Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Miroslav Ristic

Adam Barry Fineberg

Robert Franklin Ebert

Eric Peter Raeber

Tarun Yohann Morton

Trausti Thor Kristjansson

Mark A Lawrence

Srivatsan Kandadai

Anna Chen Santos

Joseph Pedro Tavares

Valere Joseph Vanderschaegen

Balsa Laban

Maxim Spivak

Mark Sander Urbanus

Donald L Cantrell, Jr

Donald L Cantrell

Mark Lawrence

This disclosure is directed to facilitating voice and video communication between users independent of a location or a device. A communication request can specify users, who may be identified and located in their respective environments. For example, users can be identified and located using facial recognition imaging techniques and/or by monitoring a radio frequency (RF) signal associated with a device that is carried or worn by a user. After determining a location of a user, individual devices can be configured as a functionally grouped device to allow the users to communicate. For example, capabilities of a television, microphone, speaker, and imaging device can be combined to allow a video communication between users. Further, as a user moves around his or her environment, the location of the user can be tracked and additional functionally grouped devices can be provided for seamless communication.

Location based device grouping with voice control

Traditional home-automation systems utilize a single hub for controlling secondary devices within a home. The techniques described herein, meanwhile, utilize multiple hubs within the environment and/or located remotely from the environment. For instance, an environment may include multiple electronic devices, each configured to control one or more secondary devices within the environment. In addition, a remote service may be configured to control one or more secondary devices within the environment. As such, each controlling device stores and executes an instance of a control engine, rather than relying on a single instance of a control engine located at a single controlling hub.

Interoperability of secondary-device hubs

A computer-implemented method includes receiving, at a microphone of a voice-controlled device, a speech input, generating an electrical signal having a first gain level that is below a gain threshold for audible detection by a user, transmitting the electrical signal to the speaker and detecting, by the microphone, an audio signal that includes a combination of ambient noise and a probe audio signal, wherein the probe audio signal is output by the speaker based on the electrical signal. The method further includes determining a power level of the probe audio signal and determining a state of the display based on the power level of the probe audio signal.

Detection of TV state using sub-audible signal

A computer-implemented method includes receiving, at a microphone of a voice-controlled device, a speech input from a user and determining, by the voice-controlled device, that a power state of an AV display device that is coupled to the voice-controlled device is an ON or OFF state. Based on the user intent determined from the speech input and the power state of the AV display, the voice-controlled device sends data to the AV display device to switch the AV display device ON or OFF. The method can further include receiving, by the voice-controlled device, content from a content source location and sending the content to the AV display device via an AV port.

Voice-controlled multimedia device

Sensor fusion for location based device grouping

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Miroslav Ristic