ANALOG AND DIGITAL MICROPHONE

• US 20180352356A1
• Filed: 11/22/2016
• Published: 12/06/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/23/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Essence SmartCare Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Essence SmartCare Ltd.
• Inventors: AMIR, Ohad
• Granted Patent: US 10,779,099 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3215 Monitoring of peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3231 Monitoring the presence, absence or movement of users
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/78 Detection of presence or absence of voice signals switching of direction of transmission by voice frequency in two-way loud-speaking telephone systems H04M9/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2410/00 Microphones
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 29/004 for microphones H04R29/007 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/00 Circuits for transducers , loudspeakers or microphones
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A system and method including receiving an activity signal from a detection unit, the activity signal indicative of detected activity, responsive to the received activity signal exceeding a predetermined threshold, switching a digital microphone from a default low-power mode to active mode, and a pre-determined period of time after switching the digital microphone to active mode, switching the digital microphone back to the default low-power mode.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

an activity detection unit;

a digital microphone having an active mode and a default low-power mode; and

a controller configured to;

receive from the activity detection unit an activity signal indicative of detected activity; and

in response to the received activity signal, switch the digital microphone from the default low-power mode to the active mode.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to switch the digital microphone from the default low-power mode to the active mode when the received signal indicates an activity level above a pre-determined threshold.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to switch the digital microphone back to the default low power mode after a predetermined period of time.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to switch the digital microphone back to the default low power mode when the signal indicates an activity level lower than a second pre-determined threshold.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising an analog microphone, wherein the activity detection unit receives a signal from the analog microphone and sends a corresponding signal to the controller upon detection of activity in the signal.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the controller is configured to identify voice in the received signal and switch the digital microphone from the default low-power mode to the active mode when voice is identified.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the controller is configured to switch the digital microphone from the default low-power mode to the active mode in response to the received signal exceeding a pre-determined threshold level.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising an analog sound sensor, wherein the digital microphone comprises a sound digitizer, the sound digitizer configured to receive sound signals from the analog sound sensor and convert the received sound signals to digital signals.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the activity detection unit comprises a motion sensor outputting activity signal to be received by the controller.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the controller is configured to switch the digital microphone from the default low-power mode to the active mode when the activity signal indicates motion with certainty above a predetermined threshold.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the activity detection unit is configured to detect presence, motion or sound.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the digital unit is powered by batteries.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the digital unit is a digital microphone.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the active mode enables the digital microphone to detect sound and to output digital signal according to the detected sound, and the low-power mode disables the digital microphone from outputting signals.

15. A method comprising:

receiving an activity signal from a detection unit, the activity signal indicative of detected activity;

responsive to the received activity signal exceeding a predetermined threshold, switching a digital microphone from a default low-power mode to active mode; and

a pre-determined period of time after switching the digital microphone to active mode, switching the digital microphone back to the default low-power mode.