Wearable electronic device (WED) plays sound processed with a room impulse response (RIR)

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12328563-B2
Application number	US-202318518757-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 24, 2023
Priority date	Feb 20, 2016
Publication date	Jun 10, 2025
Grant date	Jun 10, 2025

Abstract

A wearable electronic device (WED) worn on a head of a person determines a location of the person, retrieves a room impulse response (RIR) for the location when the RIR is stored in memory, generates the RIR for the location when the RIR is not stored in the memory, and plays sound processed with the RIR to the person.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
determining, with a wearable electronic device (WED) worn on a head of a person, a location of the person;
determining, with the WED, whether a room impulse response (RIR) exists for the location of the person;
retrieving, with the WED, the RIR in response to determining the RIR exists for the location of the person;
capturing, with the WED, the RIR for the location of the person in response to determining the RIR does not exist for the location of the person;
processing, with one or more processors in the WED, sound with the RIR; and
playing, with speakers in the WED and to the person at the location, the sound processed with the RIR.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
playing, with the WED, a sound to capture the RIR for the location of the person in response to the determining the RIR does not exist for the location.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
generating, with the WED, the RIR for the location from a three-dimensional (3D) map of the location in response to the determining the RIR does not exist for the location.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
determining, with the WED, the person moved from the location to a second location having a second RIR; and
changing processing of the sound with the RIR to processing of the sound with a second RIR in response to the WED determining the person moved from the location to the second location.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
displaying, on a display of the WED, a virtual map that shows locations of different RIRs for different locations in a house where the person is located.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
mapping locations of sound localization points (SLPs) into a three-dimensional (3D) virtual map; and
displaying, with the WED worn on the head of the person, the 3D virtual map that includes the locations of the SLPs.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
storing, in memory of the WED, different RIRs for different rooms in a house where the person is located; and
automatically selecting, by the WED, one of the different RIRs when the person is located in one of the different rooms in the house.

8. A wearable electronic device (WED) worn on a head of a person, the WED comprising:
a display that displays virtual images in different rooms of a house where the person is located;
a memory that stores room impulse responses (RIRs) for the different rooms of the house where the person is located; and
one or more processors that execute instructions that cause the WED to determine the person wearing the WED is located in one of the different rooms of the house, retrieve a RIR for the one of the different rooms of the house from the memory when the RIR is stored in the memory, generate the RIR for the one of the different rooms of the house when the RIR is not stored in the memory, process sound with the RIR to generate binaural sound, and play the binaural sound to the person.

9. The WED of claim 8 , wherein the display displays a three-dimensional (3D) virtual reality (VR) map that shows different sound localization points (SLPs) in the different rooms of the house where a voice of calling person will localize to the person during a telephone call with the calling person.

10. The WED of claim 9 further comprising:
a camera that captures an image or a video of a face of the person while the person holds the WED in a hand, wherein the one or more processors process the image or the video to generate a three-dimensional (3D) model of the face of the person.

11. The WED of claim 9 further comprising:
a camera that captures an image or a video of a face of the person while the person holds the WED in a hand, wherein the WED captures head related transfer functions (HRTFs) of the person in response to determining the WED is held in the hand of the person with the camera directed to the face of the person.

12. The WED of claim 9 , wherein the one or more processors execute the instructions to map sound localization points (SLPs) into a three-dimensional (3D) map for the different rooms of the house, and the display of the WED displays virtual images at the SLPs.

13. The WED of claim 9 further comprising:
one or more speakers that play sound to generate the RIRs.

Assignees

• Lyren Philip Scott
• Norris Glen A

Inventors

• Lyren Philip Scott
• Norris Glen A

Classifications

• H04S7/301

  Automatic calibration of stereophonic sound system, e.g. with test microphone · CPC title

• G06V40/172

  Classification, e.g. identification · CPC title

• G06V40/168

  Feature extraction; Face representation · CPC title

• G06V40/161

  Detection; Localisation; Normalisation · CPC title

• G06F3/012

  Head tracking input arrangements · CPC title