Apple Inc.

Michael B Howes

Jonathan Sarjeant Aase

Yacine Azmi

Scott P Porter

Esge Brandt Andersen

Martin E Johnson

Christopher R Wilk

Andrew P Bright

Kurt R Stiehl

Gary P Geaves

Jahan C Minoo

Robert D Watson

Jerzy S Guterman

Arun Dhyaneshwar Chawan

Augustin Prats

David John Shaw

Baptiste Pierre Paquier

Zachary C Rich

Axel Dominique Berny

Benjamin W Cook

Aarti Kumar

Afrooz Family

Tom-Davy William Jendrik Saux

Gordon R Dix

John J Baker

Benjamin Adair Cousins

Erik L Wang

Craig Matthew Stanley

Brad G Boozer

Matthew Irvine Brown

Benjamin A Cousins

Tomlinson M Holman

Sylvain J Choisel

Anthony P Bidmead

Jonathan S Aase

Michael S Nashner

Miikka Olavi Tikander

Yoji Hamada

Tom-Davy William Jendrick Saux

Gary P Greaves

A housing has a bud portion abutting an elongated stem portion. The bud portion is to fit within an ear. The bud portion has a primary sound outlet at its far end that is to be inserted into an outer ear canal, and abuts the stem portion at its near end. A speaker driver is inside the bud portion. Electronic circuitry inside the housing includes a wireless communications interface to receive audio content over-the-air and in response provides an audio signal to the speaker driver. A rechargeable battery as a power source for the electronic circuitry is located inside a cavity of the stem portion. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Wireless earphone

An earphone comprising: an earphone housing having a cap portion and a body portion that interlock with one another to enclose a driver, the driver having a front face that outputs sound waves and a back face opposite the front face, the cap portion defines a first chamber coupled to the front face of the driver and the body portion defines a second chamber coupled to the back face of the driver, a first opening formed through the cap portion; a first port and a second port formed through the body portion and open to a surrounding environment; and a mesh coupled to the first opening, the first port or the second port.

Earphone having a controlled acoustic leak port

Intra-concha earphones are disclosed. In an embodiment, an intra-concha earphone includes a housing having a rear space divided into a back volume, a bass duct, and a vent chamber between a driver and a rear wall. The vent chamber may be acoustically coupled with the back volume through both an acoustic port and the bass duct. Furthermore, the vent chamber may be acoustically coupled with a surrounding environment through a vent port, which may be a sole acoustic opening in the rear wall. Thus, sound emitted by the driver may propagate through the acoustic port and the bass duct to meet in the vent chamber before being discharged through the vent port to the surrounding environment. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Mass loaded earbud with vent chamber

Embodiments described herein may take the form of a textile product having one or more regions of reduced density. These reduced density volumes may form one or more features in the product. For example, the reduced density volumes may have better acoustic transmission properties, optical transmission properties, flexibility, and the like. Sound transmission may be enhanced not only in terms of clarity, but also overall range. That is, certain audio frequencies that the textile may normally block when in an unaltered state may pass through a textile having reduced density or reduced density regions.

Textile product having reduced density

An audio system that adjusts one or more beam patterns emitted by one or more loudspeaker arrays based on the preferences of users/listeners is described. The audio system includes an audio receiver that contains a listener location estimator, a listener identifier, and a voice command processor. Inputs from the listener location estimator, the listener identifier, and the voice command processor are fed into an array processor. The array processor drives the one or more loudspeaker arrays to emit beam patterns into the listening area based on inputs from each of these devices. By examining the location, preferred usage settings, and voice commands from listeners, the generated beam patterns are customized to the explicit and implicit preferences of the listeners with minimal direct input. Other embodiments are also described.

Handsfree beam pattern configuration

An earphone comprising an earphone housing having a wall comprising (1) a front side that joins (2) an end portion in which a primary sound output opening is formed, which joins (3) a face portion in which a secondary output opening is formed, which joins (4) a back side which joins the front side and encloses a driver, wherein the primary output opening is dimensioned to output sound generated by a diaphragm of the driver contained within the earphone housing into the ear and the secondary output opening is dimensioned to vent the ear to a surrounding environment, and wherein the primary output opening and the secondary output opening face different directions.

An audio system is described that includes one or more speaker arrays that emit sound corresponding to one or more pieces of sound program content into associated zones within a listening area. Using parameters of the audio system (e.g., locations of the speaker arrays and the audio sources), the zones, the users, the pieces of sound program content, and the listening area, one or more beam pattern attributes may be generated. The beam pattern attributes define a set of beams that are used to generate audio beams for channels of sound program content to be played in each zone. The beam pattern attributes may be updated as changes are detected within the listening environment. By adapting to these changing conditions, the audio system is capable of reproducing sound that accurately represents each piece of sound program content in various zones.

Audio system with configurable zones

A multi-way speaker array is disclosed that includes rings of transducers of different types. The rings of transducers may encircle the cabinet of the speaker array such that the speaker array is rotationally symmetric. The distance between rings of transducers may be based on a logarithmic scale. By separating rings of transducers using logarithmic spacing, denser transducer spacing at short wavelengths is achieved while limiting the number of transducers needed for longer wavelengths by spacing them in larger and larger logarithmic increments. Transducers with overlapping frequency ranges may be used in the speaker array to avoid initial dips or shortfalls in directivity for corresponding beam patterns.

Rotationally symmetric speaker array

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Michael B Howes