Sonos, Inc.

Cheng Lu

Stuart Eichert

Hrishikesh Gossain

Jeffrey M Peters

Zhaoyun Huang

According to at least one aspect, power management techniques are disclosed that may reduce the power consumption of devices, such as those devices in media playback systems, without introducing a noticeable lag between a user issuing a command and the device processing the command. In some embodiments, the device may put to sleep (including turn off) electronic components that are only used for specific commands. In these embodiments, the devices may identify periods where the specific commands are likely to be invoked and, in response to identifying such a period, wake-up the electronic components. As a result, the power consumption of the device may be substantially reduced because various electronic components may be put to sleep instead of remaining idle in an awake state.

Power management techniques for waking-up processors in media playback systems

An example playback device is configured to detect an input indicating a command to power up the playback device and, based on the input, begin initialization of a wireless network interface. After beginning initialization of the wireless network interface but before the playback device is capable of establishing a connection to at least one wireless network type via the wireless network interface, the playback device causes the wireless network interface to scan for available wireless networks of the at least one wireless network type. The playback device identifies at least one available wireless network and stores an indication of the at least one available wireless network. After the playback device is capable of establishing a connection, the playback device uses the stored indication of the at least one available wireless network to establish a connection to a given wireless network of the at least one available wireless network.

Techniques to reduce time to music for a playback device

Disclosed herein are playback devices, groups of playback devices, and methods of operating playback devices and groupings thereof to cause the playback devices in a mixed-mode configuration to play audio content in synchrony with each other.

Growing community of inventors

Malden, MA, United States of America

Cheng Lu