System for monitoring a drying process and method for the operation thereof

Abstract

A system for monitoring a drying process for damp laundry items outside a laundry treatment appliance includes, as components to be located in a plurality of appliances that are spatially separate from one another, at least one sensor device including at least one air humidity sensor and a first radio unit for a wireless information exchange with an external evaluation unit and/or an external display device which, to this end, have at least one second radio unit and a first sensor device to be placed in the vicinity of the damp laundry items. An evaluation unit is provided for sensor signals from the sensor device. A display device displays information for a user of the system. A method for operating the system is also provided.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring a drying process for damp laundry items outside a laundry treatment appliance, the system comprising: components being spatially separate from one another as follows: (a) at least one sensor device including at least one air humidity sensor and a first radio unit for a wireless information exchange with at least one of an external evaluation unit or an external display device having at least one second radio unit, said at least one sensor device including a first sensor device to be placed in a vicinity of the damp laundry items being dried outside a laundry treatment appliance; (b) an evaluation unit for evaluating sensor signals from said at least one sensor device, said evaluation unit configured to transmit an alarm signal to said display device upon a predetermined upper limit value for an air humidity being exceeded due to at least one of rain or darkness; and (c) a display device for displaying information for a user of the system.

2. The system according to claim 1, which further comprises a second sensor device disposed at a distance from the damp laundry items.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein said second sensor device emits sensor signals as reference values for an evaluation of the sensor signals from said first sensor device in said evaluation unit.

4. The system according to claim 1, which further comprises a laundry hanging device used for drying the damp laundry items, said first sensor device being disposed on said laundry hanging device.

5. The system according to claim 4, which further comprises a mounting for attaching said first sensor device to said laundry hanging device.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein said evaluation unit is configured to determine a drying period of the damp laundry items using the sensor signals.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein said evaluation unit is configured to determine when an end of a drying process of the damp laundry items has been reached by using the sensor signals and is configured to display the end of the drying process on said display device.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein said at least one sensor device additionally contains at least one of a temperature sensor, an air pressure sensor, an acceleration sensor or a light sensor.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein the system is configured to permit a user to choose one of: (i) an outdoor mode in which external conditions at a location where the damp laundry items are hung out are taken into account by using said at least one sensor device to measure at least one of a temperature, a pressure, an acceleration or a light intensity as external conditions at the location where the damp laundry items are hung out, said evaluation unit then taking the sensor signals into account; or (ii) an indoor mode in which spatial conditions at the location where the damp laundry items are hung out are taken into account by using said at least one sensor device to measure at least one of a temperature, an acceleration or a light intensity as spatial conditions at the location where the damp laundry items are hung out, said evaluation unit then taking the sensor signals into account; or (iii) a basic mode in which only at least one of a drying period or an end of the drying process of the damp laundry items are determined.

10. The system according to claim 9, wherein in said outdoor mode (i) said evaluation unit is configured to request weather information from the Internet and to take the weather information into account when evaluating the sensor signals.

11. The system according to claim 9, wherein said at least one sensor device has at least one of an air pressure sensor for detecting a weather forecast or a water droplet sensor for detecting raindrops.

12. The system according to claim 1, wherein said display device is configured to display evaluation signals of said evaluation unit as at least one of sounds, light signals, text, symbols or vibrations.

13. The system according to claim 1, wherein said at least one sensor device contains an acceleration sensor and is configured to evaluate acceleration signals from said acceleration sensor regarding a presence of winds which are too high or other problems and to display a warning signal relative thereto to a user on said display device.

14. A method for operating a system for monitoring a drying process for damp laundry items outside a laundry treatment appliance, the method comprising the following steps: providing components being spatially separate from one another as follows: (a) at least one sensor device including at least one air humidity sensor and a first radio unit for a wireless information exchange with at least one of an external evaluation unit or an external display device having at least one second radio unit, the at least one sensor device including a first sensor device to be placed in a vicinity of the damp laundry items being dried outside a laundry treatment appliance; (b) an evaluation unit for evaluating sensor signals from the at least one sensor device; and (c) a display device for displaying information for a user of the system; (i) hanging out the damp laundry items at a location suitable for hanging out damp laundry items for drying the damp laundry items outside the laundry treatment appliance; (ii) measuring sensor signals by using the at least one sensor device; (iii) using the evaluation unit to evaluate the sensor signals at least regarding at least one of a probable drying period or an end of the drying process; and (iv) using the evaluation unit to transmit an alarm signal to the display device upon a predetermined upper limit value for an air humidity being exceeded due to at least one of rain or darkness.

