CN118042948A

CN118042948A - Refill device

Info

Publication number: CN118042948A
Application number: CN202280059952.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 麦-林·特兰; 史蒂芬·波特; 罗伯特·克西
Original assignee: Nicoventures Trading Ltd
Current assignee: Nicoventures Trading Ltd
Priority date: 2021-07-05
Filing date: 2022-07-01
Publication date: 2024-05-14
Also published as: GB202109686D0

Abstract

A refill device is provided for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism. The refill device includes a controller configured to: obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article; obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir; determining whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of the aerosol-generating material based on the acquired indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the article and the indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir; and performing an action in response to the determination. Also described are an article, a refill reservoir, and a system and method of refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism of a refill device.

Description

Refill device

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to an apparatus for refilling a reservoir of an electronic aerosol supply system, and more particularly to the operation of an apparatus for refilling a reservoir of an electronic aerosol supply system.

Background

An electronic aerosol supply system (typically configured as a so-called electronic cigarette) may have a unitary form, with all of the elements of the system being located in a common housing, or a multipart form, with the elements being distributed between two or more housings that may be coupled together to form the system. A common example of the latter form is a two-part system comprising a device and an article. The device typically includes a power source (such as a battery) for the system and control electronics for operating the elements to generate the aerosol. Articles (also referred to as terms including cartridges, cartomizer cartridges, consumables and transparent atomizers) generally comprise a storage volume or region for holding a supply of aerosol-generating material from which an aerosol is generated and in some cases an aerosol generator, such as a heater, operable to vaporize the aerosol-generating material. A similar three-part system may further include a separate mouthpiece attached to the article. In many designs, the article is designed to be disposable in that it is intended to be removed from the device and disposed of when the aerosol-generating material is exhausted. The user obtains a new article pre-filled with aerosol-generating material by the manufacturer and attaches the new article to the device for use. In contrast, the device is intended for use with multiple articles in series, wherein the capacity of battery recharging can extend the operating time.

While disposable articles (which may be referred to as consumables) are convenient for the user, they may be considered to be wasteful of natural resources and thus damaging to the environment. Thus, an alternative design of the known article is to be configured to be refilled by a user with aerosol-generating material. This reduces waste and may reduce the cost of using the electronic cigarette by the user. The aerosol-generating material may be provided in a bottle, for example, from which a user squeezes or drops a quantity of material into the article via a refill orifice on the article. However, the act of refilling can be awkward and inconvenient, as the items are small and the volumes of materials involved are typically small. Alignment of the bond between the bottle and the article can be difficult, and misalignment can cause material spillage. This is not only wasteful, but can also be dangerous. Aerosol-generating materials typically comprise liquid nicotine, which may be toxic if contacted with the skin.

Thus, refill units or devices have been proposed that are configured to receive a bottle or other reservoir of aerosol-generating material and receive a refillable cartridge, and automatically transfer material from the bottle or other reservoir to the refillable cartridge. Accordingly, alternative, improved or enhanced features and designs of such refill devices are of interest.

Disclosure of Invention

According to a first aspect of various embodiments, there is provided a refill device for refilling an article with aerosol-generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism, wherein the refill device comprises a controller configured to: obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article; obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir; determining whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of the aerosol-generating material based on the acquired indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the article and the indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir; and performing an action in response to the determination.

According to a second aspect of the various embodiments, there is provided an article configured to refill an aerosol-generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism by a refill device, wherein the article comprises an indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the article, and wherein the refill device is configured to determine whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating materials based at least on the indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the article.

According to a third aspect of the various embodiments, there is provided a refill reservoir containing aerosol-generating material for refilling an article with a delivery mechanism by a refill device, wherein the refill reservoir comprises an indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir, and wherein the refill device is configured to determine whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating materials based at least on the indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir.

According to a fourth aspect of various embodiments there is provided a system for refilling an article of an aerosol supply device with aerosol generating material of a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism of a refill device, the system comprising: the refill device of the first aspect; an article for storing an aerosol-generating material; a refill reservoir comprising aerosol generating material.

According to a fifth aspect of various embodiments there is provided a method of refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism of a refill device, the method comprising: obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article; obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir; determining whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of the aerosol-generating material based on the acquired indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the article and the indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir; and performing an action in response to the determination.

According to a sixth aspect of the various embodiments, there is provided a refill device for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism, wherein the refill device comprises a controller configured to: obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir; determining an operating parameter of the transfer mechanism based at least on the obtained indication; and causing the transfer mechanism to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameter.

According to a seventh aspect of the various embodiments, there is provided a refill reservoir containing aerosol-generating material for refilling an article with a delivery mechanism by a refill device, wherein the refill reservoir comprises an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir, and wherein the indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir enables the refill device to determine an operating parameter of the delivery mechanism based at least on the obtained indication, and to cause the delivery mechanism to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameter.

According to an eighth aspect of the various embodiments, there is provided a system for refilling an article of an aerosol-generating device with an aerosol-generating material, the system comprising a refill device of the sixth aspect and a refill reservoir of the seventh aspect.

According to a ninth aspect of various embodiments there is provided a method of refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism of a refill device, the method comprising: obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir; determining an operating parameter of the transfer mechanism based at least on the obtained indication; and causing the transfer mechanism to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameter to transfer the aerosol-generating material from the refill reservoir to the article.

According to a tenth aspect of the various embodiments, there is provided a refill device for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir device using a delivery device, wherein the refill device comprises a controller device configured to: obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir device; determining an operating parameter of the delivery device based at least on the acquired indication; and causing the transfer device to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameter.

These and other aspects of some embodiments are set out in the accompanying independent and dependent claims. It is to be understood that the features of the dependent claims can be combined with each other and with the features of the independent claims in ways other than those explicitly set forth in the claims. Furthermore, the methods described herein are not limited to specific embodiments, such as those set forth below, but rather include and contemplate any suitable combination of features presented herein. For example, the nozzles may be arranged in accordance with the manner described herein, including any one or more of the various features described appropriately below.

Drawings

Various embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail, by way of example only, with reference to the following drawings, in which:

fig. 1 shows a simplified schematic cross-sectional view of an exemplary electronic aerosol provision system to which embodiments of the present disclosure are applicable;

FIG. 2 illustrates a simplified schematic diagram of a refill device in which embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented;

Fig. 3 illustrates a simplified cross-sectional view of a reservoir refilling an article of an aerosol supply system via a mouthpiece according to an example of the present disclosure;

Fig. 4a, 4b and 4c schematically show three different arrangements of the article, the refill reservoir and the refill device, respectively, arranged to provide an indication of the aerosol-generating material within the article and an indication of the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir to the refill device;

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary table indicating the permissibility of different combinations of flavor source liquids as an example of the permissibility combination information;

Fig. 6 shows a flow chart of method steps performed by a controller of a refill device according to a first example;

fig. 7 shows a flow chart of method steps performed by a controller of a refill device according to a second example;

Fig. 8 shows a flow chart of method steps performed by a controller of a refill device according to a third example;

fig. 9 shows a flow chart of method steps performed by a controller of a refill device according to a fourth example;

Fig. 10 schematically shows another (fourth) different arrangement of a refill reservoir and a refill device arranged to provide an indication of aerosol-generating material within an article and an indication of aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir to the refill device;

FIG. 11 illustrates a flow chart of a method performed by a controller of a refill unit for determining operating parameters for a transfer mechanism from an indication of source liquid contained in a refill reservoir in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure;

FIG. 12 illustrates a first modification of the method of FIG. 11 in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure;

FIG. 13 illustrates a second modification of the method of FIG. 11 in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure;

FIG. 14 illustrates a modification of the method of FIG. 12 in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure; and

Fig. 15 illustrates a modification of the method of fig. 13 in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

Various aspects and features of certain examples and embodiments are discussed/described herein. Some aspects and features of certain examples and embodiments may be conventionally implemented and are not discussed/described in detail for the sake of brevity. Thus, it should be understood that aspects and features of the apparatus and methods discussed herein that are not described in detail may be implemented in accordance with any conventional technique for implementing such aspects and features.

As described above, the present disclosure relates to (but is not limited to) an electronic aerosol or vapor supply system, such as an electronic cigarette. Throughout the following description, the terms "e-cigarette" and "e-cigarette" may be used at times, however, it should be understood that these terms may be used interchangeably with aerosol (vapor) delivery systems or devices. The system is intended to generate a smokable aerosol by evaporating a matrix (aerosol generating material) in liquid or gel form, which may or may not contain nicotine. Furthermore, the mixing system may comprise a liquid or gel matrix and a solid matrix which is also heated. The solid substrate may be, for example, tobacco or other non-tobacco product, which may or may not contain nicotine. The terms "aerosol-generating material" and "nebulizable material" as used herein are intended to refer to materials that can form an aerosol by the application of heat or some other means. The term "aerosol" may be used interchangeably with "vapor".

The terms "system" and "delivery system" as used herein are intended to encompass systems that deliver a substance to a user, and include: a non-combustible aerosol supply system that releases compounds from an aerosol-generating material without burning the aerosol-generating material, such as an electronic cigarette, a tobacco heating product, and a hybrid system that uses a combination of aerosol-generating materials to generate an aerosol; and an article comprising aerosol-generating material and configured for use in one of the non-combustible sol supply systems.

According to the present disclosure, a "non-combustible" aerosol-supply system is an aerosol-supply system in which the constituent aerosol-generating materials of the aerosol-supply system (or components thereof) do not burn or ignite in order to deliver at least one substance of the aerosol-generating materials to a user. In some embodiments, the delivery system is a non-combustible sol supply system, such as a powered non-combustible sol supply system. In some embodiments, the non-combustible aerosol supply system is an electronic cigarette, also known as a vapor smoke device or electronic nicotine delivery system (END), but it should be noted that the presence of nicotine in the aerosol generating material is not required. In some embodiments, the non-combustible sol supply system is an aerosol-generating material heating system, also referred to as a heating but non-ignition system. One example of such a system is a tobacco heating system. In some embodiments, the non-combustible aerosol supply system is a hybrid system that generates an aerosol using a combination of aerosol-generating materials, wherein one or more of the aerosol-generating materials may be heated. Each aerosol-generating material may be in the form of a solid, liquid or gel, for example, and may or may not contain nicotine. In some embodiments, the mixing system comprises a liquid or gel aerosol-generating material and a solid aerosol-generating material. The solid aerosol-generating material may comprise, for example, a tobacco or non-tobacco product.

In general, a non-combustible sol supply system may include a non-combustible sol supply device and an article (consumable) for use with the non-combustible sol supply device. In some embodiments, the present disclosure relates to a consumable comprising an aerosol-generating material and configured for use with a non-combustible aerosol supply device. These consumables are sometimes referred to in this disclosure as articles of manufacture. However, it is envisaged that the article itself comprising means for powering an aerosol generator or an aerosol generating component may itself form the non-combustible sol supply system. In some embodiments, the non-combustible sol supply may include a power source and a controller. The power source may be, for example, a power source. In some embodiments, an article for use with a non-combustible aerosol supply device may include an aerosol-generating material, an aerosol-generating component (aerosol generator), an aerosol-generating region, a mouthpiece, and/or a region for receiving and retaining the aerosol-generating material.

In some systems, the aerosol-generating component or aerosol generator comprises a heater that is capable of interacting with the aerosol-generating material to release one or more volatiles from the aerosol-generating material to form an aerosol. However, the present disclosure is not limited in this regard and is also applicable to systems that use other methods to form aerosols, such as vibrating screens (vibrating mesh).

In some embodiments, an article for use with a non-combustible aerosol supply device may comprise an aerosol generating material or a region for receiving an aerosol generating material. In some embodiments, an article for use with a non-combustible sol supply device may include a mouthpiece. The region for receiving aerosol-generating material may be a storage region for storing aerosol-generating material. For example, the storage region may be a reservoir that may store a liquid aerosol-generating material. In some embodiments, the region for receiving aerosol-generating material may be separate from or combined with the aerosol-generating region (which is the region from which the aerosol is generated). In some embodiments, an article for use with a non-combustible aerosol supply device may include a filter and/or an aerosol modifier through which the generated aerosol passes prior to delivery to a user.

The term "component" as used herein may be used to refer to a portion, section, unit, module, assembly, or the like of an electronic cigarette or similar device that includes a plurality of smaller portions or elements that may be located within an outer housing or wall. An aerosol supply system, such as an electronic cigarette, may be formed or constructed from one or more such components, such as articles and devices, and these components may be removably or detachably connected to one another, or may be permanently bonded together during manufacture to define the overall system. The present disclosure is applicable to, but is not limited to, systems comprising two components detachably connected to each other and configured to hold an article (alternatively referred to as a cartridge, atomized cartridge, capsule or consumable) in the form of an aerosol-generating material-carrying component of a liquid or another aerosol-generating material, for example, and devices having batteries or other power sources for providing electrical power to operate the aerosol-generating component or the aerosol generator to generate vapor/aerosol from the aerosol-generating material. A component may include more or less than what is included in the examples.

In some examples, the present disclosure relates to aerosol-supply systems and components thereof that utilize aerosol-generating material in liquid, gel, or solid form, either held in an aerosol-generating material storage area (such as a reservoir, canister, container, or other receptacle included in the system), or absorbed onto a carrier substrate. Comprising an arrangement for delivering an aerosol-generating material from an aerosol-generating material storage region to provide the aerosol-generating material to an aerosol generator for vapour/aerosol generation. The terms "liquid," "gel," "solid," "fluid," "source liquid," "source gel," "source fluid," and the like may be used interchangeably with terms such as "aerosol-generating material," "nebulizable matrix material," and "matrix material" to refer to materials in a form capable of storage and delivery in accordance with examples of the present disclosure.

An "aerosol-generating material" as used herein is a material capable of generating an aerosol, for example, when heated, irradiated or stimulated in any other way. The aerosol-generating material may be in the form of, for example, a solid, liquid or gel, which may or may not contain an active substance and/or a fragrance. In some embodiments, the aerosol-generating material may comprise an "amorphous solid," which may alternatively be referred to as a "monolithic solid" (i.e., non-fibrous). In some embodiments, the amorphous solid may be a dried gel. Amorphous solids are solid materials that can retain some fluid (such as a liquid) within their interior. In some embodiments, the aerosol-generating material may comprise, for example, from about 50wt%, 60wt%, or 70wt% amorphous solids to about 90wt%, 95wt%, or 100wt% amorphous solids. In some embodiments, the aerosol-generating material may include one or more active substances, one or more flavoring agents, one or more aerosol-former materials, and/or one or more other functional materials. An active substance as used herein may be a physiologically active material, which is a material intended to achieve or enhance a physiological response. The active substance may for example be selected from nutraceuticals, nootropic agents, psychoactive substances. The active substance may be naturally occurring or synthetically obtained. The active may include, for example, nicotine, caffeine, taurine, caffeine, vitamins (such as B6 or B12 or C), melatonin, or components, derivatives, or combinations thereof. The active substance may comprise one or more components, derivatives or extracts of tobacco or other plants. The terms "flavoring" and "fragrance" as used herein refer to materials that can be used to produce a desired taste, aroma, or other somatosensory in a product for an adult consumer, as permitted by local regulations. It may include naturally occurring flavor materials, plants, extracts of plants, synthetically obtained materials, or combinations thereof. The aerosol former material may comprise one or more components capable of forming an aerosol. In some embodiments, the aerosol former material may include one or more of glycerol, propylene glycol, diethylene glycol, triethylene glycol, tetraethylene glycol, 1, 3-butanediol, erythritol, meso-erythritol, ethyl vanillic acid, ethyl laurate, diethyl suberate, triethyl citrate, triacetin, a mixture of diacetin, benzyl benzoate, benzyl phenyl acetate, glycerol tributyrate, lauryl acetate, lauric acid, myristic acid, and propylene carbonate. The one or more other functional materials may include one or more of pH adjusters, colorants, preservatives, binders, fillers, stabilizers, and/or antioxidants.

