SPEAKER DISCOVERY AND ASSIGNMENT

• US 20160073197A1
• Filed: 09/04/2015
• Published: 03/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PWV Inc
• Original Assignee: PWV Inc
• Inventors: Hammer, Jeremy Adam, Hammer, James Andrew, Baker, Ryan, Welter, Michael, Foxley, Austin
• Granted Patent: US 10,158,946 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2205/024 Positioning of loudspeaker enclosures for spatial sound reproduction
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2420/07 Applications of wireless loudspeakers or wireless microphones
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 5/02 Spatial or constructional arrangements of loudspeakers
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/30 Control circuits for electronic adaptation of the sound field
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/04 Key management, e.g. using generic bootstrapping architecture [GBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/50 Secure pairing of devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/65 Environment-dependent, e.g. using captured environmental data

Abstract

Described herein are systems, devices, and methods for discovering and assigning wireless speakers to one or more devices capable of providing audio content. In some embodiments, the speakers may receive one or more channels of multi-channel audio content. In some embodiments, one or more wireless speakers are discovered, a prompt identifying at least one speaker location is provided at an output device, a list of wireless speakers is provided to the output device, wherein the list of wireless speakers corresponds to the discovered one or more wireless speakers, a selection of a wireless speaker from the list of wireless speakers is received; and the selected wireless speaker is associated to the at least one speaker location.

Claims

1. A device comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory, wherein the memory contains one or more processor executable instructions that when executed, cause the one or more processors to;

discover one or more wireless speakers;

output to a display device, a prompt identifying at least one speaker location;

output to the display device, a list of wireless speakers, wherein the list of wireless speakers corresponds to the discovered one or more wireless speakers;

receive a selection of a wireless speaker from the list of wireless speakers; and

associate the selected wireless speaker to the at least one speaker location.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processor executable instructions cause the one or more processors to output to a display device a speaker diagram illustrating a speaker configuration, wherein the speaker configuration includes a plurality of speaker locations.

3. The device of claim 2, wherein the one or more processor executable instructions cause the one or more processors to receive a selection of a speaker location from the plurality of speaker locations, wherein the at least one speaker location is the selected speaker location.

4. The device of claim 3, wherein the one or more processor executable instructions cause the one or more processors to:

receive a selection of a second speaker location from the plurality of speaker locations;

output, to the display device, the list of wireless speakers;

receive a selection of a second wireless speaker from the list of wireless speakers; and

assign the selected second wireless speaker to the selected second speaker location.

5. The device of claim 4, wherein the one or more processor executable instructions cause the one or more processors to:

receive multi-channel audio content from an audio source;

transmit a first channel of the multi-channel audio content to the first wireless speaker; and

transmit the second channel of the multi-channel audio content to the second wireless speaker.

6. The device of claim 5, wherein the one or more processor executable instructions cause the one or more processors to:

associate the first and second wireless speakers to a first speaker group; and

associate the second wireless speaker to a second speaker group.

7. The device of claim 2, wherein the speaker configuration is based on a number of discovered wireless speakers.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processor executable instructions cause the one or more processors to cause an audio tone to be emitted from the selected wireless speaker.

9. The device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processor executable instructions cause the one or more processors to turn on and off at least one visual indicator located on the selected wireless speaker.

10. A method comprising:

discovering one or more wireless speakers;

outputting to a display device, a prompt identifying at least one speaker location;

outputting to the display device, a list of wireless speakers, wherein the list of wireless speakers corresponds to the discovered one or more wireless speakers;

receiving a selection of a wireless speaker from the list of wireless speakers; and

associating the selected wireless speaker to the at least one speaker location.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising outputting to a display device a speaker diagram illustrating a speaker configuration, wherein the speaker configuration includes a plurality of speaker locations.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising receiving a selection of a speaker location from the plurality of speaker locations, wherein the at least one speaker location is the selected speaker location.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a selection of a second speaker location from the plurality of speaker locations;

outputting, to the display device, the list of wireless speakers;

receiving a selection of a second wireless speaker from the list of wireless speakers; and

assigning the selected second wireless speaker to the selected second speaker location.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving multi-channel audio content from an audio source;

transmitting a first channel of the multi-channel audio content to the first wireless speaker; and

transmitting the second channel of the multi-channel audio content to the second wireless speaker.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

associating the first and second wireless speakers to a first speaker group; and

associating the second wireless speaker to a second speaker group.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the speaker configuration is based on a number of discovered wireless speakers.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising causing an audio tone to be emitted from the selected wireless speaker.

18. The method of claim 10, further comprising turning on and off at least one visual indicator located on the selected wireless speaker.

19. A tangible computer-readable medium storing instructions thereon to discover and assign one or more wireless speakers, wherein the instructions, when executed on a processor, cause the processor to perform the method of claim 10.

20. A method comprising:

discovering one or more wireless speakers;

causing at least one of (i) an audio tone to be emitted from at least one wireless speaker of the one or more wireless speakers and/or (ii) at least one visual indicator to turn on and off for at least one wireless speaker of the one or more wireless speakers;

outputting to a display device, at least one of (i) a speaker diagram illustrating a speaker configuration and/or (ii) a list of wireless speakers;

receiving a selection of a speaker location from the at least one of (i) the speaker diagram and/or (ii) the list of wireless speakers; and

associating the selected speaker location to the at least one wireless speaker.