MODULAR CONTROL PANEL FOR HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES

DESCRIPTION

The present invention relates to a control panel for at least one electric appliance for domestic use according to the preamble of claim 1.

The electric appliances to which the present invention typically is applied are household appliances, in particular kitchen household appliances. The Italian patent application TO2004A00767 describes a cooking oven which, by means of an appropriate arrangement of its internal elements, stands out from traditional cooking ovens available on the market as, , the container is shorter, the internal volume of the muffle being equal. According to the teachings contained in the Italian patent application TO2004A00767, it is possible to provide a cooking oven having a height of about 480 mm, instead of about 600 mm, with the resulting advantage of a significant reduction of the space occupied by the oven. It follows that, if the cooking oven according to the Italian patent application TO2004A00767 is a built-in oven, the recess obtained in a cabinet of the household kitchen for accommodating the oven must have a vertical dimension being shorter than that of standard recesses (wherein "standard recesses" are recesses having the following dimensions: 600 mm width by 600 mm height, or 900 mm width by 600 mm height). For an oven being about 480mm high, it is necessary to provide a recess having the following dimensions: 600 mm width by 480 mm height, or 900 mm width by 480 mm height. Said different height of the recesses involves a problem when a traditional cooking oven is to be replaced with an oven according to the teachings of the Italian patent application TO2004A00767. In such a case, in fact, assuming that the oven is about 480mm high, there will remain a free space being 600mm wide and 120mm high, or 900mm wide and 120mm high. Having of course considered that said free space cannot be left in view, the Applicant decided to tackle the problem of efficiently making use of it.

The Applicant then realized that, in household environments, in particular in household kitchens, there is a need (so far neither expressed nor fulfilled) of optimizing the control systems of the electric appliances and of reducing the number of user interface devices (selection and/or display devices) of the electric appliances.

These and other objects are achieved by means of a control panel having the features set out in the appended claims, which are intended as an integral part of the present description.

The idea at the basis of the present invention is to provide a control panel consisting of a separate module adapted to be installed, in particular, in a cabinet of a household kitchen. The control panel according to the present invention is adapted to allow the user to control at least one electric household appliance of the electronically controlled type. Said control panel comprises selection means, adapted to allow the user to select at least one programme and/or one parameter relating to the electric appliance, and/or display means, adapted to provide the user with at least one piece of information and/or one parameter relating to the electric appliance. According to the present invention, the control panel is a module which is separate from the electric appliance and which is adapted to be as a built-in assembly in a cabinet of a household kitchen: the control panel can be positioned as regards to the electric appliance according to at least a first and a second configurations.

In the present description, "first configuration" will refer to a configuration wherein the control panel is positioned below the electric appliance, whereas "second configuration" will refer to a configuration wherein the control panel is positioned above the electric appliance. A further aspect of the present invention is represented by an electric appliance for domestic use, in particular a household appliance, adapted to be connected and/or coupled to such a control panel.

The present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description and from the annexed drawings, supplied by way of non-limiting example, wherein: - Fig.l shows schematically a control panel according to the present invention and an associated electric household appliance, in particular a cooking oven;

- Fig.2 shows schematically a first way of a built-in assembly of a control panel according to the present invention and an associated electric household appliance, in particular a cooking oven, in a household kitchen and

- Fig.3 shows schematically a second way of a built-in assembly of a control panel according to the present invention and an associated electric household appliance, in

particular a cooking oven, in a household kitchen hi the following description and in the annexed drawings, the same reference numbers designate the corresponding items.

Fig.l illustrates an electric appliance for domestic use, in particular a household appliance such as a cooking oven 3, provided according to the teachings contained in the Italian patent application TO2004A00767. Cooking oven 3 is adapted to be as a built-in assembly in a cabinet of a household kitchen. Container 8 is visible in Fig.l : on the front, there is a door 9 having a handle 10 and a sight glass 11. The oven has a width x (preferably x = 600 mm, or x = 900 mm) and a height yi (preferably yi = 480 mm). The electric household appliance represented by cooking oven 3 has no user interface means. Fig.l also shows a control panel 1 consisting of a modular unit which, like cooking oven 3, is also adapted to be as a built-in assembly in a cabinet of a household kitchen, preferably adjacent to cooking oven 3. Control panel 1 comprises selection means, which are adapted to allow the user to select at least one cooking programme and/or one parameter relating to oven 3 (in particular temperature and cooking time), and display means, which are adapted to provide the user with at least one piece of information and/or one parameter (typically an operating parameter) relating to the electric appliance. By way of example and not by way of limitation, the selection means comprise knobs 6 and push-buttons 2 (which may be touch control devices), whereas the display means comprise a display 7 (e.g. a liquid crystal display) and an array of LEDs 4.