Fig. 1 is a highly schematic view (not to scale) of an exemplary electronic aerosol/vapor supply system 10, for the purpose of illustrating the relationship between various parts of a typical system and illustrating the general principles of operation. Note that the present disclosure is not limited to systems configured in this manner, and that features may be modified in accordance with numerous alternatives and limitations described above and/or apparent to the skilled person.

The aerosol provision system 10 in this example has a generally elongate shape extending along a longitudinal axis indicated by a dashed line and comprises two main components, namely an aerosol provision device 20 (control or power component, section or unit), and an article or consumable 30 (cartridge assembly or section, sometimes referred to as a cartomizer, transparent atomizer or capsule) carrying aerosol generating material and operable to generate a vapour/aerosol. In the following description, the aerosol provision system 10 is configured to generate an aerosol from a liquid aerosol-generating material (source liquid), and the foregoing disclosure will use this example to illustrate the principles of the present disclosure. However, the present disclosure is not limited to atomizing a liquid aerosol-generating material, and features may be modified in accordance with the various alternatives and limitations described above and/or apparent to the skilled person in order to atomize a different aerosol-generating material (e.g., a solid aerosol-generating material or a gel aerosol-generating material as described above).

The article 30 comprises a reservoir 3 (as an example of an aerosol-generating material storage area) for containing a source liquid (e.g. comprising nicotine) from which an aerosol is generated. As an example, the source liquid may comprise about 1% to 3% nicotine and 50% glycerin, with the remainder comprising approximately equal amounts of water and propylene glycol, and possibly other components, such as flavoring agents. Nicotine-free source liquids, such as delivery flavors, may also be used. In some embodiments, a solid substrate (not shown) through which vapor generated from the liquid passes, such as a portion of tobacco or other flavor imparting element, may also be included. The reservoir 3 may be in the form of a reservoir tank, which is a container or receptacle, in which the source liquid may be stored such that the liquid is free to move and flow within the confines of the tank. In other examples, the storage region may include an absorbent material (located inside a canister or the like, or within an outer housing of the article) that substantially retains the aerosol-generating material. For consumable articles, the reservoir 3 may be sealed after filling during manufacture so as to be disposable after the source liquid is depleted. However, the present disclosure relates to a refillable article having an inlet port, orifice or other opening (not shown in fig. 1) through which new source liquid may be added to enable reuse of the article 30.

The article 30 further comprises: an aerosol generator 5, which may be in the form of an electrically powered heating element or heater 4; and an aerosol-generating material transfer component 6 designed to transfer aerosol-generating material from the aerosol-generating material storage region to the aerosol generator. The heater 4 is located outside the reservoir 3 and is operable to generate an aerosol by vaporising the source liquid by heating. The aerosol-generating material transfer component 6 is a transfer or delivery arrangement configured to deliver aerosol-generating material from the reservoir 3 to the heater 4. In some examples, the aerosol-generating material delivery component may have the form of a core or other porous element. The wick 6 may have one or more portions located inside the reservoir 3 or otherwise in fluid communication with the liquid in the reservoir 3 so as to be able to draw in and transfer the source liquid by wicking or capillary action to other portions of the wick 6 adjacent to or in contact with the heater 4. The core may be made of any suitable material capable of wicking liquid, such as fiberglass or cotton fibers. This wicked liquid is thereby heated and evaporated, and the replacement liquid is drawn from the reservoir 3 via continuous capillary action for transfer through wick 6 to the heater 4. The wick 6 may be regarded as a conduit between the reservoir 3 and the heater 4 that conveys or transfers liquid from the reservoir to the heater. In some implementations, the heater 4 and aerosol-generating material transfer component 6 are unitary or integrated and made of the same material that can be used for both liquid transfer and heating, such as a porous and electrically conductive material. In other cases, the aerosol-generating material delivery member 6 may be operated by means other than capillary action, such as by an arrangement comprising one or more valves through which liquid may leave the reservoir 3 and be transferred to the heater 4.

The combination of the heater and the wick (or the like), referred to herein as the aerosol generator 5, may sometimes be referred to as a nebulizer or nebulizer assembly, and the reservoir with its source liquid and the nebulizer may be collectively referred to as an aerosol source. Various designs are possible in which the arrangement of the various parts may be different compared to the highly schematic view of fig. 1. For example, and as mentioned above, the wick 6 may be a completely separate element from the heater 4, or the heater 4 may be configured to be porous and capable of directly performing at least a portion of the wicking function (e.g., a metal mesh).

In this example, the system is an electronic system and the heater 4 may comprise one or more electrical heating elements operating by ohmic/resistive (joule) heating. The article 30 may include electrical contacts (not shown) at the interface of the article 30 that are electrically engaged to electrical contacts (not shown) at the interface of the aerosol provision device 20. Thus, electrical energy may be transferred from the aerosol provision device 20 to the heater 4 via the electrical contacts to cause the heater 4 to heat. In other examples, the heater 4 may be inductively heated, in which case the heater comprises a susceptor in an induction heating arrangement, which may include a suitable drive coil through which an alternating current is passed. This type of heater may be configured in accordance with examples and embodiments described in more detail below.

Thus, in general, an aerosol generator in this context may be regarded as one or more elements that fulfil the functions of an aerosol generating element and a liquid transfer or delivery element, the aerosol generating element being capable of generating a vapour by heating a source liquid (or other aerosol generating material) delivered thereto, the liquid transfer or delivery element being capable of delivering or delivering liquid from a reservoir or similar liquid reservoir to the vapour generating element by wicking/capillary forces or other means. As shown in fig. 1, the aerosol generator is typically housed in an article 30 of the aerosol-generating system, but in some examples at least the heated portion may be housed in the device 20. Embodiments of the present disclosure are applicable to all and any such configurations consistent with the examples and descriptions herein.

Returning to fig. 1, the article 30 further includes a mouthpiece or mouthpiece portion 35 having an opening or air outlet through which a user may draw aerosol generated by the heater 4.

The aerosol provision device 20 comprises a power source such as a storage battery or battery 7 (hereinafter referred to as a battery, and which may or may not be rechargeable) in order to provide electrical power to the electrical components of the aerosol provision system 10, in particular for operating the heater 4. Furthermore, there is control circuitry 8, such as a printed circuit board and/or other electronics or circuitry, for controlling the aerosol supply system 10 as a whole. The control circuitry 8 may comprise a processor programmed with software that can be modified by a user of the system. In one aspect, control circuitry 8 uses power from battery 7 to operate heater 4 when vapor is desired. At this point, the user inhales on the system 10 via the mouthpiece 35, and air a enters through one or more air inlets 9 located in the wall of the device 20 (which may alternatively or additionally be located in the article 30). When the heater 4 is operated, the heater evaporates the source liquid delivered from the reservoir 3 by the aerosol-generating material delivery member 6 to generate an aerosol by entraining the vapour into the air flowing through the system, which aerosol is then drawn through the opening in the mouthpiece 35 by the user. As the user draws on the mouthpiece 35, aerosol is carried from the aerosol generator 5to the mouthpiece 35 along one or more air flow channels (not shown) which connect the air inlet 9 to the aerosol generator 5 and to the air outlet.

More generally, the control circuitry 8 is suitably configured/programmed to control operation of the aerosol supply system 10 to provide conventional operating functions of the aerosol supply system in accordance with established techniques for controlling such devices, and to provide any of the specific functions described as part of the foregoing disclosure. The control circuitry 8 may be considered to logically comprise a plurality of sub-unit/circuitry elements related to different aspects of operation of the aerosol provision system according to the principles described herein, as well as other conventional operational aspects of the aerosol provision system, such as display drive circuitry for a system that may include a user display (such as a screen or pointer) and a user input detector via one or more user-executable (operable) controllers 12. It will be appreciated that the functionality of the control circuitry 8 may be provided in a number of different ways, for example using one or more suitably programmed programmable computers and/or one or more suitably configured application specific integrated circuits/circuitry/chips/chipsets configured to provide the desired functionality. The device 20 and the article 30 are separate attachable parts that can be detached from each other by being separated in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis (as indicated by the double-headed arrow in fig. 1). When the system 10 is in use, the components 20, 30 are joined together by mating engagement elements 21, 31 (e.g., screws or bayonet fittings) that provide a mechanical, and in some cases an electrical, connection between the device 20 and the article 30. If the heater 4 is operated by ohmic heating, an electrical connection is required so that when the heater 4 is connected to the battery 5, an electrical current can flow through the heater. In systems using induction heating, electrical connections may be omitted if there are no parts of the article 30 that require electrical power. An induction work coil/drive coil may be housed in the device 20 and powered by the battery 5, and the article 30 and device 20 are shaped such that when they are connected, the heater 4 is suitably exposed to the magnetic flux generated by the coil so as to generate a flow of electrical current in the material of the heater. The design of fig. 1 is merely an example arrangement, and the various portions and features may be distributed differently between the device 20 and the article 30, and may include other components and elements. The two sections may be connected together end-to-end in a longitudinal configuration as in fig. 1, or in a different configuration, such as a parallel side-by-side arrangement. The system may or may not be generally cylindrical and/or have a generally longitudinal shape. One or both of the sections or components may be intended to be discarded and replaced when depleted, or intended for a variety of uses that can be achieved through actions such as refilling the reservoir and recharging the battery. In other examples, the system 10 may be unitary, wherein a portion of the device 20 and a portion of the article 30 are included in a single housing and cannot be separated. Embodiments and examples of the present disclosure apply to any of these and other configurations as would be known to one of skill in the art.

The present disclosure relates to refilling a storage area for aerosol-generating material in an aerosol-supply system, whereby a user can conveniently provide fresh aerosol-generating material to the system when a previously stored quantity of aerosol-generating material has been exhausted. It may be proposed that this is done automatically by providing a device referred to herein as a refill device, refill unit, refill station or simply a dock. The refill device is configured to receive an aerosol supply system, or more conveniently, an article of the aerosol supply system having an empty or only partially filled storage area, and a larger reservoir holding aerosol generating material. A fluid communication flow path is established between the larger reservoir and the storage region, and a controller in the refill device controls a transfer mechanism or arrangement operable to move aerosol-generating material along the flow path from the larger reservoir to the storage region in the refill device. The transfer mechanism may be activated in response to a refill request entered by a user into the refill device, or automatically in response to a particular state or condition of the refill device detected by the controller. For example, if both the article and the larger reservoir are properly positioned inside (or otherwise coupled to) the refill unit, the refill may be implemented. Once the storage area is refilled with the desired amount of aerosol-generating material (e.g., the storage area is full or a user-specified amount of material has been delivered to the article), the delivery mechanism is stopped and delivery is stopped. Alternatively, the delivery mechanism may be configured to automatically dispense a fixed amount of aerosol-generating material, such as a fixed amount that matches the capacity of the storage region, in response to actuation of the controller.

Fig. 2 shows a highly schematic view of an exemplary refill device. The refill device is shown in simplified form only to illustrate the individual elements and the relationship between them. Further specific features of one or more elements of the present disclosure will be described in greater detail below.

For convenience, the refill device 50 will be referred to hereinafter as a "dock". This term is appropriate because the reservoir and article are received or "docked" (docked) in the refill device during use. Dock 50 includes an outer housing 52. Dock 50 is contemplated to be useful for refilling articles in a home or workplace (rather than a portable device or a commercial device, but these options are not precluded). Thus, an outer housing made of, for example, metal, plastic or glass may be designed to have an aesthetic appearance, such as to make it suitable for permanent and convenient placement on, for example, a shelf, desk, table or counter. The outer housing may have any size suitable for accommodating the various elements described herein, such as having a size of about 10cm to 20cm, although smaller or larger sizes may be preferred. Two cavities or ports 54, 56 are defined within the housing 50. The first port 54 is shaped and dimensioned to receive and interface with the refill reservoir 40. The first or refill reservoir port 54 may alternatively be referred to as a refill reservoir interface because it is configured to enable the refill reservoir 40 to interface with the dock 50. The refill reservoir interface is primarily used to move aerosol generating material out of the refill reservoir 40, but in some cases the interface may enable additional functions such as electrical contact and sensing capabilities for communicating between the refill reservoir 40 and the dock 50 and determining the characteristics and features of the refill reservoir 40.

The refill reservoir 40 comprises a wall or housing 41 defining a storage space for holding an aerosol generating material 42. The volume of this storage space is large enough to accommodate many or several times the storage area/reservoir 3 of the product 30 intended to be refilled in the dock 50. Thus, a user may purchase a refill reservoir 40 of aerosol-generating material (flavor, intensity, brand, etc.) that they like and use the refill reservoir to refill the article 30 multiple times. A user may obtain a plurality of reservoirs 40 having different aerosol-generating materials to conveniently select the available reservoirs when refilling the article. The refill reservoir 40 includes an outlet aperture or opening 44 through which the aerosol-generating material 42 may exit from the refill reservoir 40.

The second port 56 (defined in the interior of the housing) is shaped and dimensioned to receive and interface with the article 30. The second or article port 56 may alternatively be referred to as an article interface because it is configured to enable interfacing between the article 30 and the dock 50. The article interface is primarily used to receive aerosol-generating material into the article 30, but in some cases the interface may enable additional functions, such as electrical contact and sensing capabilities, for communicating between the article 30 and the dock 50 and determining the characteristics and features of the article 30.

The article 30 itself comprises a wall or housing 31 having a storage area 3 inside it (but possibly not occupying the full space inside the wall 31) for holding aerosol-generating material. The volume of the storage area 3 is many times or several times smaller than the volume of the refill reservoir 40 so that the product 30 can be refilled multiple times from a single refill reservoir 40. The article 30 further comprises an inlet aperture or opening 32 through which the aerosol-generating material may enter the storage region 3. As discussed above with respect to fig. 1, the interior of the article 30 may include a number of other elements.

The housing also accommodates a fluid conduit 58 as a passageway or flow path through which the storage region 3 of the article 30 and the reservoir 40 are placed in fluid communication so that when both the refill reservoir 40 and the article 30 are properly positioned in the dock 50, aerosol generating material can be moved from the refill reservoir 40 to the article 30. When the refill reservoir 40 and the article 30 are placed into the dock 50, they are positioned and engaged such that the fluid conduit 58 is connected between the outlet aperture 44 of the reservoir 40 and the inlet aperture 32 of the article 30. Note that in some examples, all or a portion of the fluid conduit 58 may be formed by a portion of the refill reservoir 40 and a portion of the article 30 such that the fluid conduit is only formed and defined when the refill reservoir 40 and/or the article 30 is placed in the dock 50. In other cases, the fluid conduit 58 may be a flow path defined inside the housing 52 of the dock 50 with each end of the flow path engaged to a respective aperture.

The reservoir port 54 and the product port 56 may be accessed by any convenient means. A housing opening may be provided in the housing 52 of the dock 50 through which the refill reservoir 40 and the article 30 may be placed or pushed in. The refill reservoir 40 and/or the article 30 may be fully received within the respective housing opening or may be partially received such that a portion of the refill reservoir 40 and/or the article 30 protrudes from the respective ports 54, 56. In some cases, a door or the like covering the enclosure may be included to prevent dust or other contaminants from entering the enclosure. When refill reservoir 40 and/or article 30 is fully received in ports 54, 65, the door or the like may need to be placed in a closed state to allow refilling. The door, gate, and other hinged cover, or sliding access element (such as a drawer or tray) may include shaped rails, slots, or recesses to receive and retain the refill reservoir 40 or article 30, which when the door or the like is closed, allow the refill reservoir 40 or article 30 to be properly aligned inside the housing 52. Alternatively, the housing of the dock 50 may be shaped to include a recessed portion into which the article 30 or refill reservoir 40 may be inserted. These and other alternatives will be apparent to those skilled in the art and do not affect the scope of the disclosure.

