US 2,011,253,693 · Filed 2011-02-25

The Smart Cooking Pot That Knows When Your Water Boils

Imagine a cooking pot that talks to your kitchen counter and tells you exactly when your food is done. This invention combines sensors inside the pot's lid, a smart handle with a memory chip, and infrared cameras to track what's cooking and predict how long it'll take—basically a personal sous chef built into your cookware.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a cooking vessel equipped with sensors that detect boiling conditions and transmit that data wirelessly, combined with a smart handle containing memory and a transmitter, plus infrared light emitters and image sensors that track the pot's location and contents. What's protected here is the entire ecosystem: the hardware inside the pot lid, the data storage in the handle, and the system's ability to capture images of the cooking surface and calculate food weight and cooking time based on sensor inputs.

Why it matters

This patent represents a shift toward intelligent cookware that removes guesswork from meal prep. Instead of standing over a stove or setting arbitrary timers, a cook gets real-time feedback on boil status, food weight, and predicted doneness. For manufacturers, it's a way to bundle multiple technologies—thermal sensing, wireless transmission, computer vision, and data storage—into a single premium product category that commands higher margins than basic pots.

Real-world use

You set a pot of pasta on the stove, and your kitchen display screen automatically updates with a countdown telling you the pasta will be done in 8 minutes, triggered by the moment the lid sensor detected the water's rolling boil.

Original USPTO abstract

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.

Patent details

Publication number: US 2,011,253,693
Filing date: 2011-02-25
Grant date: Application — not yet granted
Assignee: George Lyons / Manfred Wittmeir
Inventor(s): LYONS GEORGE, WITTMEIR MANFRED
CPC class: G06F3/005

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