The front of the control panel substantially has a rectangular shape and has the same width x as the oven (x = 600 mm, or x = 900 mm), whereas the height y ₂ of the control panel is preferably equal to the difference between the height yr of the recess of the cabinet wherein the oven is built-in and the height yi of oven 3. Assuming that yj = 600 mm, the height y ₂ of the front will be approximately 120 mm. It follows that the ratio between the width x and the height y ₂ of the front is either about 5 or about 7.5. Both control panel 1 and the associated electric appliance are provided with an electronic control system. In fact, the control panel is fitted with a suitable control electronics 12, preferably a microcontroller, connected to the selection means and to the display means (the wiring used for said connections is not shown in Fig.l). Advantageously, control electronics 12 comprises storage means, preferably a non-volatile memory, and means through which said control panel 1 can be connected to a network and/or to an external

electronic device, in particular a remote terminal, and/or to an external electronic system, in particular through a network (e.g. the Internet information network or the GSM telecommunications network). Likewise, the associated electric appliance, in particular oven 3, is also fitted with its own control electronics 20, which controls, through specific connections, the electric loads of the electric appliance (not shown in Fig.l): among other things, the control electronics 20 controls the activation of the fan adapted to veer the air inside oven 3, and regulates the power supplied to the heating elements in order to adjust the temperature inside oven 3. Control electronics 20 of oven 3 comprises a microcontroller and storage means, preferably a non-volatile memory. In order to ensure that control panel 1 allows the user to effectively control said at least one associated electric appliance, it may be advantageous to provide a bidirectional communication line between control panel 1 and the electric appliance, adapted to transfer the programmes and parameters selected by the user through the selection means from control panel 1 to the electric appliance and adapted to transfer to control panel 1 information and/or parameters (typically operating parameters) relating to the electric appliance, which can then be made explicit through the display means of control panel 1. To allow control panel 1 and the associated electric appliance, in particular oven 3, to communicate over said communication line, suitable reception and transmission means are associated with the respective control electronics 12 and 20. hi Fig.l, by way of non- limiting example, said bidirectional communication line is established by connecting control panel 1 to oven 3 through cable 5 (communication can take place over cable 5 according to any known techniques of communication over electric or telephone cable, such as serial cable communication or power line communication). Likewise, communication between control panel 1 and oven 3 may be provided by using, instead of a dedicated cable, a radiofrequency communication line or network: in this case, the communication between control panel 1 and oven 3 will be radio communication, i.e. wireless communication.

Since control panel 1 comprises storage means, which are adapted to store information relating to said at least one associated electric appliance, in particular relating to oven 3, said storage means can be exploited for storing statistical information (the term "statistical information" refers to information summarizing how oven 3 is utilized by the user) or diagnostic information (the term "diagnostic information" refers to information

which allows to detect any malfunctions and/or failures of oven 3). Said statistical or diagnostic information can be generated either by control electronics 12 of control panel 1 or by control electronics 20 of oven 3.

This information may also be transferred to an external electronic device, in particular a remote terminal, and/or to an external electronic system, in particular through an information or telecommunications network. Said transfer takes place through the above- described suitable means: for example, diagnostic information can be sent by control panel 1 to a preventive maintenance center. Fig.2 shows a first way of a built-in assembly comprising control panel 1 and oven 3 in a cabinet of a kitchen 30. Said first way is particularly suited to the installation of said assembly in an upright cabinet 90 included in the kitchen 30, since control panel 1 is positioned relative to the associated electric appliance according to the above-mentioned first configuration, wherein it is positioned below the associated electric appliance, i.e. oven 3. This offers the advantage that control panel 1 is located at such a height from the floor that it is particularly easy for the user to select, through the appropriate selection means (such as knobs 6 and push-buttons 2), cooking programmes and parameters relating to oven 3.

Fig.3 shows a second way of a built-in assembly comprising control panel 1 and oven 3 in a cabinet of a kitchen 30. Said second way is particularly suited to the installation of said assembly below a cooking top 80 included in kitchen 30, since control panel 1 is positioned relative to the associated electric appliance according to the above-mentioned second configuration, wherein it is located above the associated electric appliance, i.e. oven 3. Alternatively to the positions shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3, control panel 1 and oven 3 may be positioned in a household kitchen in several other ways, according to which control panel 1 may even be located at a distance from oven 3.