The dock 50 also includes an aerosol-generating material delivery mechanism, arrangement or device 53 operable to move fluid or cause fluid to move from the refill reservoir 40, along the conduit 58 and into the article 30. A number of versions of the transfer mechanism 53 are contemplated, but as an example, the transfer mechanism 53 may include a fluid pump, such as a peristaltic pump.

Also included in dock 50 is a controller 55 that is operable to control various components of dock 50, and in particular to generate and send control signals to cause operation of transfer mechanism 53. As described above, this operation may occur in response to a user input, such as actuation of a button or switch (not shown) on the housing 52, or automatically in response to detecting that both the refill reservoir 40 and the article 30 are present within their respective ports 54, 56. Accordingly, the controller 55 may communicate with contacts and/or sensors (not shown) at the ports 54, 56 to obtain data from the ports and/or refill reservoir 40 and the article 30, which may be used to generate control signals that cause the transfer mechanism 53 to operate. The controller 55 may comprise a microcontroller, microprocessor, or preferably any configuration of circuitry, hardware, firmware, or software, a number of which will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Finally, the dock 50 includes a power source 57 to provide power to the controller 53 and any other electrical components that may be included in the dock, such as sensors, user inputs (such as switches, buttons, or touch panels), and display elements (if present) such as light emitting diodes and/or a display screen for conveying information to the user regarding the operation and status of the dock. Furthermore, the transmission mechanism may be electric. Since the dock 50 may be used in a permanent location in a house or office, the power source 57 may include a socket for connecting a mains power cable to the dock 50 so that the dock 50 may be "on" to mains power. Any suitable electrical converter for converting mains power into suitable and operable electricity for supply to the dock 50 may be provided on the mains power cable or inside the dock 50. Alternatively, the power source 57 may comprise one or more batteries, which may be replaceable or rechargeable, and where the batteries are rechargeable, the dock 50 may further comprise a receptacle connector for a charging cable adapted to recharge one or more batteries housed in the dock.

Additional details regarding the fluid conduits will now be described. As described above, the fluid conduit may be formed in whole or in part by a portion of the reservoir 40 and a portion of the article 30. Specifically, one exemplary arrangement of the fluid conduit 58 is a nozzle through which the fluid aerosol-generating material is dispensed from the refill reservoir 40. The spout may be provided as an element of the dock 50 such that when the refill reservoir 40 is installed in the dock, the outlet aperture of the refill reservoir 40 is coupled to the first end of the spout. Alternatively, the spout may be implemented as an integral piece of the refill reservoir 40 to provide the outlet aperture. This only associates the mouthpiece with a specific reservoir and its contents, avoiding any cross-contamination that may be caused by using reservoirs with different aerosol generating materials with the same mouthpiece. The spout engages into the inlet orifice of the article 30 to enable fluid to pass from the reservoir into the article. For example, when both the article and the refill reservoir have been installed in the dock, the engagement may be achieved by moving the article toward the refill reservoir, and vice versa.

Fig. 3 shows a schematic view of a nozzle arranged to function as a fluid conduit. The refill reservoir 40 containing the source liquid 42 has a spout 60 arranged as its outlet orifice, a first or proximal end 61 of the spout 60 being adjacent to the refill reservoir 40. The spout may be integrally formed with the refill reservoir 40 by, for example, molding a plastic material or 3D printing. This ensures a sealed joint between the spout 60 and the housing 41 of the refill reservoir 40. Alternatively, the two portions may be formed separately and then joined together by, for example, welding, adhesive, screw or push-fit coupling, or other methods. The spout 60 has an elongated tubular shape and extends from a first end 61 to a second or distal end 62 that is remote from the refill reservoir 40 and serves as a fluid dispensing point. The fluid is held in the reservoir by, for example, a valve (not shown) located at or near the proximal end 61 that opens when the fluid begins to pass to the article 30. In other cases, the surface tension may be sufficient to hold the fluid, for example, where the orifice 60 is small enough. The distal end 62 is inserted into or otherwise engaged with the inlet aperture 32 of the article 30 and, in this example, extends directly into the storage region 3 of the article 30. In other examples, there may be a tube, a conduit system, or some other fluid flow path connecting the inlet orifice 32 to the interior of the storage region 3. In use, the source liquid 42 is removed from the refill reservoir 40 by use of the fluid transfer mechanism 53 of the dock 50, moving along a fluid path defined by the spout 60 (acting as a fluid conduit) from the proximal end 61 to the distal end 62 where it reaches the fluid outlet of the spout and flows into the storage region 3 for refilling the article 30 with liquid aerosol generating material.

From the above, it will be appreciated that the dock 50 is configured to supply source liquid 42 from the refill reservoir 40 to the reservoir 3 of the article 30. When the reservoir 3 becomes empty (i.e., when the source liquid in the reservoir is depleted), the user may decide to refill the reservoir 3 of the article 30, or when the reservoir 3 is partially full, the user may decide to refill it (e.g., the user may leave the dock 50 for a long period of time and want to ensure that the source liquid in the reservoir 3 is not depleted before they return to the dock 50). Even in the event that the reservoir 3 of the article 30 is empty, there may be some amount of source liquid remaining in the reservoir 3 of the article 30. When only one type of source liquid is available, the same type of source liquid is always provided in both the refill reservoir 40 and the reservoir 3 of the article 30. However, there may be variations of source liquids suitable for generating aerosols, such as combinations of one or more active components of different concentrations (intensity), different flavors, different active components, and other components of different concentrations (such as aerosol formers), to name just a few examples. In fact, there is an increasing trend to provide a greater variety of source liquids (or aerosol generating materials in general) to accommodate the needs of different users.

The reservoir 3 and refill reservoir 40 of the article 30 are independent of each other and interact with each other only through the dock 50. According to aspects of the present disclosure, the dock 50 is configured to receive information from the refill reservoir 40 and/or the article 30 mounted in the dock 50. Specifically, the dock 50 is configured to receive information related to the source liquid 42 contained within the refill reservoir 40 and/or the source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30. The dock 50, or more specifically the controller 55 of the dock 50, is configured to use information received from the refill reservoir 40 and/or the article 30 to control the operation of the dock 50.

Fig. 4a, 4b and 4c illustrate an exemplary implementation of a dock 50 configured to receive information related to refilling the reservoir 40 and source liquid at the article 30. Fig. 4a to 4c are based on fig. 2. The same components are denoted by the same reference numerals as those used in fig. 2, and detailed descriptions thereof are omitted, and alternatively, with respect to these components, the reader may refer to the descriptions provided in fig. 2. Only the differences from fig. 2 are explained here.

Fig. 4a schematically depicts an implementation in which the article 30 and the refill reservoir 40 are provided with data containing elements 30a, 40a, respectively, containing an indication of source liquid in the stored article 30 and the refill reservoir 40, respectively. The data-containing element 30a of the article 30 may be any suitable data-containing element 30a that is at least readable by an associated data reader 56a disposed in the dock 50. Likewise, the data containing element 40a of the refill reservoir 40 may be any suitable data containing element 40a that is at least readable by an associated data reader 54a disposed in the dock 50.

The data-containing elements 30a, 40a may each be an electronically readable memory (such as a microchip or the like) that accordingly includes at least an indication of the source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 and the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40, for example in the form of a digital/binary code that can be electronically read. The electronically readable memory may be any suitable memory, such as an electronically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), but other types of suitable memories may be used depending on the application. The electronically readable memory in this implementation is non-volatile in that both the article 30 and refill reservoir 40 may be separate from the power source (e.g., the power source 7 located in the aerosol supply device 20 or the power source 53 located in the dock 50) and do not themselves include a power source. For example, the article 30 and refill reservoir 40 may be packaged and sold separately from the aerosol provision device 20 and the dock 50 and thus not connected to a power source when the package is ready for sale. However, in other implementations, the electronically readable memory may be volatile or semi-volatile, in which case the article 30/refill reservoir 40 may require its own power source, which may cause increased cost and increased waste of material when the article 30/refill reservoir 40 is discarded (e.g., when the article 30 reaches a refill limit, or when the refill reservoir 40 is empty).

The data-containing elements 30a, 40a may be electronically read by coupling electrical contacts (not shown) on the article 30 or refill reservoir 40 with electrical contacts (not shown) in the article port 56 or refill reservoir port 54, respectively. That is, when the article 30 and refill reservoir 40 are positioned in the respective ports 56, 54, an electrical connection is made between the article 30 and the reader 56a in the article port 56, and an electrical connection is made between the refill reservoir 40 and the reader 54a in the refill port 54. Applying current from the reader 56a, 54a to the data-containing element 30a, 40a allows the reader 56a, 54a to obtain an indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30 or refill reservoir 40, respectively. Alternatively, the data storage units 30a, 40a may be electronically read using any suitable wireless technology (such as RFID or NFC), and the article 30/refill reservoir 40 may be provided with suitable hardware (e.g., an antenna) to enable such reading by suitable wireless readers 56a, 54 a.

As seen in fig. 4a, the respective readers 54a, 56a are coupled to the controller 55 and are thus configured to provide the retrieved indication of source liquid contained in the product 30 and/or refill reservoir 40 to the controller 55 of the dock 50.

It should be appreciated that the data containing elements 30a, 40a may be based on other types of suitable data storage mechanisms, and in principle, any element capable of including data in a format that may be acquired/read by a suitable reader may be employed in accordance with the present disclosure. For example, the data-containing elements 30a, 40a may comprise optically readable elements (such as bar codes or QR codes) comprising indications of source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 or refill reservoir 40, and the readers 56a, 54a may comprise suitable optical readers (such as cameras). In this example, the data-containing element 30a, 40a includes an indication in the form of an image (e.g., an arrayed bar or pixel) of the source liquid in the article 30 or refill reservoir 40. In another example, the data-containing elements 30a, 40a may comprise magnetically readable elements (such as magnetic labels or magnetic strips) that store an indication of source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 or refill reservoir 40, and the readers 56a, 54a may comprise suitable magnetic readers (such as magnetic read heads). It should be understood that the type of data-containing element 30a, 40a is not important to the principles of the present disclosure, and thus any suitable data-containing element that is capable of including or storing an indication of source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 or refill reservoir 40 may be used.

Further, it should be understood that data-containing element 30a may utilize the same or a different technique than data-containing element 40 a. For example, the data-containing element 30a on the article 30 may be an electronically readable memory (such as an EEPROM chip), while the data-containing element 40a on the refill reservoir 40 may be an optically readable element (such as a QR code). However, other combinations of data storage unit types are also possible.

With respect to the article 30, data can be written to the data containing element 30a such that an indication of the source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 is updated during or after each refill operation performed via the dock 50. Thus, when the dock 50 (or the controller 55 thereof) is configured to cause the data-containing element 30a to update the indication of the source liquid contained in the reservoir 3, a more accurate indication of the source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 may be obtained. In this regard, the data-containing element 30a may be selected to be capable of updating an indication of source fluid in the reservoir 3 (e.g., the data-containing element 30a may be a rewritable memory). This may be particularly useful in systems where the article 30 is intended to be refilled multiple times.

Regarding the refill reservoir 40, the refill reservoir is not intended to be refilled (at least not intended to be refilled by a user of the aerosol supply system), so it may not be necessary to enable the dock 50 to update the data-containing element 40 a. However, it should be understood that in some implementations, the data-containing element 40a may still be updated, for example, when the refill reservoir 40 is refilled by a suitable technician/operator (e.g., by a store attendant selling source liquids) or as part of a recycling scheme, or in such cases.

Fig. 4b schematically depicts an implementation in which the article 30 and the refill reservoir 40 are provided with mechanical engagement units 30b, 40b, respectively. The mechanical engagement units 30b, 40b are intended to engage with corresponding mechanical engagement units 56b, 54b provided at the article port 56 and the refill reservoir port 54.

The mechanical engagement units 30b, 40b are arranged via physical means to represent indications of source liquid contained in the article 30/refill reservoir 40, respectively. For example, in the arrangement shown in fig. 4b, the mechanical engagement units 30b, 40b may be protrusions protruding from the surface of the article 30 and the surface of the refill reservoir 40, respectively. The tab 30b of the article 30 is arranged to engage with a recess 56b provided in the article port 56, while the tab 40b is arranged to engage with a recess 54b provided in the refill reservoir port 54. Sensors (e.g., the sensors may include mechanical switches) located at the recesses 54b, 56b are not shown in fig. 4b, and are configured to send an indication to the controller 55 of the dock 50 when the protrusions are positioned in the corresponding recesses 54b, 56 b. As can be seen in fig. 4b, the article port 56 and the refill reservoir port 54 comprise second recesses 56b 'and 54b', respectively. The second recesses 54b ', 56b' also include a sensor configured to send an indication to the controller 55 when the protrusion is positioned in the corresponding second recess 54b ', 56 b'. Thus, it should be appreciated that the type of source liquid contained within the reservoir 3 or refill reservoir 40 of the article 30 may be indicated to the controller 55 of the dock 50 based on the engagement between the protrusions and the corresponding recesses. For example, the protrusion 40b shown in fig. 4b engaging the recess 54b may represent a first source liquid, while a protrusion not shown that would otherwise engage the recess 54b' may represent a second liquid. That is, refill reservoirs 40 having different physical configurations with the protrusions in different positions may be filled with respective source liquids. Based on the sensed protrusions (i.e., triggered sensors in recesses 54b and 54 b'), controller 55 may identify the type of source liquid contained in refill reservoir 40.

Although not shown, it should be understood that the protrusions may alternatively be located in corresponding ports of the dock 50, while the recesses may be located in the article 30/refill reservoir 40. In these cases, the sensor may be embedded in the protrusion and arranged to sense when the protrusion is located in a recess of the article 30/refill reservoir 40.

It should be understood that the protrusions as mechanical engagement units 30b, 40b for the article 30/refill reservoir 40 and the recesses 54b, 56b, 54b ', 56b' as mechanical engagement units for the article port 56 and refill reservoir port 54 are only one example of suitable mechanical engagement units. In another example, the mechanical engagement unit may be provided by a suitably shaped article 30 and article port 56, and a refill reservoir 40 and refill reservoir port 54. For example, dock 50 may include a refill reservoir port 54 that receives a specially shaped refill reservoir and correspondingly does not receive a refill reservoir 40 that does not have a particular shape. The refill reservoir 40 having a particular shape, which is received by the refill reservoir port 54, may be filled with a first source liquid such that when the dock 50 is notified that the refill reservoir 40 is positioned in the port 54, the controller 55 of the dock 50 correspondingly obtains information that the refill reservoir 40 includes the particular source liquid. To accommodate the possibility of refilling the reservoir 3 of the article 30 with different source liquids, the dock 50 may include a plurality of different refill reservoir ports 54, each shaped to accommodate a different refill reservoir 40 having a different source liquid. Likewise, the dock 50 may include a plurality of product ports 56, each configured to receive a different shaped product 30. As another example, the article 30 and refill reservoir 40 may include electrical contacts positioned to form an electrical connection with one of a plurality of pairs of electrical contacts located in respective ports 54, 56. In a similar manner to the example shown in fig. 4b, when different pairs of electrical contacts are connected, they may indicate to the controller 55 of the dock 50 the type of source liquid contained in the article 30 and refill reservoir 40. While this implementation does include an electrical detection element, it is the physical location of the electrical contacts that indicates the type of source fluid.

It should be appreciated that the type of mechanical engagement unit 30b, 40b, 54b, 56b is not critical to the principles of the present disclosure, and that any suitable mechanical engagement unit capable of providing an indication of source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 or refill reservoir 40 may be used accordingly. Furthermore, it should be understood that the mechanical engagement unit for refilling the reservoir may utilize the same or different technology than the mechanical engagement unit for the article 30.

Fig. 4c schematically depicts an implementation in which an indication of source liquid contained in the article 30 and refill reservoir 40 is provided to the dock 50 manually (e.g., via a user).