15. The system according to claim 1, which further comprises a mounting configured to attach said first sensor device to a laundry hanging device.

16. The system according to claim 15, wherein said mounting is configured to clip said first sensor device to the laundry hanging device.

17. The method according to claim 14, which further comprises mounting the first sensor device to a laundry hanging device.

18. The method according to claim 17, which further comprises carrying out the mounting step by clipping the first sensor device to the laundry hanging device.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING

(1) Further details of the invention are disclosed in the following description of non-limiting embodiments. In this case reference is made to FIGS. 1 to 3.

(2) In FIG. 1 a laundry airer is shown as an exemplary laundry hanging device in which the drying process of suspended damp laundry items may be tracked by a system according to the invention.

(3) In FIG. 2 an exemplary system according to the invention which is used on the laundry airer of FIG. 1 is shown schematically.

(4) In FIG. 3 a smartphone which contains the components including the evaluation unit and display device of the system according to the invention is shown.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

(5) FIG. 1 shows a laundry airer 11 as an exemplary laundry hanging device on which damp laundry items 2 are suspended in order to be air-dried. A system 1 according to the invention is arranged between the damp laundry items 2, the three components including the sensor device 4, evaluation unit and display device, which however are not visible here in more detail, being arranged in one appliance in this case. A first radio unit is contained in this appliance, therefore, the link to a wireless network via for example WLAN or Bluetooth being possible thereby. However, the display device in this case is substantially limited to several LEDs for the display of status information, for example regarding the charging state of a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, also not shown here, and/or a drying state of the laundry items which has been reached.

(6) The sensor device, in this case a first sensor device 3, is provided with a mounting 13, the system 1 being fastened thereby to the laundry airer.

(7) In the embodiment of the invention shown in FIG. 1, a second sensor device 4 which is also provided with a mounting 13 is additionally used. Via the mounting 13 the second sensor device 4 is also attached to the laundry airer 13 but at a greater distance from the damp laundry items 2. In this manner, the second sensor device 4 is capable of determining reference data regarding the surrounding conditions. The sensor device 4 and a further evaluation unit for evaluating the sensor signals from the sensor device 4 and a second radio unit are also integrated in an appliance, not shown in more detail here.

(8) Both sensor devices 3 and 4 are designed in order to communicate wirelessly with an external display device, for example a smartphone.

(9) FIG. 2 shows the system according to the invention used in FIG. 1 by way of example in a non-limiting embodiment, comprising a first sensor device 3 in addition to a humidity sensor 5, a temperature sensor 14, an air pressure sensor 15, an acceleration sensor 16 and a light sensor 17 and a first radio unit 6. The system 1 shown here by way of example contains in addition to the first sensor device 3 an evaluation unit 9 which is integrated in the same appliance and an integrated display device 10, wherein said display device, not shown in more detail, in this case substantially contains LEDs for displaying status information. An installed loudspeaker additionally permits the emission of acoustic signals, for example warning signals, with the onset of rain or the onset of darkness.

(10) A smartphone 18 which contains the components including the evaluation unit and display device of the system according to the invention is shown in FIG. 3. These components are thus an external evaluation unit 7 and an external display device 8. In particular, the external display device 8 permits a user to monitor a drying process taking place at a distance, for example on the laundry airer of FIG. 1. To this end, the display device 8 is provided with acoustic, optical and vibrating display means. In the embodiment shown here an external evaluation unit 7 is contained in the smartphone 18, the evaluations thereof being able to be communicated to a user via the display device 8. Thus the second radio unit 12 shown here represents, in particular, a radio connection with a sensor device, not shown here, for example to a laundry airer or a network, for example the Internet. In embodiments of the invention, however, when using a smartphone it is possible to dispense with the smartphone having an external evaluation unit.

REFERENCE NUMERALS

(11) 1 System for monitoring a drying process 2 Damp laundry items 3 Sensor device, first sensor device 4 Sensor device, second sensor device 5 Humidity sensor 6 First radio unit 7 External evaluation unit, for example smartphone, tablet computer 8 External display device 9 Integrated evaluation unit 10 Integrated display device 11 Laundry hanging device, laundry airer 12 Second radio unit 13 Mounting 14 Temperature sensor 15 Air pressure sensor 16 Acceleration sensor 17 Light sensor 18 Smartphone