Configuration of voice controlled assistant

• US 9,418,658 B1
• Filed: 02/08/2012
• Issued: 08/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/08/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Garg, Parag, David, Tony
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Timothy
• Application Number:
  US13/368,921
• Time in Patent Office: 1,651 Days
• Field of Search: 704/270
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/632 Query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/22 Interactive procedures; Man-machine interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/64 Automatic arrangements for answering calls; Automatic arrangements for recording messages for absent subscribers; Arrangements for recording conversations centralised dictation systems H04M11/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/74 with voice recognition means voice activated dialling H04M1/271; voice recognition algorithms G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5166 in combination with interactive voice response systems or voice portals, e.g. as front-ends

Abstract

A voice interaction architecture has a hands-free, electronic voice controlled assistant that permits users to verbally request information from cloud services. Since the assistant relies primarily, if not exclusively, on voice interactions, configuring the assistant for the first time may pose a challenge, particularly to a novice user who is unfamiliar with network settings (such as wife access keys). The architecture supports several approaches to configuring the voice controlled assistant that may be accomplished without much or any user input, thereby promoting a positive out-of-box experience for the user. More particularly, these approaches involve use of audible or optical signals to configure the voice controlled assistant.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a computing system remote from, and not in physical proximity to, a voice controlled assistant, the computing system configured to;

determine that a period of time has lapsed since delivery of the voice controlled assistant;

determine that the voice controlled assistant has yet to initiate configuration;

generate a notice based at least on the voice controlled assistant yet to initiate the configuration;

encode configuration settings as a sequence of sounds for emission within physical proximity of the voice controlled assistant; and

transfer data representative of the sequence of sounds to a device to emit the sequence of sounds in physical proximity to the voice controlled assistant; and

the voice controlled assistant having at least one microphone and at least one speaker to facilitate audio interactions with a user, the voice controlled assistant further having a wireless network interface to communicate with a wireless network after the voice controlled assistant is configured with the configuration settings to access the wireless network, the voice controlled assistant capturing the sequence of sounds through the microphone and having a decoder to decode the sequence of sounds to recover the configuration settings.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the voice controlled assistant is implemented without an input keypad and a display.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing system encodes the sequence of sounds using an audible messaging protocol.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the sequence of sounds comprises a series of dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tones.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the device comprises one or more of a computer, a landline phone, a cell phone, or a mobile computing device.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing system transfers the sequence of sounds over a second network.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the sequence of sounds comprises DTMF tones and the computing system transfers the DTMF tones over a telephone network or a cellular phone network to the device as a DTMF compatible device for emission.

8. A computer-implemented method comprising:

under control of one or more computing devices configured with specific executable instructions,

determining that a period of time has lapsed since delivery of a wireless device;

determining that the wireless device has yet to initiate configuration;

generating a notice based at least on the wireless device yet to initiate the configuration;

receiving configuration settings, that when used by the wireless device, provide access to a wireless network, the one or more computing devices not in physical proximity to the wireless device;

encoding the configuration settings as audio data to be used to generate a sequence of sounds; and

transmitting the audio data to another device in physical proximity to the wireless device, the another device configured to audibly emit the sequence of sounds generated from the audio data to the wireless device.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the configuration settings comprise an SSID and an access key.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the sequence of sounds comprises one or more of dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tones or an audible code sequence.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein receiving configuration settings comprises capturing the configuration settings entered via a user interface of the one or more computing devices separate from the wireless device.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising causing the sequence of sounds to be audibly emitted through a speaker associated with the another device in physical proximity to the wireless device.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising causing the sequence of sounds to be audibly emitted by the another device in physical proximity to the wireless device.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the sequence of sounds comprises dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tones;

and

further comprising transmitting the DTMF tones over at least one of a telephone network or a cellular network to a DTMF compatible device for emission to the wireless device.

15. A device comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer-readable media storing instruction that, when executed by the one or more processor, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising;

determining that a period of time has lapsed since delivery of a wireless device;

determining that the wireless device has yet to initiate configuration;

generating a notice based at least on the wireless device yet to initiate the configuration;

receiving configuration settings, that when used by the wireless device, provide access to a wireless network;

encoding the configuration settings as audio data to be used to generate a sequence of sounds; and

transmitting the audio data to another device in physical proximity to the wireless device, the another device configured to audibly emit the sequence of sounds generated from the audio data to the wireless device.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the configuration settings comprise an SSID and an access key.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the sequence of sounds comprises one or more of dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tones or an audible code sequence.

18. The system of claim 15, the system further comprising a user interface, and wherein receiving configuration settings comprises capturing the configuration settings entered via the user interface.

19. The system of claim 15, the operations further comprising causing the sequence of sounds to be audibly emitted through a speaker associated with the another device in physical proximity to the wireless device.

20. The system of claim 15, the operations further comprising causing the sequence of sounds to be audibly emitted by the another device in physical proximity to the wireless device.