Fig. 4c shows the remote computing device remote from the dock 50 (and remote from the article 30 and refill reservoir 40). The remote computing device in fig. 4c is represented by a smartphone 60, but it should be understood that any suitable computing device (e.g., personal computer, notebook computer, tablet computer, palm top computer, smart watch, smart television, etc.) may be used in accordance with the principles of the present disclosure. Thus, in this implementation, the smartphone 60 is configured to communicate with the dock 50, and thus the dock 50 may include a suitable communication module 55c configured to receive at least communications from the smartphone 60. For example, the communication module 55c may be a bluetooth module configured to receive bluetooth communications from the smartphone 60. The smartphone 60 may run an app (software application) that allows a user to manually input an indication of the source liquid contained in the work in process 30 and/or refill reservoir 40, and then communicate the manually input indication of the source liquid contained in the work in process 30 and/or refill reservoir 40 to the dock 50 via the communication module 55c such that the controller 55 receives the indication of the source liquid contained in the work in process 30 and/or refill reservoir 40.

In the event that the dock 50 does not receive an indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30 or refill reservoir 40, the dock 50 may be configured to prevent refilling of the article 30 and may also provide a notification to the user informing the user that manual input of the source liquid contained in the article 30 and/or refill reservoir 40 is required before refilling may begin. The notification may be provided by the dock 50 itself or via an app running on the smartphone 60.

While the implementation of fig. 4c shows a remote computing device in communication with dock 50, it should be appreciated that in other implementations dock 50 may be provided with its own user input mechanism (e.g., mechanical buttons or touch screen) to allow a user to input an indication of source liquid contained in article 30 and/or refill reservoir 40 directly to dock 50.

Fig. 4 a-4 c show some example implementations of arrangements in which an indication of source liquid contained within the reservoir 3 of the article 30 and/or source liquid contained in a refill reservoir is provided to the dock 50. It should be understood that fig. 4 a-4 c are not intended to be limiting, and any other suitable manner of providing an indication of the source liquid contained within the reservoir 3 of the article 30 and/or the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 to the dock 50 is contemplated in this disclosure.

Furthermore, it should be understood that some implementations may use a combination of the techniques disclosed in fig. 4 a-4 c. For example, refill reservoir 40 and refill reservoir port 54 may employ mechanical engagement units 40b, 54b' shown in fig. 4b, while article 30 may employ data containing element 30a and reader 56a shown in fig. 4 a. Since the refill reservoir 40 and the article 30 are essentially independent of each other, it is not required that they must use the same technique to provide an indication of the respective source liquids.

The indication of the source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 and/or the indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 may include any suitable information that enables the dock 50 to properly identify the source liquid. For example, the indication may include information about the composition of the source liquid. For example, the indication may include a list of ingredients that make up the source liquid, and the relative percentages/concentrations/amounts of the ingredients. Alternatively, the indication of the source fluid may include a name or other identifier. For example, the name or other identifier may be a Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) or sales name, "e.g., black cherry (DARK CHERRY) 3mg/ml". These names or other identifiers may indicate one or more components or concentrations of components of the source liquid. Any suitable manner of identifying the article 30 or refilling the source liquid in the reservoir 40 may be employed in accordance with the principles of the present disclosure.

When the controller 55 of the dock 50 receives an indication of the source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 and the refill reservoir 40, the controller 55 is configured to determine whether the source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 is consistent with the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40. In other words, the controller 55 of the dock 50 is configured to determine whether the combination of the source liquid in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 and the refill reservoir 40 is an allowable combination.

The term "allowable combination" as used herein relates to whether a combination of source liquids is allowed or not according to predetermined criteria. The predetermined criteria essentially allows or prevents some combination of source liquids present in the article 30 (or more specifically, the reservoir 3 of the article) and may be provided to prevent certain source liquids or combinations of components thereof from being generated for various reasons. For example, certain combinations of ingredients or ingredient concentrations may not be permitted according to national/international regulations (such as health and safety standards or medical regulations). That is, in general, the criteria may prevent combinations of source liquids that may cause injury or discomfort to a user of the aerosol supply system 10. Other combinations of ingredients or concentrations of ingredients may produce adverse reactions, such as curing a combination of source liquids, which may damage the article 30 or prevent aerosol generation. That is, the criteria may generally prevent damage to the article 30, the device 20, or the dock 50. Other combinations of ingredients or concentrations of ingredients may be prevented by unsatisfactory user experience, including, for example, unsatisfactory flavor combinations that most users may dislike, as it provides an unpleasant taste.

The predetermined criteria may be presented in the form of a table/matrix that may generally list combinations of source liquids or classifications of source liquids (e.g., sharing a common characteristic), and whether multiple combinations of surface source liquids are permitted. Fig. 5 shows an exemplary table in which source liquids are classified by their flavors, and a plurality of combinations of source liquids are shown. The table lists four flavors along the top row and the same four flavors along the left column. The row may correspond to either the article 30 or the refill reservoir 40, while the column may correspond to the other of the article 30 or the refill reservoir 40. As shown in the table of fig. 5, the mint-flavor source liquid cannot be combined with the black cherry-flavor source liquid, and any of the mint-flavor source liquid, the black cherry-flavor source liquid, and the strawberry-flavor source liquid cannot be combined with the banana-flavor source liquid. According to the table shown in fig. 5, all other combinations (including similar flavors) are allowed. The combination shown in fig. 5 is only to demonstrate the principles behind the present disclosure and should not be considered to show suitable or unsuitable flavour combinations.

It should be understood that fig. 5 shows only one example of how a combination of source liquids may be presented in tabular form. As discussed above, the combination of source fluids may be represented (or categorized) by the type of activity or concentration of activity. For example, the nicotine-containing source liquid may contain 6mg/mL, 12mg/mL, or 18mg/mL of nicotine. Likewise, source fluids can be categorized by both flavor and nicotine concentration. For example, the table in fig. 5 can be expanded to include two additional rows/columns for each flavor, such that each flavor has three rows/columns, each for three categories of nicotine concentrations (6 mg/mL, 12mg/mL, or 18 mg/mL). Such a table may be substantially similar to fig. 5, but may for example prevent different concentrations of nicotine from combining. Likewise, the table may list some or all SKUs and their corresponding combinations, or different components (and optionally amounts of components) and their corresponding combinations.

Alternatively, the predetermined criteria may take the form of a set of rules governing allowable combinations, as opposed to the table/matrix shown in fig. 5. For example, one rule may be that "the X component cannot be mixed with the Y component" and another rule may be that "different concentrations of nicotine (or active substance) cannot be mixed. The form of the predetermined criteria is not particularly important to the principles of the present disclosure, and the predetermined criteria may be presented in any suitable and desired format.

The predetermined criteria for allowable combinations of source liquids may also be referred to herein as allowable combination information, which is information representing the acceptability of multiple combinations of different source liquids or components thereof.

The allowable combination information may be pre-stored in the dock 50 (or its controller 55) during manufacture. For example, controller 55 may include or otherwise access memory that may store allowable combination information.

Alternatively, the allowable combination information may be provided to the dock from a source external to the dock 50. For example, in some implementations, the allowable combination information may be obtained via a remote source, such as via a server (not shown) in communication with dock 50. The dock 50 may have a suitable communication module to facilitate communication with the server directly (e.g., using WiFi or cellular communication) or via an intermediate device such as a smart phone (e.g., using a bluetooth connection between the dock 50 and the smart phone, where the smart phone is directly connected to a remote server). In other implementations, the allowable combination information may be provided with the refill reservoir 40 and/or the article 30. For example, the data-containing elements 30a, 40a may additionally include allowable combination information that may be read by the reader 54b or 56b and sent (along with or separately from an indication of source liquid contained in the article 30 or refill reservoir 40) to the controller 55. Alternatively, a separate data containing element containing allowable combination information may be provided on the article 30/refill reservoir 40. The allowable combination information received from the server or article 30/refill storage 40 may be stored in the memory of the dock 50. The received allowable combination information may override any existing allowable combination information (e.g., allowable combination information pre-stored in memory of dock 50 during manufacture).

Regarding allowable combination information received by dock 50 from sources external to dock 50, in some implementations, the received allowable combination information may include only allowable combination information regarding one or more relevant source liquids. For example, in implementations where the combination information may be allowed to be received via a remote server or the like, the dock 50 may first identify the source liquid contained in the article 30 and refill reservoir 40 and then request information from the server regarding the combination of the source liquids. For example, dock 50 may request allowable combination information regarding the identified first source liquid and all other source liquids, and allowable combination information regarding the identified second source liquid and all other source liquids, or alternatively, dock 50 may request a remote server to determine whether the identified source liquids constitute an allowable combination (where the remote server provides an indication that the identified source liquids are or are not an allowable combination). In implementations in which the allowable combination information is provided via the article 30 or the refill reservoir 40, the article 30 or the refill reservoir 40 may include allowable combination information regarding the source liquid stored therein. For example, if refill reservoir 40 contains 6mg/mL of nicotine, black cherry flavor source, the allowable combination information provided by refill reservoir 40 may only relate to the combination of other source with the nicotine, black cherry flavor source containing 6 mg/mL. In either case, providing only a subset of the information may reduce the amount of information stored in the dock 50 and/or transferred to the dock 50.

FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary method of implementing aspects of the present disclosure for determining whether a combination of source liquids is allowable.

The method begins at step S1, wherein a user couples an article 30 to an article port 56 of a dock 50. This step may include the user coupling the article 30 directly to the article port 56, or in other implementations, coupling the article 30 and the aerosol supply device 20 to the dock 50 as a combined unit. Coupling the article 30/device 20 to the article port 30 includes engaging the article 30/device 20 with the conduit 58 as described above such that the source liquid 42 contained in the refill reservoir 40 may be transferred to the reservoir 3 of the article 30 using the transfer mechanism 53.

In step S2, the dock 50 (or more specifically, the controller 55) continues the process to obtain an indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30. As stated above, this step may be performed using any of the techniques described with respect to fig. 4 a-4 c. For example only, the article 30 includes a data-containing element 30a, and more particularly, an electronically readable memory. The indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30 may be a binary code or a digital code that encodes the SKU of the liquid contained in the article 30. Thus, in step S2, the reader 56a continues the process to read the indication of source fluid within the data-containing element 30a of the article 30, but it should be understood that the indication of source fluid contained within the article 30 may be obtained using any of the techniques previously described.

In step S3, the controller 55 determines whether an indication of source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 has been obtained. If an indication of the source liquid contained within the article 30 has been obtained, such as by reading a binary or digital code stored in the data-containing element 30a via the reader 56a, the indication is sent to the controller 55 for further use, and the answer to step S3 is affirmative (i.e., yes at step S3). Then, the method proceeds to step S8 (described in more detail below). On the other hand, if an indication of the source liquid contained within the article 30 cannot be obtained, for example, because the article 30 does not have the data-containing element 30a or because the reader 56a or the data-containing element 30a is damaged or malfunctioning, the answer to step S3 is negative (i.e., no at step S3). In this case, the method continues to step S7 in which the user is alerted that an indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30 has not been obtained. The alert may be communicated in any suitable manner, for example, via an optical signal (such as illuminating an LED, providing a message on a display, etc.), an audible signal (such as sound from a speaker), or a tactile signal (such as vibration from a haptic motor). The mechanism providing the alert signal may be located in either of the dock 50 and/or the device 20, or may be located in a remote device (such as a smart phone) linked to the dock 50. The warning signal may be provided once, a set number of times, or continuously until the user takes an action (e.g., removes the article 30). If the article 30 is removed from the article port 56, the method may return to step S1.

Before, during or after step S1, step S2 or step S3 of the method, the user couples the refill reservoir 40 to the refill reservoir port 54 of the dock 50 in step S4. Coupling the refill reservoir 40 to the refill reservoir port 54 includes engaging the refill reservoir 40 with the conduit 58 as described above such that the source liquid 42 contained in the refill reservoir 40 may be transferred from the refill reservoir 40 using the transfer mechanism 53.

In step S5, the dock 50 (or more specifically, the controller 55) continues the process to obtain an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40. As stated above, this step may be performed using any of the techniques described with respect to fig. 4 a-4 c. For example only, the refill reservoir 40 includes a data containing element 40a, and more particularly an electronically readable memory. The indication of the source liquid contained in refill reservoir 40 may be a binary code or a digital code that encodes the SKU of the liquid contained in refill reservoir 40. Thus, in step S5, the reader 54a continues the process to read the indication of source liquid within the data-containing element 40a of the refill reservoir 40, but it should be understood that the indication of source liquid contained within the refill reservoir 40 may be obtained using any of the techniques previously described.

In step S6, the controller 55 determines whether an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 has been acquired. If an indication of the source liquid contained within refill reservoir 40 has been obtained, such as reading a binary code or a digital code stored in data-containing element 40a via reader 54a, the indication is sent to controller 55 for further use, and the answer to step S6 is affirmative (i.e. yes at step S6). Then, the method proceeds to step S8 (described in more detail below). On the other hand, if an indication of the source liquid contained within the refill reservoir 40 cannot be obtained, for example, because the refill reservoir 40 does not have the data containing element 40a or because the reader 54a or the data containing element 40a is damaged or malfunctioning, the answer to step S6 is negative (i.e., no at step S6). In this case, the method continues to step S7 in which the user is alerted that an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 has not been obtained. The alert may be communicated in any suitable manner as previously described with respect to article 30. Step S7 may involve providing different warnings when the indication of source liquid contained in the article 30 cannot be acquired and when the indication of source liquid contained in the reservoir 40 cannot be acquired, to enable the user to distinguish which indication (of the article 30 or the refill reservoir 40) cannot be acquired. As with the article 30, if the refill reservoir 40 is removed from the refill reservoir port 54, the method may return to step S4.

Further, although not shown, in step S7, the dock 50 may prevent refilling of the article 30 if either or both of the indication of source liquid contained in the article 30 and the indication of source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 are not received.

It should be appreciated that the method illustrated in fig. 6 assumes that the dock 50 is configured to detect whether the article 30 is present in the article port 56 and the refill reservoir 40 is present in the refill reservoir port 54 independent of receiving an indication of source liquid contained in the article 30/refill reservoir 40. This allows the dock to determine that the article 30/refill reservoir 40 is received, but that an indication of the source liquid contained therein cannot be obtained. In the alternative, the dock 50 may be configured to detect whether the article 30 is present in the port 56 or whether the refill reservoir 40 is present in the port 54 while receiving an indication of source liquid contained in the article 30/refill reservoir 40. In other words, in the event that an indication of source liquid contained in the article 30/refill reservoir is not received, the dock 50 may assume that the article 30/refill reservoir 40 is not present in the respective port 56/54 of the dock 50. Thus, steps S2/S4 and S3/S6 may be repeated/periodically performed, and in the event that either the article 30 or refill reservoir 40 is not inserted into the respective port 56/54, or an indication cannot be read (i.e., no at step S3/S6), the method may return to step S2 or step S4 and omit step S7. Various modifications to the method steps will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art and will be considered in light of the specific application present.

In step S8, the controller 55, after receiving the indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30 and the indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40, proceeds to check whether the combination of the source liquid contained in the article 30 and the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 is allowable according to the allowable combination information. As described above, this step may involve the controller 55 using the table of fig. 5 (or a similar look-up table) to determine whether the combination of source liquids is permissible, for example by consulting a look-up table stored in the memory of the controller 55 or in a memory accessible to the controller. Alternatively, the controller 55 may apply each of the predetermined rules to the combination of source liquids. As part of step S8, controller 55 may receive allowable combination information from an external source (such as a remote server) of controller 55 or from article 30 and/or storage 40 (and in the example given, from data-containing element 30a and/or data-containing element 40 a). The method may involve the controller 55 receiving allowable combination information each time the check is performed according to step S8, or only in response to the controller 55 determining that it has not or cannot access allowable combination information relating to the combination of the identified source liquid of the article 30 and the identified source liquid of the refill reservoir 40. The latter case may be useful where data transfer between the dock 50 and an external source is minimized.