It is therefore apparent that control panel 1 according to the present invention offers the advantage of ensuring high flexibility as concerns the positioning of the control panel of at least one electric appliance in a household kitchen, in that the present invention has made said positioning independent of the installation location of the various electric appliances included in the kitchen. The user can therefore locate control panel 1 in the position that he/she believes to be the most ergonomic and comfortable one.

According to a particularly advantageous embodiment of the present invention, control panel 1 operates as a control device adapted to control a plurality of electric household appliances. It is clear that, according to this embodiment, the control panel may even not be as a built-in assembly in a cabinet, but simply be laid, for example, on a support surface of a kitchen and advantageously communicate with the electric appliances by radio, e.g. according to the "Bluetooth" standard.

In this case, each electric household appliance is provided with electronic control means, preferably comprising a microcontroller, and is connected to control panel 1 by means of an electric or telephone cable, or else via radiofrequency. The selection means of control panel 1 comprise at least one device adapted to allow the user to alternatively select at least one electric appliance to be controlled through the control panel 1. After having selected, through said device, the electric appliance to be controlled, the user can, through the selection means of control panel 1, select commands and/or functional parameters relating to said electric appliance, which can vary its state and/or change its operating programme based on the command and/or the functional parameter selected by the user and sent by control panel 1. For example, if the electric appliance selected by the user through said device is a dishwasher, by means of control panel 1 the user can, among other things, start the machine, or select a particular wash programme, or set the time at which the machine will have to start automatically. Control panel 1 may be provided with voice control means allowing to control the electric household appliances vocally (in such a case, a voice recognition programme is implemented in control electronics 12): thus the user can select the electric appliance to be controlled and/or the command and/or functional parameter to be sent to said electric appliance simply by using his/her voice. The present embodiment is even more advantageous if control panel 1 can operate not only as a control device, but also as a monitor device for monitoring a plurality of electric household appliances, each fitted with electronic control means. In this case, control panel 1 is according to patent EP 1095440: in fact, it provides the user, through the display means, e.g. display 1, with information generated by the electronic control means of the electric appliances (this generation of information by the electronic control means of the electric appliances may occur spontaneously, or else upon request by the control panel 1), or with information relating to the monitored electric appliances generated by control electronics 12 of control panel 1. The information displayed by control panel 1 (and

possibly also transferred to a network and/or a remote terminal by control panel 1) may be functional, statistical or diagnostic information (the terms "functional", "statistical" and "diagnostic" are to be understood as described in patent EP 1095440). The present embodiment therefore offers the user the great benefit of having the possibility of monitoring and/or controlling a plurality of electric appliances from one point in the kitchen, through a single electronic device being external to said electric appliances (i.e. through control panel 1).

As said, a further aspect of the present invention is represented by an electric appliance for domestic use, in particular a household appliance, adapted to be connected and/or coupled to a control panel as described above and claimed in the appended claims.

Said electric household appliance may be characterized by having no user interface means, which implies a reduction of costs and overall dimensions. From the present description and from the annexed drawings supplied by way of non- limiting example, it is apparent that the present invention, besides overcoming the drawbacks of the mentioned prior art, also offers further important advantages.

In particular, it should be highlighted that control panel 1, according to the present invention, is perfectly in agreement with the current design trends aiming at obtaining lines and geometries being as simple and essential as possible: in fact, for oven 3 associated with control panel 1, one may conceive a design wherein the continuity of door 9 (which is the only visible part of oven 3) is only interrupted by the interposition of handle 10.

Additionally, by transferring the user interface devices from oven 3 to an external modular unit, such as control panel 1 according to the present invention, it is possible to attain another remarkable advantage (by which the manufacturers of electric household appliances such as oven 3 can benefit), consisting in the fact that control panel 1 allows to obtain a considerable standardization in production, i.e. a considerable reduction of the product range. In fact, since oven 3 may comprise no interface device, it is conceivable to manufacture a single basic model and then to provide product diversification by associating a control panel 1, chosen among a series of different control panels, with the basic model and by adapting control electronics 20 of oven 3 to communicate with the chosen control panel 1. The present description referred to a cooking oven as the at least one electric household

appliance associated with the control panel according to the present invention, though a different electric household appliance might have been chosen, such as, for example, a dishwasher, a suction hood, etc., without by no means departing from the inherent inventive concepts of the present invention. As a matter of fact, the present invention has been described with reference to a particular embodiment example, but it is clear that many changes may be made thereto by those skilled in the art and that all said embodiments will still fall within the scope defined by the appended claims.