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US 11,439,184 B2Granted
Puff sensing and power circuitry for vaporizer devices
AssigneeJUUL Labs, Inc.
InventorsAdam Bowen, Alex Cantwell, Nicholas Jay Hatton, Kevin Lomeli, Matthew Rios, Bryan White
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Vaporizer device features capable of improving on current approaches to mitigating against device damage or inoperability occurring from liquid exposure (e.g. exposure to liquid vaporizable material possibly affecting a pressure sensor, internal electronic circuitry, and/or electrical contact pins) are described.
Claims18
A vaporizer device comprising:
- an absolute pressure sensor positioned to detect a first pressure of air along an airflow path connecting air outside of a vaporizer device body with a vaporization chamber of the vaporizer device and a mouthpiece of the vaporizer device;
- an additional absolute pressure sensor positioned to detect a second pressure of air representative of ambient air pressure to which the vaporizer device is exposed;
- and
- a controller configured to perform operations comprising:
- receiving a first signal from the absolute pressure sensor representative of the first pressure and a second signal from the additional absolute pressure sensor representative of the second pressure,
- determining, based on at least the first signal and the second signal, that a puff is occurring, the puff comprising air flowing along the airflow path in reaction to a user drawing on the mouthpiece, and
- causing, in response to the determining, an electrical current to be delivered to a resistive heating element of the vaporizer device, the electrical current causing heating of a vaporizable material for forming of an inhalable aerosol in the air flowing along the airflow path.
4 more elements
A method comprising:
- receiving, at electronic circuitry, a first signal from an absolute pressure sensor of a vaporizer device and a second signal from an additional absolute pressure sensor of the vaporizer device, the first signal representing a first pressure of air, and the second signal representing a second pressure of air, the absolute pressure sensor disposed to experience the first pressure of air, which occurs along an airflow path connecting air outside of a vaporizer device body of the vaporizer device with a vaporization chamber of the vaporizer device and a mouthpiece of the vaporizer device, the additional absolute pressure sensor disposed to detect the second pressure of air, which is representative of ambient air pressure to which the vaporizer device is exposed;
- determining that a puff is occurring based on at least the first signal and the second signal, the puff comprising air flowing along the airflow path in reaction to a user drawing on the mouthpiece;
- and
- causing electrical current to be delivered to a resistive heating element of the vaporizer device in response to the determining.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.