In step S8, if the combination of the source liquid contained in the article 30 and the source liquid contained in the reservoir 40 is deemed to be permissible according to the permissible combination information (i.e., yes at step S8), the dock 50 may permit refilling of the reservoir 3 of the article 30 from the refill reservoir 40 in step S9. Dock 50 may automatically begin refilling reservoir 3 upon determining that the combination of source liquids is allowable, or dock 50 may confirm to the user (via appropriate alert signals on dock 50, device 20, or remote device) that the combination of source liquids is allowable and await an indication of the user to begin refilling (e.g., button presses from a manually actuatable button). The refill may be performed in any suitable manner using the transfer mechanism 53 as generally described above. A suitable signal may be provided to the user to indicate that refill is complete at the appropriate time.

On the other hand, if the combination of source liquids is deemed not to be permitted (i.e., no at step S8), the method proceeds to step S10, where refilling of the reservoir 3 from the refill reservoir 40 is not permitted. Optionally, in step S11, the controller 55 may inform the user that the combination of source liquids is not allowed and/or that refilling is prevented. The notification may be provided in any suitable manner, for example via an optical signal (such as illuminating an LED, providing a message on a display, etc.), an audible signal (such as sound from a speaker), or a tactile signal (such as vibration from a haptic motor). The mechanism for providing notifications may be located in either of the dock 50 and/or the device 20, or may be located in a remote device (such as a smart phone) linked to the dock 50. The notification may be provided once, a set number of times, or continuously until the user takes action (e.g., removes the article 30 and/or refills the reservoir 40). If the article 30 or refill reservoir is removed from the article port 56 or refill reservoir port 54, the method may return to step S1 or step S4, respectively.

The method of fig. 6 also shows step S12 in dashed lines. In some implementations, in which the indication of source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 may be updated (e.g., when the data-containing element 30a is capable of being written to or modified), once the article 30 has begun or has completed refilling, the indication of source liquid contained in the article 30 is updated to include an indication of source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 that is subsequently transferred to the article 30. For example, in addition to or in lieu of a binary code or digital code indicating the SKU of the article of manufacture 30, a binary code or digital code indicating the SKU of the source liquid in the refill reservoir 40 may also be written to the data containing element 30a of the article of manufacture 30. The next time the article 30 is inserted into the article port 56, the controller reads the updated indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30.

The method of fig. 6 may be performed each time a refill reservoir 40 is coupled to a refill reservoir port 54, each time an article 30 is coupled to an article port 56, and/or each time a refill is to be performed on an article 30 (e.g., in the case of a refill initiated manually by a user).

In some implementations, particularly those implementations in which the indication of the source liquid contained in the reservoir 3 of the article 30 may be updated, the article 30 may be initially supplied empty (i.e., not containing the source liquid). In these implementations, the article 30 may not provide an indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30, or the indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30 may indicate that the article 30 is empty (e.g., a binary code or a digital code may be reserved for an empty article 30). In these implementations, the result of step S8 may be "yes" because the empty article 30 is capable of holding any source liquid. Step S8 may be arranged to consult the look-up table of fig. 5, or may not consult any look-up table as the article 30 is determined to be empty. Furthermore, step S2 and step S3 may be omitted, or additional steps may be provided, such that in the case of no at S3, if it may be confirmed that the article 30 is able to update the indication of the source liquid contained within the article 30 (in other words, the indication may be initially blank, but an indication may be provided after refilling), the method continues to step S8.

In some implementations, the allowable combination information may be set such that the combination of source liquids is allowed only if the source liquids are the same. In other words, the answer to step S8 may be affirmative only if the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 is the same as the source liquid contained in the article 30. In this regard, "identical" means that the source liquids have the same composition, or that the source liquids have the same composition and have the same amount/concentration of composition. For example, the former case would allow a 6mg/mL nicotine concentration of black cherry source to be combined with a 18mg/mL nicotine concentration of black cherry source, while the latter case would not allow such a combination. In this example, it may be advantageous to maintain the same nicotine concentration in order to allow users to control their nicotine intake or at least more intuitively grasp the amount of nicotine they may be taking.

Fig. 7 is another example of a method for determining whether a combination of source liquids is permissible. The method of fig. 7 is largely identical to the method shown in fig. 6, but additionally comprises step S13, while step S12 is omitted (for clarity, but step S12 may be implemented in the method of fig. 7). Only the differences between the methods shown in fig. 6 and 7 are described here.

As shown in the figures, fig. 7 includes a method step S13 that occurs between step S2 and step S8. While the controller 55 continues the process to obtain an indication of the amount of source liquid contained in the article 30, the controller 55 may also continue the process in step S13 to obtain an indication of the amount of source liquid contained in the article 30. The amount of source liquid contained in the article 30 may be obtained in any suitable manner. In some implementations, the dock 50 may be configured to perform some measurement on the article 30 to determine the amount of liquid contained in the article 30. For example, the article port 56 may include a pair of capacitive plates, and at least a portion of the reservoir 3 is disposed between the capacitive plates when the article 30 is coupled to the article port 56. By measuring the capacitance between the capacitive plates an indication of the amount of liquid in the reservoir 3 can be obtained (wherein the dielectric between the capacitive plates depends on the proportion of source liquid and the proportion of air between the capacitive plates). Alternatively, an indication of the amount of source liquid within the article 30 may be present in the data-containing element 30 a. For example, the device 20 may be configured to record the number of puffs, the duration of heating, etc. of the article 30 while the user is using the aerosol provision system 10. The data may be recorded in the data-containing element 30a, for example, the data-containing element 30a may include a counter configured to count down each puff detected by the aerosol supply system. When the article 30 is coupled to the article port 54, the dock 50 is configured (e.g., via the reader 546 a) to obtain an indication of the amount of source liquid in the article 30.

Once the amount of source liquid is obtained in step S13, the amount of source liquid in the product 30 is fed into the determination of step S8. In general, the relative amounts of source liquid in the article 30 may determine whether a combination of source liquid contained in the article 30 and source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 is permissible. For example only, assume that reservoir 3 contains a banana flavor source liquid and the refill reservoir contains a mint flavor source liquid. As shown in the table of fig. 5, such a combination is not allowed. In the case where the product 30 as determined in step S13 is filled with, for example, 50% banana-flavor source liquid, if refilled, the ratio of banana-flavor source liquid to mint-flavor source liquid is 1:1. on the other hand, in the case where the product 30 as determined in step S13 is filled with only, for example, 10% of the banana-flavor source liquid, if refilled, the ratio of the banana-flavor source liquid to the mint-flavor source liquid is 1:9. in the latter example, the effect of banana flavor on the mint flavor source liquid is significantly reduced compared to the former example. Therefore, depending on the amount of source liquid in the product 30, the impact of banana flavor is relatively low. Thus, in general, if the source liquid within the reservoir 3 of the article is below a predetermined threshold, a combination of source liquids that would otherwise not be allowed may be allowed. The predetermined threshold may be the same for all source liquids, or the predetermined threshold may vary with the potential combination of source liquids and source liquids. Thus, the table shown in fig. 5 may be modified to include an indication of the amount or level of source liquid below which a combination is permitted.

It should be understood that the above is intended to prevent the article 30 filled with a particular first source liquid from being used with an impermissible second source liquid, for example, even if the first source liquid is completely depleted such that only a small amount of the first source liquid is present in the article 30. Of course, there may still be circumstances where, for example, even a minute amount of the previous source liquid in the product 30 may prevent the product 30 from being refilled with the second source liquid that is not allowed due to medical regulations.

Although not shown in fig. 7, in the case of implementing step S12, the method of fig. 7 may also affect this step. For example, as discussed above, in step S12, the indication of the source liquid contained in the article 30 is updated. The indication of the source liquid contained within the article 30 may be updated differently depending on the amount of the previous source liquid in the article 30 (i.e., the amount of source liquid prior to refilling). Taking the above two examples as examples, if the refilled product 30 includes 50% banana flavor source liquid and 50% mint flavor source liquid, then in step S12 the indication of the source liquid contained in the product 30 may be updated to indicate that both the existing banana flavor source liquid and the newly added mint flavor source liquid are currently contained in the product 30. The indication may also include an indication of the relative amounts of the two source liquids (e.g., 50:50). Conversely, if the refilled product 30 includes 10% banana flavor source liquid and 90% mint flavor source liquid, then in step S12 the indication of the source liquid contained in the product 30 may be updated to cover the existing banana flavor source liquid and instead merely indicate that the newly added mint flavor source liquid is currently contained in the product 30. In yet another alternative implementation, the indications of source liquids contained in the article 30 may be sequentially updated to effectively provide a historical list of all source liquids already contained in the article 30.

Fig. 8 shows another example of a method for determining whether a combination of source liquids is permissible. The method of fig. 8 is largely identical to the method shown in fig. 7, but additionally includes step S14 and step S15. Only the differences between the methods shown in fig. 7 and 8 will be described herein.

In step S11, the method may continue to step S14. In step S14, the controller 55 determines whether the combination of the product 30 and the source liquid in the refill reservoir 40 can be manually overridden. In this regard, while it may be permissible that the combined information (e.g., shown in fig. 5) may be that a particular combination of surface source fluids is not permissible, there may be a third option "not permissible but manually overrideable" due to some combination of source fluids. This may be especially the case for certain flavour combinations, where the combination of these source liquids may not violate any medical regulations, but may produce a recognized unpleasant flavour combination.

In these cases, some users may still want to combine the source liquids, although the manufacturer or recommended action is not to combine the source liquids. In this case, the allowable combination information may indicate whether the combination of source liquids can be manually overridden so that the reservoir 3 of the article 30 may still be refilled. If the allowable combination information indicates that a particular combination of source liquids can be overridden (or is overridden), then the answer to step S14 is affirmative (i.e., yes at step S14) and the method continues to step S15. Conversely, if the allowable combination information does not allow the combination of source liquids to be manually overridden, the method returns to step S11. It will be appreciated that alternatively, step S14 may be located between step S10 and step S11, with a negative answer leading to step S11 and a positive answer leading to step S15.

In step S15, the controller 55 is configured to alert the user to the following possibilities: preventing refilling of the reservoir 3 from the refill reservoir 40 mounted in the refill reservoir port 54 may be manually overridden so that the reservoir 3 can be refilled from the refill reservoir 40 mounted in the refill reservoir port 54. The alert may be provided according to any of the techniques described above (e.g., via an optical signal, an audible signal, or a tactile signal). The alert may also indicate to the user that manual input is required, such as manual pressing of a button on the dock 50 or insertion of a user-specific pin code on a key provided in the dock 50 or on a smart phone linked to the dock. The user manual input may be provided by any suitable input mechanism accordingly. The controller 55, upon receiving an input, may cause the transfer mechanism 53 to begin transferring source fluid from the reservoir 40 to the article 30 as previously described. That is, the method continues to step S9, where refilling is allowed.

Furthermore, it should be understood that the indication of the amount of source fluid acquired in step S13 may also affect whether the combination of source fluids may be manually overridden. For example, if the amount of source liquid in the article 30 is relatively low or below a threshold, a particular combination of source liquids that would otherwise not be allowed may be manually overridden. As discussed above, each combination of source liquids may have a different threshold, otherwise the combination that is not allowed may be overridden.

In addition to the above, as discussed, the dock 50 may include a plurality of refill reservoir ports 54 in some implementations. In implementations where a plurality of refill reservoirs 40 are provided (at least some of the plurality of refill reservoirs having different source liquids), a combination of the source liquid contained in the article 30 and the source liquid contained in each or selected ones of the plurality of refill reservoirs 40 is determined. Fig. 9 is an example of a method for determining whether a combination of source liquids is permissible regarding an arrangement comprising a plurality of refill reservoirs 40. The method of fig. 9 is largely identical to the method shown in fig. 6, but additionally includes step S4a, step S5a, step S6a and step S16. Step S12 is also omitted for clarity. Only the differences between the methods shown in fig. 9 and 6 will be described herein.

As shown in fig. 9, step S4a, step S5a and step S6a are essentially identical to step S4, step S5 and step S6, but they are performed in relation to a second refill reservoir (not shown). As discussed, in this case, the dock 50 may include two refill reservoir ports 54, each configured to receive one refill reservoir 40. When refill reservoirs 40 are installed in the respective ports 54 (step S4, step S4 a), the method continues to proceed to obtain an indication of the source liquid contained in each refill reservoir (step S5, step S5 a), and then to confirm whether the indication of the source liquid contained in each reservoir has been received (step S6, step S6 a). Although only two process steps for refilling the reservoir 40 are shown in fig. 9, it should be understood that the method may be extended to any number of refill reservoirs 40.

In this regard, the method shown in fig. 9 receives user input in step S16 to select which refill reservoir 40 to use to refill the article 30. The user may select one of the refill reservoirs 40 and accordingly the method proceeds to step S8 and the controller 55 determines whether a combination of source liquids is permissible as described above. Although not shown, in the event that the combination of source liquids is not allowed, the controller 55 may allow the user to select an alternative refill reservoir 40 in step S16, and the process continues as described previously.

In an alternative implementation, step S16 may be provided after step S8. That is, in step S8, the controller 55 may determine whether the combination of the source liquid contained in the article 30 and each of the plurality of refill reservoirs 40 is an allowable combination according to the allowable combination information. In step S16, the user may then be given the option to select from all allowable combinations (and/or all combinations that can be manually overridden). If no combinations are allowable, the method may continue with the process to step S10 and step S11 instead of continuing with the process to step S16.

In yet another alternative implementation, step S16 may be provided before step S5 and step S5 a. In this regard, a user may select a refill reservoir intended for refilling the article 30 from a plurality of refill reservoirs 40, and thereafter, perform steps S5/S5a and S6/S6a on the selected refill reservoir 40.

With respect to systems that include multiple refill reservoirs 40, in some implementations, there is a possibility that multiple refill reservoirs 40 refill a single article 30. In these implementations and referring to fig. 9, in step S16, in the event that the user should select two refill reservoirs (e.g., 50% of the total amount of source liquid supplied by each refill reservoir to refill the article 30), the controller 55 determines whether each source liquid in the refill reservoirs 40 is an allowable combination according to the allowable combination information, and then determines whether the source liquids of the refill reservoirs 40 are allowable combinations according to the allowable combination information. The answer to step S8 is affirmative only if all combinations are allowable combinations, and the method continues with step S9. Otherwise, the method continues with step S10, as described above.

It should be understood that the methods illustrated in fig. 6-9 are provided to illustrate certain features applicable to the present disclosure. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that combinations of features disclosed in the corresponding methods are permissible within the scope of the present disclosure.

Furthermore, the methods described in fig. 6-9 illustrate relevant features in the context of the present disclosure. The method may be modified to include additional steps not directly related to the present disclosure. For example, the article 30 and/or the refill reservoir 40 may include information related to the expiration date of the source liquid contained within the article 30 or the refill reservoir 40. In some implementations, the information may be manufacturing data, date of sale, lot number, and the like. The controller 55 may obtain source liquid expiration information from the article 30 and/or the refill reservoir 40, and in the event that the source liquid expiration information indicates that the source liquid has expired (e.g., the date of manufacture differs from the current date by more than a shelf life), the controller 55 may be configured to prevent refilling of the article 30 from the refill reservoir 40. The source fluid expiration date information may be stored in the data containing element 30a and/or 40 a.

Likewise, the article 30 and/or the refill reservoir 40 may include identifying information related to the identity of the article 30 or the refill reservoir 40. In some implementations, the identification information may be a unique identifier, lot number, etc. that uniquely identifies the article 30 or refill reservoir 40. The controller 55 may obtain the identification information from the article 30 and/or the refill reservoir 40, and in the event that the identification information indicates that the article 30 or the refill reservoir 40 is unsuitable for use (e.g., because the unique identifier indicates that the article 30 is counterfeit or the lot identifier indicates that the refill reservoir is from an unsuitable/recalled lot), the controller 55 may be configured to prevent refilling of the article 30 from the refill reservoir 40. The identification information may be stored in the data-containing element 30a and/or 40 a.

Although the refill device/dock 50 has been described above as being configured to transfer source liquid from the refill reservoir 40 to the article 30, other implementations may use other aerosol generating materials (such as solid, e.g., tobacco) as discussed. The principles of the present disclosure are equally applicable to other types of aerosol-generating materials, and for such implementations, the skilled person may use the appropriate refill reservoir 40 and article 30 for storing/retaining aerosol-generating material and the appropriate delivery mechanism 53 accordingly.

