Sonos, Inc.

Marathon Technologies Corporation

Sohos, Inc.

Ted M Lin

Luis R Vega-Zayas

Ron Kuper

Luis Vega

Nicholas A J Millington

Romi Kadri

Richard Bannon

Jodi Vautrin

Michael Sheldon

Dayn Wilberding

Steven R Beckhardt

Jeffrey M Peters

Andrej Sarkic

Lee Keyser-Allen

Youjin Nam

Tadeo T Toulis

Kirsten Lewis

Jonathan Herbst

Jake Harwood

Maria-Jose Ramos

Thomas Higdon

Patrick Devine

Jim Dolan

Jonathan Cole Harris

Eric M Bass

Arthur L Coburn, Iv

Sherwin Liu

Luis R Vega Zayas

Jose Graziani

Daniel John Jones

Won So

Henry Sia

Matt Pandina

Chris Babroski

Matthew Moore

Robert Bermani

Ryan Kitson

Thomas D Bissett

Paul A Leveille

Jason Yore

Glenn A Tremblay

Nicholas Maniskas

Cameron Scott

Cameron Ellison Korb

William Shoesmith

Angel L Pagan

Elizabeth Dolman

Brandon Wright

Jerry Melnick

Cole Harris

Ken Hu

Ncholas A J Millington

Derek W Erdmann

James Babu

Bryan Cox

Andi Rusu

Meng Wang

Richard John Bannon

Nicholas AJ Millington

Arthur L Iv Coburn

Examples described herein involve facilitating playback of media content via a webpage. An example implementation involves a computing device: identifying one or more playback zones including at least one respective playback device; transmitting, via a web browser, a webpage request; receiving a webpage that includes a link to a media item; modifying the received webpage to include a representation associated with the link; causing, via the web browser, display of the modified webpage; responsive to a selection of the representation, causing display of the option; and responsive to a selection of the option, causing display of a list of the one or more playback zones, wherein at least one playback zone of the one or more playback zones is selectable to cause the media item to be added to the playback queue associated with the at least one playback zone.

Webpage media playback

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 group of playback devices to play audio content together in synchrony based on playback timing and clock timing, where the audio content and playback timing and the clock timing for use with playing the audio content according to the clock timing are provided by different playback devices in the group of playback devices.

Distributed synchronization

A control device of media playback system receives a user command to initiate playback of video content and associated audio content and transmits a BLUETOOTH message based on the command to a video playback device. The video playback device receives the BLUETOOTH message, obtains the media content via a local area network (LAN), and determines an indication of when to begin playback of the media content. The video playback device transmits the indication to an audio playback device via the LAN and outputs the video content in lip-synchrony with playback of the corresponding audio content by the audio playback device. While outputting the video content in lip-synchrony with playback of the corresponding audio content by the audio playback device, the video playback device transmits timing information via the LAN to the audio playback device to maintain lip-synchrony with playback of the corresponding audio content by the audio playback device.

Synchronization of content between networked devices

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 group of playback devices communicating over a first network to play audio content received via second network.

Synchronizing playback of audio information received from other networks

A first playback device is configured to obtain audio content from a cloud-based media service, the audio content encrypted according to a first encryption scheme. The first playback device is configured to communicate with a cloud-based license service to obtain information for decrypting the audio content and use the obtained information to decrypt the audio content. The first playback device is also configured to re-encrypt the decrypted audio content in accordance with a second encryption scheme and transmit the re-encrypted audio content to at least a second playback device that is grouped with the first playback device for synchronous audio playback. The first playback device is also configured to play back the audio content in synchrony with playback of the audio content by the second playback device.

Audio encryption in a media playback system

An example first playback device is configured to: while the first playback device is in a synchrony group with a second playback device, play back a first version of audio content in synchrony with the second playback device; in response to identifying that a quality of a connection between the second playback device and a network device is below a threshold criterion, cause the second playback device to play back a second version of the audio content in synchrony with the first version of the audio content playing back by the first playback device; and in response to detecting a change in the quality of the connection between the second playback device and the network device such that the quality of the connection meets the threshold criterion, cause the second playback device to play back the first version of the audio content in synchrony with the first playback device.

Managing content quality and related characteristics of a media playback system

An example method includes receiving data indicating a configuration of one or more playback devices. The one or more playback devices may include one or more transducers. The method further includes, based on the received data, associating each of one or more audio streams respectively with at least one transducer of the one or more transducers. The method further includes generating the one or more audio streams and sending at least one of the generated one or more audio streams to each of the one or more playback devices. An example non-transitory computer readable medium and an example computing device related to the example method are also disclosed herein.

Systems and methods of distributing audio to one or more playback devices

Examples described herein relate to transitioning a playback session between portable playback devices such as 'smart' headphones, earbuds, and handheld speakers with playback devices of a zone-based media playback system. Exemplary techniques facilitate continuity of playback when transitioning between locations (e.g., from at home to on-the-go or vice versa) or between listening paradigms (e.g., personal or out-loud playback of audio content). An example implementation includes detecting a swap trigger, determining the source playback device(s) and target playback device(s), and performing a playback session swap between the source playback device(s) and target playback device(s).

Playback transitions

Examples described herein relate to management of concurrent audio streams from different sources. Portable playback devices, such as wearable wireless headphones and earbuds, as well as portable battery-powered speakers, may include multiple network interfaces for connection to different types of networks, such as an 802.11-compatible network interface for connection to wireless local area networks (e.g., Wi-Fi® networks) and an 802.15-compatible network interface for connection to a mobile device via a personal area network (Bluetooth®). Via such connections, the playback devices may receive two or more concurrent streams. By managing these streams according to playback policies, the portable playback devices may play the user's intended audio without necessarily requiring user input to explicitly select among the concurrent streams.

Audio playback management of multiple concurrent connections

A first network microphone device (NMD) is configured to receive, from a second NMD, a first arbitration message including (i) a first measure of confidence associated with a voice input detected by the second NMD and (ii) the voice input detected by the second NMD, and receive, from a third NMD, a second arbitration message including (i) a second measure of confidence associated with the voice input as detected by the third NMD and (ii) the voice input as detected by the third NMD. The first NMD is configured to determine that the second measure of confidence is greater than the first measure of confidence and based on the determination, perform voice recognition based on the voice input as detected by the third NMD, where the voice input includes a command to control audio playback by the first, second, and/or third NMD, and after performing voice recognition, executing the command.

Arbitration-based voice recognition

Example techniques related to polices for media playback systems. An example implementation involves a computing system receiving data representing a request to play back first audio tracks on one or more first playback devices of a first media playback system. The first media playback system is associated with a first subscriber to a streaming media service and the first media playback system is physically located in a first commercial establishment. The computing system determines that the first subscriber is associated with one or more first subscriber policies of the streaming media service and sends instructions to play back the first audio tracks on the one or more first playback devices according to the one or more first subscriber policies of the streaming media service.

Policies for media playback

An example computing device is configured to (i) establish a connection to a secure wireless network (ii) determine that one or more playback devices of a media playback system are not connected to the secure wireless network (iii) receive, via a graphical display, a user input indicating a request to update the one or more playback devices with network configuration parameters for the secure wireless network, (iv) retrieve, from storage, a list of the one or more playback devices, (v) receive an input indicating a first playback device to be updated from the list, (vi) establish an initial communication path with the first playback device, (vii) transmit a set of one or more messages to the first computing device collectively comprising the network configuration parameters for the secure wireless network, and (viii) receive an indication that the first computing device has established a connection to the secure wireless network.

Updating network configuration parameters

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Ted M Lin