Patents on the soles of your shoes...: Oh, patents ! Ember® Mugs

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Oh, patents ! Ember® Mugs

Any reluctance you might have in paying $149$ for what looks like another insulated travel mug, to keep your beverage warm or cold, may vanish, once you find out just how smart the Ember® mugs can be.

Two models of the Ember® mugs are marketed: the Ember® 10 oz ceramic mugs ($80), and the Ember® 12 oz travel mugs ($149).

The Ember® mugs recharge on their coasters and are Bluetooth®-connected to an Ember® app. The Ember® app, compatible with Apple and Android devices, enables you to:

control the ideal temperature of your drink
store presets according to different sorts of beverages
track your consumption
name, or color-code, your mug
receive notifications for when your beverage has reached its optimum temperature
keep your beverage at its optimal temperature for one hour

Thus, no more cold coffee (or warm soda when cold drinkware containers are launched), Your drink will retain its ideal temperature “from the first sip to the last”!

The Ember® travel mug is a completely autonomous mug with a rotatable temperature setting dial at the base of the mug, and touch activation on the body of the mug. Both mugs are otherwise preset to 130 degrees F. Using the app, the preset temperature setting may also be adjusted to preferred or recommended temperatures, ranging between 120 and 145 degrees F.

The visually stunning ceramic mugs come in white, black, or recently in copper. The latest equally stunning travel version of the Ember® ceramic mugs is equipped with a push-to-open, leakproof lid, offering a lip interface designed for a 360-degree sipping experience. The design of the Ember® mugs has garnered several awards such as one of Time magazine’s 25 Best inventions of the year in 2017, and an IDSA (Industrial Design Society of America) International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) in the Kitchen and Accessory category, also in 2017.

The Ember® beverage temperature control invention is recited in the 2018 patent application, US2018084943, titled Heated or cooled drinkware. The abstract of this invention is included below together with the patent figure 1 drawing, depicting a cross-sectional view of an embodiment of the drinkware container.

An actively heated or cooled beverage container includes a body chosen from a group consisting of a mug, a cup and a travel mug, the body having a chamber configured to receive and hold a food or beverage therein. The container has a temperature control system that includes a phase change material positioned about at least a portion of the chamber that removes heat from the beverage disposed in the chamber that has a temperature above a predetermined drinking temperature to lower the temperature of the beverage toward the predetermined drinking temperature. One or more heating elements positioned in thermal communication with a different portion of the chamber than the phase change material. The temperature control system also has control circuitry configured to control the operation of the heating element. The temperature control system also includes a ring rotatably coupled to a distal end of the body, the ring configured to rotate about a central axis of the container relative to a proximal portion of the body and to communicate with the control circuitry.