Thus, a refill device has been described for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism, wherein the refill device comprises a controller configured to: obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article; obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir; determining whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of the aerosol-generating material based on the acquired indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the article and the indication of the aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir; and performing an action in response to the determination. An article, a refill reservoir, a system and a method for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism of a refill device are also described.

Referring back to fig. 1-3, the dock 50 is configured to supply source liquid 42 from the refill reservoir 40 to the reservoir 3 of the article 30. As mentioned above, the refill reservoir 40 may be used with a plurality of different refill reservoirs 40, and a user may replace one refill reservoir 40 in the dock 50 with an alternative refill reservoir 40. In some cases, refill reservoirs 40 may include the same source liquid 42, but in terms of source liquid manufacture, there is an increasing trend to provide a greater variety of source liquids (e.g., in terms of flavor or in terms of active materials that may be delivered to a user, examples of which are described above). Thus, a user may switch one refill reservoir 40 to another refill reservoir 40 containing a different source liquid.

The transfer mechanism 53 of the dock 50 is configured to transfer source liquid from the refill reservoir 40 to the article 30 (or reservoir 3 thereof) and is thus configured to interact with the source liquid 42 of the refill reservoir 40. The transfer mechanism 53 may be configured or set to operate for a particular scenario (e.g., for a particular source fluid). In examples where fluid transfer mechanism 53 is a pump, pump 53 may be configured to operate at a certain pump speed or to provide a certain source fluid throughput. However, the effectiveness of the pump to perform fluid transfer according to any suitable criteria may depend on the nature of the source liquid being pumped.

Thus, in accordance with the principles of the present disclosure, the dock 50 (or more specifically, the controller 55 of the dock 50) is configured to obtain an indication of the aerosol-generating material (source liquid 42) stored within the refill reservoir 40, and to determine an operating parameter for operating the transfer mechanism 53 based at least on the obtained indication of the aerosol-generating material in the refill reservoir 40. Once the operating parameters for the delivery mechanism 53 are determined, the controller 55 is configured to cause the delivery mechanism 53 to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameters, thereby delivering the aerosol-generating material (source liquid 42) in the refill reservoir 40 using the operating parameters that are more appropriate for the particular aerosol-generating material being delivered. This may help to more efficiently generate and/or more accurately deliver the aerosol-generating material (e.g. more accurately deliver a quantity of aerosol-generating material to the reservoir 3).

With respect to aerosol-generating material (such as the source liquid 42), the aerosol-generating material may have a variety of different characteristics, which may have an effect on the transfer of the aerosol-generating material from the refill reservoir 40, or in monitoring the accuracy of the transfer of the aerosol-generating material from the refill reservoir 40. For example, taking a source liquid as an example, the source liquid has a certain density, a certain viscosity and possibly a certain compressibility, all of which will affect the performance of a fluid pump, such as a peristaltic pump. Other characteristics of the aerosol-generating material may be important and affect the manner in which the delivery mechanism 53 operates, depending on the type of delivery mechanism 53 and/or the type of aerosol-generating material to be delivered. These properties of the source liquid are typically due to the composition of the source liquid. For example, some conventional source liquids may use Propylene Glycol (PG) and/or Vegetable Glycerin (VG) as the main components of the source liquid. These ingredients have very different properties compared to water, e.g. it is conceivable to use them in different source liquids, e.g. for delivering different active ingredients to the user. For example, the viscosity of water at 25 ℃ is about 0.00089 Pa-s, while the viscosity of PG is about 0.042 Pa-s (several orders of magnitude greater than water). The main component of the source liquid may be selected based on the content to be delivered to the user (e.g., in terms of active ingredients or experience, such as the volume of visible aerosol). Accordingly, the nature of the source liquid in one refill reservoir 40 may be substantially different from the nature of the source liquid in another reservoir 40, and thus the fluid transfer mechanism 53 may behave differently when pumping a different liquid. Furthermore, while it has been described above that source liquids having different main components may have properties (such as viscosity) that are different from each other, it is understood that other ingredients may also have an effect on the properties of the source liquid. For example, different flavoring agents added to a source liquid of the same main component may provide the source liquid with different bulk properties. These differences may not be as pronounced as the above examples, as the properties of the liquid may generally be considered as a weighted combination of the properties of each component, and the flavoring in the PG/VG source liquid comprising nicotine generally comprises a fraction of the total mass of the source liquid. These minor differences may have an effect on the transfer mechanism 53 that will depend on the sensitivity of the transfer mechanism 53. Furthermore, components other than flavoring agents may alter the overall properties of the source liquid, e.g., nicotine may be present in an aprotic or protonated form (when mixed with an acid), which may affect the overall properties of the source liquid.

By way of example, a peristaltic pump (which is an example of a fluid transfer mechanism 53) includes a rotary pump head having one or more rollers, and a length of tubing (typically curved) configured to act as a conduit for pumping fluid. The roller of the pump head presses against the conduit to compress a portion of the tube containing the fluid and, as the pump head rotates, the pump head/roller pushes the fluid along the tube towards the outlet of the tube (which corresponds to the outlet of the pump). In addition to affecting constant aspects of the pump, such as tube diameter, tube length/pump head size, etc., the rotational speed of the pump head (including the rollers) and in some cases the degree of closure (occlusion) (the space between the two walls of the tube when the tube is compressed) can also be adjusted. In general, the rotational speed of the pump head affects the amount of liquid delivered per unit time (referred to as the flow rate), with faster speeds generally meaning greater flow rates output by peristaltic pumps for a given liquid. However, the viscosity of the liquid being pumped may affect the output of the pump. For example, for a given motor speed, the flow rate generally decreases as the viscosity increases. That is, if the pump is set to operate at a given speed, generally two different liquids having different viscosities will be delivered at different rates. In addition, the viscosity or other properties of the liquid may also affect the speed of the liquid entering the empty section of the tube (the section through which the rollers have moved the liquid along the tube), so setting a high pump head speed may move air (rather than liquid) between the two rollers, thereby reducing the amount of material delivered per stroke of the pump head. Thus, with respect to the speed of the pump head, different source liquids may have different optimal speeds, which may be used to ensure delivery speed and/or efficient use of the power supply (e.g., running the motor at a higher speed consumes more power). Furthermore, the manner in which peristaltic pumps operate by essentially creating "bags (pockets)" of fluid and pushing them along a tube means that the delivery can sometimes be "pulsed", e.g., the amount of fluid exiting the pump per second varies in a pulsating manner. In some applications, it may be desirable to control (i.e., reduce) the amount of pulses so that the delivery of source liquid may be better predicted, and thus more accurately indicate or predict the amount of source liquid delivered. This may be helpful in systems where precise amounts of liquid are to be delivered.

The above should be understood as an example of the various effects that the operating parameters of the delivery mechanism 53 (and in particular the peristaltic pump) have on delivering aerosol-generating materials having different characteristics or properties. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that other operating parameters of the transmission mechanism may generally affect the performance of the transmission mechanism, and that the principles of the present disclosure are applicable to these operating parameters as well.

Accordingly, the controller 55 of the dock 50 is configured to determine one or more operating parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 of the dock 50 based on the indication of the aerosol-generating material contained in the refill reservoir 40. The operating parameters may be set such that the transfer mechanism 53 operates under certain conditions, for example, the transfer mechanism 53 may be set to operate under a first condition in which the transport speed is prioritized, in which case the parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 are set such that each source liquid is transferred at the speed of the source liquid as fast as possible, or the transfer mechanism 53 may be set to operate under a second condition in which accuracy is prioritized, in which case the parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 are set such that each source liquid is transferred in a manner that allows accurate monitoring of the transport amount of the source liquid. A variety of other conditions may be envisaged depending on the application at hand. Likewise, the controller 55 may be configured to operate under a single fixed condition, or the controller 55 may be configured to change conditions, for example, in response to user instructions in the present manner.

The indication of aerosol-generating material contained within refill reservoir 40 may be any suitable indication that allows controller 55 to correspondingly determine the operating parameters for transfer mechanism 53. The indication comprises an indication of at least some characteristics/properties of the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir.

In some implementations, the indication indirectly indicates a characteristic/property of the aerosol-generating material in the refill reservoir 40. That is, the indication may include an identifier, such as a name or code (e.g., SKU) for the aerosol-generating material. For example, different source liquids may be named differently, e.g., based on the composition of the source liquid, such as "black cherry 6mg/mL nicotine," which indicates that the source liquid has a black cherry flavor and a concentration of 6mg/mL nicotine. The controller 55 may be configured to have access to a memory that may store a list of identifiers (corresponding to different source liquids) and operating parameters associated with those identifiers. Thus, the identifier indirectly indicates the characteristics/properties of the source liquid to the controller 55. It should be appreciated that in some cases, the identifier may be used to identify a classification or subset of source liquids. For example, in some implementations, the primary component of the source liquid may have a greatest effect on the properties of the overall source liquid, while the one or more secondary components have little or negligible effect on the properties of the overall source liquid. Thus, the source liquids may be classified according to their major components, and the identifier of a given source liquid indicates its class to the controller 55. The controller 55 may then set one or more operating parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 to one or more operating parameters set according to its category. It will be appreciated that source liquids may be classified differently, for example based on their properties, such as viscosity (and thus all source liquids may be classified according to viscosities that fall within a particular viscosity range).

Alternatively or additionally, the indication of the aerosol-generating material in the refill reservoir 40 may comprise a value of a property of the aerosol-generating material, such as viscosity, density, etc. of the source liquid. The controller 55 may determine the associated operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53 from the obtained values of these properties. Alternatively or additionally, the indication may comprise an indication of the actual operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53, such that the controller 55 may determine and set the operating parameters accordingly by simply setting the correct operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53 based on the operating parameters in the indication. This is another example of an indirect indication of the properties of the aerosol-generating material.

Turning to fig. 4 a-4 c and 10, fig. 4a, 4b, 4c and 10 illustrate an exemplary implementation of a dock 50/controller 55 configured to obtain an indication of source liquid contained within a refill reservoir 40 coupled to the dock 50. Fig. 4a to 4c and 10 are based on fig. 2. The same components are denoted by the same reference numerals as those used in fig. 2, and detailed descriptions thereof are omitted, and alternatively, with respect to these components, the reader may refer to the descriptions provided in fig. 2. Only the differences from fig. 2 are explained here.

Fig. 4a schematically depicts an implementation in which the refill reservoir 40 is provided with a data containing element 40a, which correspondingly stores an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40. The data containing element 40a of the refill reservoir 40 may be any suitable data containing element 40a that is at least readable by an associated data reader 54a disposed in the dock 50.

The data-containing element 40a may be an electronically readable memory (such as a microchip or the like) which accordingly includes at least an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40, for example in the form of a digital/binary code which can be read electronically. The electronically readable memory may be any suitable form of memory, such as an electronically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), but other types of suitable memory may be used depending on the application. The electronically readable memory in this implementation is non-volatile in that refill reservoir 40 is not continuously coupled to a power source (e.g., power source 53 located in dock 50). For example, refill reservoir 40 may be packaged and sold separately from dock 50 and thus not connected to a power source when packaged ready for sale. However, in other implementations, the electronically readable memory may be volatile or semi-volatile, in which case the refill reservoir 40 may require its own power source, which may cause an increase in cost and an increase in material waste when the refill reservoir 40 is discarded (e.g., when the refill reservoir 40 becomes empty).

The data-containing element 40a may be electronically read by coupling electrical contacts (not shown) on the refill reservoir 40 with electrical contacts (not shown) in the refill reservoir port 54, respectively. That is, when the refill reservoir 40 is positioned in the refill reservoir port 54, an electrical connection is made between the refill reservoir 40 and the reader 54a in the refill port 54. Applying current from reader 54a to data-containing element 40a allows reader 54a to obtain an indication of the source liquid contained in refill reservoir 40. Alternatively, the data-bearing unit 40a may be electronically read using any suitable wireless technology (such as RFID or NFC), and the refill reservoir 40 may be provided with suitable hardware (e.g., an antenna) to enable such reading by a suitable wireless reader 54 a.

As seen in fig. 4a, the reader 54a is coupled to the controller 55 and is thus configured to provide the retrieved indication of source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 to the controller 55 of the dock 50.

It should be understood that the data containing element 40a may be based on other types of suitable data storage mechanisms and, in principle, any element capable of including data in a format that can be acquired/read by a suitable reader may be employed in accordance with the present disclosure. For example, the data-containing element 40a may include an optically readable element (such as a bar code or QR code) that includes an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40, and the reader 54a may include a suitable optical reader (such as a camera). In this example, the data-containing element 40a includes an indication in the form of an image (e.g., an arrayed bar or pixel) of source liquid in the refill reservoir 40. In another example, the data-containing element 40a may include a magnetically readable element (such as a magnetic tag or magnetic stripe) that stores an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40, and the reader 54a may include a suitable magnetic reader (such as a magnetic read head). It should be understood that the type of data-containing element 40a is not important to the principles of the present disclosure, and thus any suitable data-containing element capable of including or storing an indication of source liquid contained in refill reservoir 40 may be used.

Fig. 4b schematically depicts an implementation in which the refill reservoir 40 is provided with a mechanical engagement unit 40b. The mechanical engagement unit 40b is intended to engage with a corresponding mechanical engagement unit 54b provided at the refill reservoir port 54.

The mechanical engagement unit 40b is provided via physical means to represent an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40. For example, in the arrangement shown in fig. 4b, the mechanical engagement unit 40b may be a protrusion from a surface of the refill reservoir 40. The protrusion 40b is arranged to engage with a recess 54b provided in the refill reservoir port 54. A sensor (e.g., the sensor may comprise a mechanical switch) located at the recess 54b is not shown in fig. 4b, which is configured to send an indication to the controller 55 of the dock 50 when the protrusion is positioned in the corresponding recess 54 b. As can be seen in fig. 4b, the refill reservoir port 54 comprises a second recess 54b'. The second recess 54b 'also includes a sensor configured to send an indication to the controller 55 when the protrusion is positioned in the corresponding second recess 54b'. Thus, it should be appreciated that the type of source liquid contained within the refill reservoir 40 may be indicated to the controller 55 of the dock 50 based on the engagement between the protrusions and the corresponding recesses. For example, the protrusion 40b shown in fig. 4b engaging the recess 54b may represent a first source liquid, while a protrusion not shown that would otherwise engage the recess 54b' may represent a second liquid. That is, refill reservoirs 40 having different physical configurations with the protrusions in different positions may be filled with respective source liquids. Based on the sensed protrusions (i.e., triggered sensors in recesses 54b and 54 b'), controller 55 may identify the type of source liquid contained in refill reservoir 40. Accordingly, the controller 55 obtains an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 based on the triggering of the sensor.

Although not shown, it should be understood that the protrusions may alternatively be located in corresponding ports of the dock 50, while the recesses may be located in the refill reservoir 40. In these cases, the sensor may be embedded in the protrusion and arranged to sense when the protrusion is located in the recess of the refill reservoir 40.

It should be understood that the protrusion as mechanical engagement unit 40b for refill reservoir 40 and the recesses 54b, 54b' as mechanical engagement unit for refill reservoir port 54 are only one example of a suitable mechanical engagement unit. In another example, the mechanical engagement unit may be provided by a suitably shaped refill reservoir 40 and refill reservoir port 54. For example, dock 50 may include a refill reservoir port 54 that receives a specially shaped refill reservoir and correspondingly does not receive a refill reservoir 40 that does not have a particular shape. The refill reservoir 40 having a particular shape, which is received by the refill reservoir port 54, may be filled with a first source liquid such that when the dock 50 is notified that the refill reservoir 40 is positioned in the port 54, the controller 55 of the dock 50 correspondingly obtains information that the refill reservoir 40 includes the particular source liquid. As another example, refill reservoir 40 may include electrical contacts positioned to make electrical connection with one of a plurality of pairs of electrical contacts located in device port 54. In a similar manner to the example shown in fig. 4b, when different pairs of electrical contacts are connected, they may indicate to the controller 55 of the dock 50 the type of source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40. While this implementation does include an electrical detection element, it is the physical location of the electrical contacts that indicates the type of source fluid. It should be appreciated that the type of mechanical engagement unit 40b, 54b is not important to the principles of the present disclosure, and that any suitable mechanical engagement unit capable of providing an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 may be used accordingly.

