I’ve never fully understood how the ‘popcorn’ button on microwaves work (I’ve read different things that may or may not all be true depending on make/model), but my current one always runs for exactly 3 seconds too long and ever so slightly burns the popcorn.
It’s not burned enough to throw it out, but it does give a noticeable “burnt popcorn” smell that kind of ruins my day.
So instead of pressing “popcorn” and doing something else, I have to stand there and watch it to hit ‘cancel’ in time.
It’s a damn shame that we haven’t built a microwave that actually listens to the pops and stops when the pops slow, just like every bag of popcorn instructs you to do. We’ve got gun shot detectors; you’d think we could build a chip to analyze popping popcorn.
A peak detector that resets a timer is within the realm of possibility, maybe combine it with the moisture sensor so that you start listening for the pops to slow down after you detect the burst of steam.
Want to go half on the patent?
Yes. How to keep the humidity sensor clean and accurate over time may be tricky though.