I burnt my t-shirt last weekend. I was ironing it and in between I had to run to the door and then I got a call and thus completely forgot about my t-shirt until I smelt something burning and there was my dear GAP t-shirt with a nice big shape of an iron embossed right in the middle. This will definitely serve as a grim reminder to not leave the iron face down on anything.
This made me wonder why people never thought about this while designing an iron. This is a very common scenario - that the iron must not burn the cloth under if left unattended.
Couple of ways by which I think this can be tackled
- Having a temperature sensor in the surface that touches the cloth to detect the common burning (ignition) temperature of fabrics so that the iron can shut itself off within a predetermined range of temperature values.
- Detect human presence, mainly by having some kind of pressure sensors in the iron handle, and if there is no touch detected for more than ‘n’ minutes or seconds, have the iron shut itself off.
- Have the iron automatically change orientation when burning/charring is detected.
This led me to search for some commercial products which suffice this need. Well, I did find an iron by Oliso, which uses an Auto-Lift System™ to prevent burning.
I am thrilled. What are other ideas that you can think of to solve this problem ?
6 comments:
Well the ideas said are looking cool.. i think along with one of those features, Alarm could be
introduced for remainding the user ..
I had a look at the fundoo iron you found on the net. i liked the way they have implemented the iron not touching the surface whenever the handle is not touched (Auto-Lift System). Its the most common sense way of not touching the shirt when no one is handling the iron. No waiting till the temperature goes up and sensing it etc. simple.
i dont want more features built into an iron (i dont want expensive irons basically) but small features with common sense will do great help. The auto shut off is helpful. I always forget to switch off the iron after ironing my shirt and end up having huge electricity bills. And a cordless iron?
@Umesh: Cordless irons apparently have never made it big in the market, one of the reasons being the user has to frequently charge it due ot the heavy power consumption.
Definitely, Auto lift makes a lot of sense, just thinking of other ideas which can solve this better.
@vinodh: "the user has to frequently charge it due to the heavy power consumption." Hmm when i said cordless iron i didnt think of a charging mechanism. I hate charging recharging stuff. The thing which was in my mind was something like wifi. wireless electricity. :-) very hypothetical i know. But it might happen in the future. who knows...
Oh btw once i had taken part in a mad ad competition and the product we got was wireless electricity. I came up with a story that our company HQ is in Agra and hence our company name is "WiAgra" with the tagline "Electrifying presence all over" :-)
Interesting :)
Do enlighten us when you figure out how to make wireless elec work though..;)
Physics promises wireless power - BBC News
Wireless energy transfer - wikipedia
MIT's wireless electricity demoed, dubbed WiTricity - Engadget
Hail Google
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