Fig. 4c schematically depicts an implementation in which an indication of source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 is provided to the dock 50 manually (e.g., via a user).

Fig. 4c shows the remote computing device remote from the dock 50 (and remote from the refill reservoir 40). The remote computing device in fig. 4c is represented by a smartphone 60, but it should be understood that any suitable computing device (e.g., personal computer, notebook computer, tablet computer, palm top computer, smart watch, smart television, etc.) may be used in accordance with the principles of the present disclosure. Thus, in this implementation, the smartphone 60 is configured to communicate with the dock 50, and thus the dock 50 may include a suitable communication module 55c configured to receive at least communications from the smartphone 60. For example, the communication module 55c may be a bluetooth module configured to receive bluetooth communications from the smartphone 60. The smartphone 60 may run an app (software application) that allows a user to manually input an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40, and then communicate the manually input indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 to the dock 50 via the communication module 55c, such that the controller 55 receives the indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40.

While the implementation of fig. 4c shows a remote computing device in communication with dock 50, it should be appreciated that in other implementations dock 50 may be provided with its own user input mechanism (e.g., mechanical buttons or touch screen) to allow a user to input an indication of source liquid contained in refill reservoir 40 directly to dock 50.

Fig. 10 schematically depicts an implementation in which an indication of source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 is obtained by the dock 50 measuring a property related to the source liquid in the refill reservoir 40.

In fig. 10, one or more sensors 59 are provided, wherein the sensors 59 are configured to measure a property associated with the source liquid and provide the measured value to the controller 55 as an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40. The controller 55 then proceeds to determine the operating parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 based on the measurements. The sensor 59 may be any suitable sensor capable of providing a measurement that allows the controller 55 to determine an operating parameter for the transfer mechanism 53, and it should be appreciated that certain types of sensors may be suitable only for certain aerosol-generating materials. In fig. 10, the sensor 59 includes a pair of capacitive plates located on either side of the refill reservoir port 54 such that when the refill reservoir 40 is coupled with the refill reservoir port 54, at least a portion of the refill reservoir 40 containing the source liquid 42 is located between the pair of capacitive plates. The pair of capacitive plates may be positioned such that only a small portion of refill reservoir 40 is between the capacitive plates, and that portion may always contain source liquid (e.g., that portion may be the bottom of reservoir 40 where source liquid is not accessible via outlet aperture 44) such that the amount of source liquid in refill reservoir 54 does not affect the acquired capacitance value. Alternatively, the dock 50 may be configured to determine the amount of source liquid in the refill reservoir 40 and modify the measured capacitance value appropriately based on the amount of source liquid. When refill reservoir 40 is installed in dock 50, controller 55 may apply a current (e.g., from power source 57) to the capacitive plate to measure the capacitance value of the source liquid contained in refill reservoir 40. The measured capacitance value depends on the type of material located between the capacitive plates, and thus, the controller 55 is configured to identify the type or class of source liquid based on the measured capacitance value. For example, a source liquid having water as a main component may have a different measured capacitance value than a source liquid having PG/VG as a main component. Thus, the controller 55 uses the measured capacitance value as an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40. The controller 55 may access a look-up table or the like that correlates the capacitance value (or range of capacitance values) to one or more operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53.

The use of a capacitive plate as one example of a possible sensor 59 may be used to provide an indication to the controller 55 of the source liquid contained within the reservoir. In other implementations, other sensors may be used. For example, dock 50 may include a fluid flow meter located in conduit 58 or in a branching section of the conduit. The controller 55 may cause the transfer mechanism 53 to operate according to a default setting to begin transferring source liquid from the refill reservoir 40 toward the article 30. The flow meter measures the flow rate of the source fluid at a default operating parameter of the transfer mechanism and this value may be indicative of the viscosity of the source fluid. The controller 55 may calculate the viscosity from the output value of the flow meter or otherwise directly use the output value from the flow meter to identify the appropriate operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53 (e.g., also through the use of a look-up table). The skilled person will think of other possible sensors that can be used to provide a measurement of a property of the aerosol-generating material that is indicative of one or more characteristics of the aerosol-generating material that affect the efficiency of the transfer mechanism 53.

In some implementations, a plurality of different sensors may be implemented to allow a plurality of measurements to be taken and used as an indication of source liquid contained in refill reservoir 40. It should also be appreciated that the sensor 59 may be located in the dock 50 (as shown in fig. 10), or the sensor may be located in the refill reservoir 40 (or a portion thereof) and communicatively coupled to the controller 55 by appropriate wiring or electrical contacts.

Fig. 4 a-4 c and 10 illustrate some example implementations of arrangements in which an indication of source liquid contained within refill reservoir 40 is provided to dock 50 (or more specifically, controller 55 of dock 50). It should be understood that fig. 4 a-4 c and 10 are not intended to be limiting, and any other suitable manner of providing an indication of source liquid contained within refill reservoir 40 to dock 50 is contemplated in the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 depicts a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method for setting operating parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure.

The method starts at step S101, in which a user couples the refill reservoir 40 to the refill reservoir port 54 of the dock 50. As described above, the dock 50 and refill reservoir 40 may employ any suitable coupling mechanism.

In step S102, the controller 55 continues the process to acquire an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40. Dock 50 may be configured to obtain an indication of source fluid using any of the techniques described with respect to fig. 4 a-4 c and fig. 10. For purposes of this example, dock 50 is configured to obtain an indication of source fluid from data-containing element 40a disposed on reservoir 40 using a suitable reader 54.

In step S103, the controller 55 confirms that the indication of the source liquid contained in the reservoir 40 has been acquired. For example, the controller 55 may be configured to perform the steps required to obtain an indication of the source liquid contained in the reservoir 40 (e.g., by supplying current to the reader 54 to read the indication from the data containing element 40 a), and if the indication is not obtained, the controller 55 may perform certain steps accordingly. Likewise, it should be appreciated that in some implementations, the indication may be obtained, but is not a true indication, e.g., the digital code obtained from the data-containing element 40a may not correspond to any digital code used by the controller 55, indicating that the digital code may be corrupted (e.g., there is a read error) or not a true code (e.g., the storage 40 is counterfeit). This check may be performed in step S103.

Assuming that the indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 is acquired in step S103 (i.e., yes in step S103), the method proceeds to step S104. In step S104, the controller 55 is configured to acquire an instruction for determining an operation parameter of the transmission mechanism 53. These instructions may be relatively simple or more complex, depending on the implementation at hand. A simple set of instructions may be, for example, "identify operating parameters from the acquired identifiers using a look-up table", in which case the controller 55 is configured to read the identifiers (e.g., the name or SKU of the refill reservoir 40 from the data containing element 40 a) and reference the look-up table to determine the operating parameters for the delivery mechanism. A more complex set of instructions may, for example, include one or more mathematical formulas for converting the acquired values into an indication of source fluid contained in refill reservoir 40. For example, the instructions may include a relationship between viscosity and motor speed (e.g., of a peristaltic pump) such that the controller 55 may directly calculate the operating parameter from the acquired value when the viscosity value is acquired (e.g., from the data-containing element 40a or from the sensor 59). It should be appreciated that the above examples of simple instructions and complex instructions are merely examples, and that the specific instructions to be used may vary depending on the existing implementation. For example, other schemes such as logic trees or decision trees may form the basis of instructions that essentially allow controller 55 to sequentially determine answers to a series of questions to determine appropriate operating parameters for delivery mechanism 53.

The instructions for determining the operating parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 may be stored locally (e.g., in the memory of the dock 50) or may be retrieved from an external source remote from the dock 50. For example, in some implementations, the instructions may be obtained via a server (not shown) in communication with dock 50. The dock 50 may have a suitable communication module to facilitate communication with the server directly (e.g., using WiFi or cellular communication) or via an intermediate device such as a smart phone (e.g., using a bluetooth connection between the dock 50 and the smart phone, where the smart phone is directly connected to a remote server). In other implementations, instructions for determining the operating parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 may be provided by the refill reservoir 40. For example, the data-containing element 40a may additionally include instructions for determining the operating parameters of the transfer mechanism 53, which instructions may be read by the reader 54b and sent (together with or separately from an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40) to the controller 55. Alternatively, a separate data containing element may be provided on refill reservoir 40 including instructions.

Fig. 11 shows two routes starting from step S104, either directly to step S106 or first via step S105 and then to step S106. Step S105 should be considered optional in this regard and thus may be implemented in only certain implementations. In step S105, the controller 55 acquires the characteristics of the transmission mechanism 53. In this regard, the characteristics of the delivery mechanism 53 may also affect the performance of the delivery mechanism 53 when delivering different aerosol-generating materials. For example, in the case of peristaltic pumps, tube length, tube diameter, tube strength (i.e., how easily the tube is compressed), tube recovery (i.e., how easily the tube springs back to an uncompressed state after being compressed), and the number of rollers on the pump head are some factors that may affect the efficiency of the transfer mechanism 53. Thus, providing the controller 55 with characteristics of the particular transfer mechanism 53 used in the dock 50 means that the controller 55 can take these characteristics into account when determining the operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53. For example, the controller 55 may modify the look-up table using the obtained characteristics, or these characteristics may be variables in the mathematical formula provided in step S4. The characteristics of the transfer mechanism 53 may be pre-stored values, for example, values entered during manufacture that are stored in a memory of the controller 55 or accessible to the controller, or the dock 50 may be provided with a sensor configured to sense characteristics of the transfer mechanism 53. Providing these features allows for more generic instructions to be used on multiple docks 50 with similar or different transfer mechanisms 53, allows for manufacturing tolerances to be reduced during production of the docks 50, and/or avoids the need for calibration. Furthermore, sensing the characteristics of the transmission mechanism 53 may be particularly suitable in cases where, for example, the characteristics of the transmission mechanism 53 change over time/wear.

In step S106, the controller 55 continues the process to determine the operation parameters for the transfer mechanism 53. As discussed, in addition to using the acquisition indication of the source liquid contained within refill reservoir 40 acquired in step S102, controller 55 also uses the instructions acquired in step S104 to determine the operating parameters for transfer mechanism 53. The controller 55 may also optionally use the characteristics of the transfer mechanism acquired in step S105.

Once the operation parameters of the transmission mechanism 53 are determined, the controller 55 sets the determined operation parameters of the transmission mechanism 53 as the current operation parameters of the transmission mechanism 53 in step S107. This may involve overwriting a stored value of an operating parameter (e.g., a motor speed stored in memory for use in power operation) so that a new value is read prior to operation of the transfer mechanism 53, or it may involve physically changing aspects of the transfer mechanism 53, e.g., changing the position of the rollers on the roller head of the peristaltic pump (e.g., particularly the radial position). In terms of physical changes, this may be performed automatically by the dock 50, for example by adjusting the transfer mechanism 53 by a suitable actuator located in the dock 50, or instructions may be provided to the user on the user interface of the dock 50 or smartphone 60, for example to perform some action related to the transfer mechanism 53.

In step S108, the controller 55 causes the dock 50 to begin a refill process to refill the article 30 from the source liquid 42 of the refill reservoir 40 using the transfer mechanism 53 that implements the determined operating parameters. In this example and as mentioned above, the refill process may begin automatically once the refill reservoir 40 and the article 30 are properly positioned in the respective ports 54, 56 of the dock 50. Thus, prior to step S108, the controller 55 may perform a check to determine that the article 30 is located in the article port 30. Alternatively, the check may be alternatively performed between step S101 and step S102 of fig. 11. As described above, refilling may continue until the reservoir 3 of the article 30 is full or a predetermined amount of source liquid has been delivered to the article 30.

Referring back to step S103, if the controller determines that an indication of source liquid contained in refill reservoir 40 has not been received, i.e., no in step S103, the method may continue the process to step S109.

In step S109, a warning is provided to the user to warn the user that an indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 has not been acquired. The alert may be communicated in any suitable manner, for example, via an optical signal (such as illuminating an LED, providing a message on a display, etc.), an audible signal (such as sound from a speaker), or a tactile signal (such as vibration from a haptic motor). The mechanism for providing the alert signal may be located in the dock 50 or may be located in a remote device (such as a smart phone) linked to the dock 50. The warning signal may be provided once, a set number of times, or continuously until an action is taken by the user (e.g., removal of refill reservoir 40). If the refill reservoir is removed from the refill reservoir port 54, the method may return to step S101.

The method may then continue to step S110. In step S110, when an indication of source fluid cannot be obtained, in some implementations, controller 55 may cause transfer mechanism 53 to operate according to a set of default operating parameters. The default set of operating parameters may be selected to ensure that the source fluid may be delivered but may not be in an ideal manner. The warning in step S109 may indicate to the user that default operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53 are being used during the refill operation (in step S108).

Although not shown in fig. 11, in step S109, the controller 55 may be configured to prevent refilling of the article 30 from the refill reservoir 40 when the indication of the source liquid contained in the refill reservoir 40 is not acquired in step S103. The warning in step S109 may indicate to the user that the refill has been paused and wait for the user to remove the refill reservoir 40 and reconnect the refill reservoir 40 or an alternative reservoir 40. This may replace step S110 of fig. 11.

The method illustrated in fig. 11 is an exemplary method, and the skilled person will appreciate that variations may be made to the illustrated method while still remaining consistent with the present disclosure. For example, some method steps may be omitted, or the order of the illustrated method steps may be changed. For example, step S109 and step S110 may be interchanged, or step S109 may be omitted entirely.

Fig. 12 and 13 show flowcharts indicating alternative positions for the additional step S111 or the additional step S112. Each of step S111 or step S112 determines whether instructions for refilling remanufactured product 30 have been received by controller 55 of dock 50.

In fig. 12, another step S111 is provided between step S101 and step S102. In step S111, the controller 55 is configured to determine whether an instruction to refill the source liquid 42 from the refill reservoir 40 to the article 30 has been received. In the method of fig. 11, it is stated that refilling may be automated when the article 30 and refill reservoir 40 are positioned in the respective ports 54, 56. Thus, in step S111, the controller 55 may be configured to determine that the presence of both the refill reservoir and the article in their respective ports constitutes an instruction to refill the article 30. Alternatively, the refill instructions may be provided via user input, which may be received directly on the dock 50 or via a remote source (e.g., a smart phone) communicatively coupled to the dock. The user input may be provided by any suitable input mechanism, such as actuatable buttons, voice signals for voice control, touch screens, and the like. Of course, even in the event of user input, prior to initiation of the refill operation in step S108, the dock 50 may still perform the required checks to ensure that both the refill reservoir 40 and the article 30 are docked in the respective ports.

In fig. 12, when a refill instruction is received by the controller 55, the controller 55 then continues the process to implement the remaining steps of the method of fig. 11. In this example, the operational parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 are determined after the refill instruction is received, meaning that the process for determining the operational parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 is performed only in response to the refill instruction.

In fig. 13, a further step S112 is provided between step S106 and step S108 and/or between step S110 and step S108. As with step S111, in step S112, the controller 55 is configured to determine whether an instruction to refill the source liquid 42 from the refill reservoir 40 to the article 30 has been received. Also, the instructions may be received automatically when the article 30 and refill reservoir 40 are positioned in the respective ports 54, 56. Thus, in step S112, the controller 55 may be configured to determine that the presence of both the refill reservoir and the article in their respective ports constitutes an instruction to refill the article 30. Alternatively, refill instructions may be provided via user input, as discussed above.

