Cuisinte: Smart Stove

Problem Statement 

Often times women in my sorority forget to fully turn off the stove after putting their pots away. Fortunately, this problem hasn’t escalated but it would be helpful if we got alerts telling us if the stove doesn’t have a pot on it but is still on. 

Goal

My solution will detect if there is nothing on the stove and if the stove is still on. If this is the case, then it will send an email letting alerting us. Although, ideally the stove would turn off by itself; for now it at least raises awareness of the problem. 

Precedents

1. StoveTec

a. Someone close to me was in a fire accident, which has since made me want to figure out ways to make stoves safer. StoveTecs solution to this problem involves 2 particle photons that can read temperature. At 78 degrees it detects the stove as on. Using geofencing, it will know if you have left the perimeter of your apartment and within 2 minutes, it will alert you if you left your stove on. In an effort to create my own “smart stove” I could potentially use similar technology, to determine if the stove is on and send alerts, but one improvement would be to send faster alerts and to have the stove turn itself off.

https://particle.hackster.io/28660/stovetec-20a6ca

2. WiFi Gas Detector

a. My roommates tend to leave the stove knobs on, which is very dangerous. In an effort to discover ways to make stoves safer, I came across the WiFi Gas Detector. Using the particle photon, Stefan was able to create a simple gas detector that detects methane and natural gas as well. If the sensor was activated there would be a beeper and alerts sent as texts. There are still make kitchen fires occurring and one way to help combat that is with a smart stove. One possible way to make it smarter would be to integrate similar technology as Stefan, but instead have it be more seamlessly integrated.

https://particle.hackster.io/leela-flynn-17/home-improvement-diy-wifi-gas-detector-with-text-alerts-49073d

3. Irniv uses a sensor hub, smart knob, and app that will turn your stove off if unattended or in hazardous situations. The sensor hub has a gas and smoke detector that will turn the stove off when activated and uses motion sensors to alert you if the stove was left on but is unattended.

https://inirv.com/about-us/

Process

The first step was to figure out how the system would work, which can be visualized with the diagram below. 

A magnet would be placed on a pot, which will activate the hall effect sensor. This rose a problem later on where the magnet was not strong enough so I had to manually simulate the process.

From there I wanted to work on each component separately so I worked on the Hall Effect Sensor, which would turn off if a magnet touches it. In our scenario that would indicate if a pot is on the stove. The code for the hall effect sensor (seen below), was based on the example we went over in class where if a button was pressed the LED would light up. 

The setup for the breadboard is the following: 

I then worked on getting the temperature sensor to work. I based the code for this sensor on Tutorial  #4: Temperature Logger (https://docs.particle.io/tutorials/projects/maker-kit/#tutorial-4-temperature-logger), which makes use of the OneWire library. The following is the code for the temperature sensor. 

When setting up the breadboard I used the bare sensor to test if it could detect room temperature. Once that was verified I changed it to the waterproof sensor to see if it can detect the heat from flames. A video of the working temperature sensor is seen below.

Outcome 

In the end, I was able to combine the hall effect sensor and the temperature sensor code to achieve my initial goal. 

Bill of Parts

- DSB1820 Temperature sensor

- Jumper Wires

- Hall Effect Sensor

- Resistor

- LED

- Particle photon

Circuit Diagram 

Completed Code 

For the final result, I tested everything using a tub of cold water since it would allow me to manually bring the magnet close to the sensor. The LED is lit up if the temperature sensor is below room temperature (i.e. in the tub of water) and if there is no magnet against the hall effect sensor. In the case of the stove, this would mean there is nothing on the stovetop but the flame is on. 

Reflections

In the beginning, I wanted the stove to turn off by itself if it saw that nothing was on stove but the flame was on. The outcome for this project is a good stepping stone to that ultimate goal. Next steps would include using servos and attach them to the stove knob. 

One challenge I faced was getting the temperature sensor to work but after extensive testing, I was able to combine the code for both sensors. Another problem was that the magnet could only be detected by the hall effect sensor if it was touching it. For this project it still got the point across, but future iterations of the product could use distance sensors to see if a pot is nearby.