by receiving signals through the appliance wall, amplifying them, and retransmitting them externally. This allows remote monitoring at greater distances than would be possible with direct transmission through the wall alone.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions from direct linear transmission through the wall to a multi-dimensional approach using interior and exterior antennas positioned at different locations. The interior antenna captures signals near the wall, the signal processor amplifies them, and the exterior antenna retransmits them in a different spatial dimension outside the appliance, effectively extending the communication envelope.
Data Source
AI summary
A temperature sensing device includes a temperature sensor to measure a temperature of a cooking chamber of a cooking appliance. A housing of the temperature sensing device is configured to be mounted on the cooking appliance. A Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) inside the housing is coupled to the temperature sensor, and an insulating layer is located outside an interior wall of the housing. In one aspect, an antenna is coupled to the PCBA to wirelessly transmit data from the temperature sensing device indicating the measured temperature. In another aspect, the temperature sensing device includes a temperature gauge with a needle to indicate the measured temperature, and a motor inside the housing to actuate the needle. According to another aspect, the temperature sensing device is a wireless signal repeater including an exterior antenna and an interior antenna to transmit signals through a wall of the cooking appliance.