In fig. 13, when a refill instruction is received by the controller 55, the controller 55 then starts the refill process at step S108. In this example, the operating parameters of the transfer mechanism 53 are determined prior to the initiation of any refill instructions so that the controller 55 is ready to initiate refill in response to user input.

The methods of fig. 12 and 13 may also be suitably adapted to determine the operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53 only at the appropriate times. For example, it should be appreciated that a given refill reservoir 40 may be coupled to the dock 50 once and used to refill the article 30 multiple times. Each time an article is coupled to dock 50 for refilling, refill reservoir 40 may still be docked within dock 50 since a previous refill operation. Thus, the controller 55 may not need to determine the operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53 while the previous refill reservoir 40 is still connected.

Fig. 14 and 15 show flowcharts indicating additional step S113 or additional step S114, which may be implemented in each of the methods shown in fig. 12 and 13, respectively. Each of step S113 or step S114 determines whether a new refill reservoir 40 is coupled to the dock 50.

Fig. 14 is based on fig. 12 and includes step S113 between step S111 and step S102. When the dock 50 receives an instruction to refill the article in step S111 (i.e., yes at step S111), the method proceeds to step S113. In step S113, the controller 55 determines whether the refill reservoir 40 is newly coupled to the dock 50. The controller 55 may be determined in any suitable manner. For example, refill reservoir 40 may include an identifier stored, for example, in data containing element 40a, and when controller 55 receives a refill instruction, controller 55 reads the identifier of refill reservoir 40. If the identifier matches the previously read identifier (and is stored in the memory of the controller 55 or in a memory accessible to the controller), the answer to step S113 is negative (i.e., no at step S113), the method continues to step S108 and refills with current operating parameters (i.e., operating parameters set in a previous refill operation). In contrast, if the controller 55 determines that the refill reservoir 40 is newly added (i.e., yes at step S113) because the acquired identifier does not match the previously stored identifier, the method proceeds to step S102, and the disadvantage of the operating parameter may proceed as before. It should be appreciated that the controller 55 may be configured to use other techniques to determine whether the refill reservoir 40 is newly added, for example, the dock 50 may be provided with a sensor that detects when the refill reservoir 40 is attached to/removed from the refill reservoir port 54.

Fig. 15 is based on fig. 13 and includes step S114 between step S107/step S110 and step S112. In the method of fig. 13 and 15, the operating parameters are determined when the refill reservoir 40 is coupled to the dock 50, but once determined, the refill instruction is awaited. If the user replaces the refill reservoir 40 at this time, step S114 allows the operating parameters for the transfer mechanism 53 to be determined for a new reservoir 40. In step S114, the controller 55 determines whether a new refill reservoir 40 is coupled to the dock 50. The controller 55 may be determined in any suitable manner. For example, the controller 55 may continuously monitor whether the refill reservoir is coupled to the dock 50 using an appropriate sensor. When the sensor indicates that the refill reservoir is not coupled and/or a new reservoir 40 is coupled (e.g., because the signal from the sensor switches from absent to present with respect to the refill reservoir 40), i.e., yes at step S114, the controller 55 may be configured to continue the process to step S2 and the method continues as described above. If the controller 55 determines that the refill reservoir is not newly added (i.e., no at step S114), the method continues to step S112 and the controller waits for instructions to refill the article 30 as discussed above. Step S114 may be periodically performed such that the controller 55 continuously monitors whether a refill reservoir is coupled to the refill port 54.

It should be understood that the methods illustrated in fig. 12-15 are provided to illustrate certain features applicable to the present disclosure. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that combinations of features disclosed in the corresponding methods are permissible within the scope of the present disclosure.

Furthermore, the methods described in fig. 12-15 illustrate relevant features in the context of the present disclosure. The method may be modified to include additional steps not directly related to the present disclosure. For example, the refill reservoir 40 may include information related to the expiration date of the source liquid contained within the refill reservoir 40. In some implementations, the information may be manufacturing data, date of sale, lot number, and the like. The controller 55 may obtain source liquid expiration information from the refill reservoir 40, and in the event that the source liquid expiration information indicates that the source liquid has expired (e.g., the date of manufacture differs from the current date by more than a shelf life), the controller 55 may be configured to prevent refilling of the article 30 from the refill reservoir 40. The source fluid expiration date information may be stored in the data containing element 40 a.

Likewise, refill reservoir 40 may include identifying information related to the identity of refill reservoir 40. In some implementations, the identification information may be a unique identifier, lot number, etc. that uniquely identifies the refill reservoir 40. The controller 55 may obtain the identification information from the refill reservoir 40 and, in the event that the identification information indicates that the refill reservoir 40 is unsuitable for use (e.g., because the unique identifier indicates that the refill reservoir 40 is counterfeit or the lot identifier indicates that the refill reservoir is from an unsuitable/recalled lot), the controller 55 may be configured to prevent refilling of the article 30 from the refill reservoir 40. The identification information may be stored in the data containing element 40 a.

Thus, a refill device has been described for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism, wherein the refill device comprises a controller configured to: obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir; determining an operating parameter of the transfer mechanism based at least on the acquired indication; and causing the transfer mechanism to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameter. A refill reservoir, a system and a method for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism of a refill device are also described.

The various embodiments described herein are only used to aid in understanding and teaching the claimed features. These embodiments are provided as representative examples of embodiments only, and are not exhaustive and/or exclusive. It is to be understood that the advantages, embodiments, examples, functions, features, structures and/or other aspects described herein are not to be taken as limiting the scope of the invention, which is defined by the claims, or the equivalents of the claims, and that other embodiments may be utilized and modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the claimed invention. In addition to the elements, components, features, portions, steps, means, etc. specifically described herein, various embodiments of the present invention may suitably include, consist of, or consist essentially of the appropriate combination of the elements, components, features, portions, steps, means, etc. disclosed. Furthermore, the present disclosure may include other inventions not presently claimed but which may be claimed in the future.

Claims

1. A refill device for refilling an article with aerosol-generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism, wherein the refill device comprises a controller configured to:

obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article;

Obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir;

determining whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating materials based on the acquired indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article and the indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir; and

An action is performed in response to the determination.

2. A refill device according to claim 1, wherein when the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating materials, the controller is configured to cause the refill device to allow refilling of the article from the refill reservoir.

3. A refill device according to any preceding claim, wherein, when the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir cannot constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating materials, the controller is configured to provide a warning to the user indicating that the combination of aerosol-generating materials cannot constitute an allowable combination.

4. A refill device according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the controller is configured to cause the refill device to prevent refilling of the article from the refill reservoir when the aerosol generating material within the article and the aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir cannot constitute an allowable combination of aerosol generating materials.

5. A refill device according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the controller is configured to pre-obtain permissible combination information indicative of the permissibility of a combination of aerosol-generating materials, and to determine whether the aerosol-generating materials within the article and the aerosol-generating materials within the refill reservoir constitute a permissible combination of aerosol-generating materials based on the obtained permissible combination information.

6. The refill device of claim 5 wherein the refill device is configured to obtain the allowable combination information from a source external to the refill device.

7. The refill device of claim 6 wherein the source external to the refill device comprises at least one of: the article, the refill reservoir, and a remote server communicatively coupled to the refill device.

8. The refill device of any one of claims 5 to 7, wherein the allowable combination information is pre-stored in a memory accessible by the controller.

9. A refill device according to any preceding claim, wherein the controller is configured to determine that the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating materials when the aerosol-generating material within the article is the same as the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir.

10. A refill device according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the refill device is configured to obtain an indication of the amount of aerosol-generating material contained in the article, and wherein the controller is configured to determine whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating materials, additionally based on the amount of aerosol-generating material contained within the article.

11. A refill device according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the controller is configured to allow refilling in response to input received from a user of the refill device when aerosol generating material within the article and aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir cannot constitute an allowable combination of aerosol generating material.

12. A refill device according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the article comprises a data containing element comprising an indication of aerosol generating material contained within the article, and wherein the refill device is configured to obtain an indication of aerosol generating material contained within the article from the data containing element.

13. The refill device of claim 12, wherein the refill device is configured to update the indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article and the indication of aerosol-generating material contained in the refill reservoir in response to a start or completion of refilling the article.

14. A refill device according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the refill reservoir comprises a data containing element comprising an indication of aerosol generating material contained within the refill reservoir, and wherein the refill device is configured to obtain an indication of aerosol generating material contained within the refill reservoir from the data containing element.

15. The refill device of any one of claims 12 to 14, wherein the data containing element is at least one of: electronically readable elements, optically readable elements, and magnetically readable elements.

16. A refill device according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the article comprises a mechanical engagement unit configured to engage with a corresponding mechanical engagement unit located on the refill device, wherein the controller is configured to determine the indication of aerosol-generating material within the article based on engagement between the mechanical engagement unit of the article and the mechanical engagement unit of the refill device.

17. The refill device of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the refill reservoir comprises a mechanical engagement unit configured to engage with a corresponding mechanical engagement unit located on the refill device, wherein the controller is configured to determine the indication of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir based on engagement between the mechanical engagement unit of the refill reservoir and the mechanical engagement unit of the refill device.

18. A refill device according to any preceding claim, wherein the refill device is configured to obtain the indication of aerosol generating material contained within the article and/or the indication of aerosol generating material contained within the refill reservoir via user input provided by a user of the refill device.

19. The refill device of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the refill device is arranged to receive a plurality of refill reservoirs and refill the article from any one or more of the plurality of refill reservoirs, wherein the refill device is configured to receive user input that a selection provided by a user of the refill device desires at least one of the refill reservoirs for refilling the article.

20. A refill device according to claim 19, wherein when the user input selects two or more of the refill reservoirs desired for refilling the article, the controller is configured to determine whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within each refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating material based on the obtained indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article and the indication of aerosol-generating material contained within each of the selected refill reservoirs.

21. A refill device according to any preceding claim, wherein the aerosol generating material within the article is a liquid, the aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir is a liquid, and the fluid transfer mechanism is a mechanism configured to transfer liquid from the refill reservoir to the article.

22. An article configured to be refilled with aerosol-generating material from a refill reservoir using a transfer mechanism by a refill device, wherein the article comprises an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article, and wherein the refill device is configured to determine whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating material based at least on the indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article.

23. An article according to claim 22, wherein the article further comprises allowable combination information indicating the permissibility of a combination of aerosol-generating material and aerosol-generating material contained in the article.

24. A refill reservoir containing aerosol-generating material for refilling an article with a transfer mechanism by a refill device, wherein the refill reservoir comprises an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir, and wherein the refill device is configured to determine whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating materials based at least on the indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir.

25. A refill holder according to claim 24, wherein the refill holder further comprises permissible combination information indicating the aerosol-generating material contained in the refill holder and the permissible combination of aerosol-generating materials.

26. A system for refilling an article of an aerosol supply device with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism of a refill device, the system comprising:

The refill device of any one of claims 1 to 21;

an article for storing an aerosol-generating material; and

A refill reservoir comprising aerosol generating material.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the article is an article according to any one of claims 22 to 23 and/or the refill reservoir is a refill reservoir according to any one of claims 24 to 25.

28. A method of refilling an article with aerosol-generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism of a refill device, the method comprising:

An action is performed in response to the determination.

29. A refill device for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir device using a delivery device, wherein the refill device comprises a controller device configured to:

obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir device;

Determining whether the aerosol-generating material within the article and the aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir device constitute an allowable combination of aerosol-generating materials based on the acquired indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the article and the indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir device; and

An action is performed in response to the determination.

30. A refill device for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism, wherein the refill device comprises a controller configured to:

Obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir;

determining an operating parameter of the transfer mechanism based at least on the obtained indication; and

Causing the transfer mechanism to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameter.

31. The refill device of claim 30, wherein the indication of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir comprises an indication of a property of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir.

32. A refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 31, wherein the properties of the aerosol generating material comprise one or more of: viscosity, density, compressibility, and surface tension.

33. A refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 32, wherein the controller is configured to determine an operating parameter of the delivery mechanism such that at least one of a delivery rate of aerosol generating material and a total amount of aerosol generating material delivered reaches a predetermined value.

34. A refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 33, wherein the refill device is configured to measure at least one property of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir to provide an indication of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir.

35. A refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 34, wherein the refill reservoir comprises a data containing element comprising an indication of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir, and wherein the refill device is configured to obtain an indication of aerosol generating material contained within the refill reservoir from the data containing element.

36. The refill device of claim 35 wherein the data containing element is at least one of: electronically readable elements, optically readable elements, and magnetically readable elements.

37. The refill device of any one of claims 30 to 36, wherein the refill reservoir comprises a mechanical engagement unit configured to engage with a corresponding mechanical engagement unit located on the refill device, and wherein the controller is configured to determine the indication of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir based on engagement between the mechanical engagement unit of the refill reservoir and the mechanical engagement unit of the refill device.

38. A refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 37, wherein the controller is configured to obtain the indication of aerosol generating material contained within the refill reservoir via user input provided by a user of the refill device.

39. A refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 38, wherein the controller is configured to determine an operating parameter of the delivery mechanism to deliver aerosol generating material based at least on the acquired indication each time the refill device is operated.

40. The refill device of any one of claims 30 to 39, wherein the refill reservoir is separable from the refill device, and the refill device is configured to engage or disengage from the separable refill reservoir.

41. A refill device according to claim 40, wherein the controller is configured to monitor when a new refill reservoir is engaged with the refill device, and when the controller determines that a new refill reservoir is engaged, the controller is configured to obtain an indication of aerosol generating material contained within the refill reservoir, and to determine an operating parameter of the delivery mechanism based on the obtained indication of aerosol generating material contained within the refill reservoir.

42. The refill device of any one of claims 30 to 41, wherein the controller is configured to obtain instructions for determining an operating parameter of the transfer mechanism based at least on the obtained indication.

43. The refill device of claim 42, wherein the controller is configured to obtain instructions for determining an operating parameter of the transfer mechanism from at least one of a source external to the refill device and a memory accessible to the controller.

44. The refill device of claim 43 wherein the source external to the refill device comprises at least one of: the refill reservoir and a remote server communicatively coupled to the refill device.

45. A refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 44, wherein the controller is configured to obtain an indication of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir and an indication of a property of the delivery mechanism, and to determine an operating parameter of the delivery mechanism based on the indication of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir and the indication of the property of the delivery mechanism.

46. A refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 45, wherein the controller is configured such that when the controller is unable to obtain an indication of aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir, the controller is configured to at least one of: causing the transfer mechanism to operate in accordance with default operating parameters and providing a warning to the user informing the user that an indication of aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir has not been obtained.

47. A refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 46, wherein the aerosol generating material within the refill reservoir is a liquid and the fluid transfer mechanism is a mechanism configured to transfer liquid from the refill reservoir to an article for storing liquid aerosol generating material.

48. A refill reservoir containing aerosol-generating material, the article being refilled by a refill device using a transfer mechanism, wherein the refill reservoir comprises an indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir, and wherein the indication of aerosol-generating material contained within the refill reservoir is such that the refill device is able to determine an operating parameter of the transfer mechanism based at least on the obtained indication, and to cause the transfer mechanism to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameter.

49. A system for refilling an article of an aerosol-generating supply device with an aerosol-generating material, the system comprising a refill device according to any one of claims 30 to 47 and a refill reservoir according to claim 48.

50. A system according to claim 49, further comprising an article for use with an aerosol-supply device and configured to store aerosol-generating material.

51. A method of refilling an article with aerosol-generating material from a refill reservoir using a delivery mechanism of a refill device, the method comprising:

Causing the transfer mechanism to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameter to transfer aerosol-generating material from the refill reservoir to the article.

52. A refill device for refilling an article with aerosol generating material from a refill reservoir device using a delivery device, wherein the refill device comprises a controller device configured to:

obtaining an indication of aerosol-generating material within the refill reservoir device;

determining an operating parameter of the transfer device based at least on the acquired indication; and

Causing the transfer device to operate in accordance with the determined operating parameter.