CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is the U.S. National Phase application under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of International Application No. PCT/EP2020/066002 filed Jun. 10, 2020, which claims the benefit of European Patent Application Number 19180482.2 filed Jun. 17, 2019. These applications are hereby incorporated by reference herein.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to the field of garment care, in particular to a textile treatment device.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

It is known that ironing devices are provided with temperature sensors. The temperature sensors are used to control operation of the ironing device and to avoid damaging the textile (of the garments) due to inappropriate operating parameters. If the user uses the ironing device for treating different textiles, it is still necessary for the user to manually adjust at least one setting, such as the temperature of the soleplate of the ironing device, in order to achieve efficient treatment of the textile. For an optimal ironing result, the temperature should be at the maximum temperature that flattens the wrinkles but not damages the fabric. In order to omit manual control, it has been suggested to reduce the maximum temperature. The disadvantage of this approach is that the ironing of tougher materials, such as jeans and linen, require more time.

Usually, in order to determine the appropriate temperature setting, the user relies on care labels which are attached to the garments. This manual approach is not convenient for the user. Moreover, it has been shown that with years of use, these labels attached to garments often get lost leaving the user with no information regarding the kind of fabric or the required temperature for treating the textile.

US 2016/0145794 discloses an iron having an image sensor so that digital image processing enables a fabric type to be detected, and the iron settings to be controlled.

DE 10 2013 210 996 discloses a smartphone app by which an image of clothing is analysed to determined washing machine settings or garment treatment products to be used.

CN106283584A discloses an electric iron that comprises: an image acquisition unit configured to acquire images, a processor configured to obtain material information of articles to be ironed according to the acquired images and determine initial ironing parameters corresponding to the material information of articles to be ironed, and an ironing controller configured to control current ironing parameters of the electric iron according to the initial ironing parameters.

WO2004/009898A2 discloses an electric iron having a housing and a soleplate in which at least one outlet opening is provided, means for generating a fine liquid spray or foam or steam, and means for delivering said generated fine liquid spray or foam or steam through said outlet opening. The iron is provided with detection means for detecting the presence of a surface in the proximity of the soleplate and for generating a detection signal in response to said detection, and with control means for controlling the delivery of said fine liquid spray or foam or steam in response to said detection signal.

EP2418317A1 discloses an iron comprising a water reservoir configured to hold liquid water, a heatable soleplate including at least one water outlet opening, a water atomization and distribution means configured to atomize water from the water reservoir and to distribute the atomized water to the at least one water outlet opening, sensor means, configured to monitor at least one motion dependent variable of the iron and to generate a reference signal reflecting said variable, and control means operatively connected to both the water atomization and distribution means and the sensor means, and configured to control a water outflow rate of the at least one water outlet opening by controlling the operation of the water atomization and distribution means in dependence of the reference signal generated by the sensor means.

EP 3 279 392 A1 discloses an apparatus and method for cleaning a fabric.

OBJECT AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the invention to propose an improved portable textile treatment device that avoids or mitigates the above-mentioned problems.

The invention is defined by the independent claims. The dependent claims define advantageous embodiments.

To this end, the invention proposes a portable textile treatment device comprising:

a heatable soleplate intended to be in contact with a textile for treating the textile, said heatable soleplate comprising a soleplate opening,a module comprising an image sensor for taking an image of the textile to be treated through said soleplate opening.
The portable textile treatment device also comprises a control unit configured for:a) executing an algorithm stored in said portable textile treatment device, using the taken image as an input of said algorithm, to obtain a classification of the textile, andb) controlling, based on said classification, at least one operating parameter of the portable textile treatment device.
The module and the control unit are integrated within the portable textile treatment device.
The image sensor comprises an active surface sensitive to light which is oriented with respect to the surface of the heatable soleplate, with an absolute value of an orientation angle being in the range from 15 to 70 degrees.
The portable textile treatment device further comprises thermal insulation means arranged in-between said heatable soleplate and said module for insulating said module from heat dissipated by said by heatable soleplate.
The image capture is based on capture of an image from an angle to the textile surface, wherein the angle is in the range 15 to 70 degrees. Thus, rather than illuminating the textile perpendicularly from above and capturing an image from above, an angled arrangement is used. This is found to enable a better classification of the textile type, by partly imaging the textile from above (hence viewing the fabric pattern) as well as partly from the side (hence viewing a height profile of the fabric).

Considering the relative proximity of the module and the heatable soleplate which may reach temperature as high as 220 degree Celcius, the thermal insulation means prevent an over-heating of the module, and in particular an over-heating of the image sensor. The image sensor is thus kept below a safe working temperature, for example 70 degree Celcius, which prevents damaging it when the device is in use.

Detailed explanations and other aspects of the invention will be given below.

