[doctoring]

I love rice cookers!

Rice cookers (usually) make clever use of 1) alloys whose magnetism depends on temperature and 2) the fact that boiling water occurs at a fixed temperature. With a "trigger" temperature just above the boiling point of water, the rice cooker automatically turns off the heating element when all the water is gone (and thus the temperature starts to rise above boiling point).

More detail here: https://youtu.be/RSTNhvDGbYI

[SamBam]

Those are the older ones. The new ones like the "Fuzzy Logic" line are more akin to a PID controller trying to make the temperature/time graph match a specific curve, where the temperature changes at different points in the cooking, if I understand correctly.

[mauvehaus]

I'd like to see a patent that actually confirms this. The Curie temperature of the common ferromagnetic metals is well above the boiling point of water, which raises some questions as to what one would make the alloy out of.

Canadian nickels were made of nickel until 1981. Assuming you have a magnet that's heat resistant, you can do a cool demo with a torch or gas stove: pick up the coin with the magnet and dangle it in the flames. You'll know when it hits the Curie temperature. It'll fall off the magnet.

[ambichook]

bimetallic strip doesnt necessarily mean magnetism, i believe in this case it simply deforms to flip a switch