Cooktops, whether as standalone cooking appliances or incorporated into other cooking appliances such as ranges, generally incorporate multiple heating elements, generally referred to as burners, which are generally controlled by individual burner controls such as knobs. Cooktop burners may be heated using various types of technologies, e.g., using gas, resistive electrical elements or inductive electrical elements, and while in some instances the cooktop burners may incorporate surfaces upon which pots and pans may be directly placed, in other instances the cooktop burners may be covered with grates or may be disposed below glass surfaces upon which pots and pans may be placed.
Given the standard depth of many countertops as well as the typical size of the pots and pans conventionally used with cooktops, the cooktops of many cooking appliances incorporate 4, 5 or 6 burners arranged in a two-dimensional array. The cooktop burners may also vary from one another in size and/or output capacity to accommodate different cooking needs. On the other hand, burner controls such as knobs are often arranged into a linear array, typically either on a backsplash control panel at the rear of a cooking appliance or along the front of the cooking appliance (e.g., on a top or front surface thereof).
In some instances, however, it is not immediately apparent which cooktop burner is controlled by which burner control. Conventionally, graphical icons have been printed on a cooking appliance proximate each burner control to indicate which cooktop burner is controlled by which burner control. However, the graphical icons are not often particularly distinctive, and can lead to a user accidentally interacting with the wrong burner control when attempting to operate a particular cooktop burner.
Therefore, a need exists in the art for an improved manner of facilitating user control over the cooktop burners of a cooking appliance.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds