Ring network of bluetooth speakers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016150320-A1
Application number	US-201414550545-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 21, 2014
Priority date	Nov 21, 2014
Publication date	May 26, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method for forming a complete ring network of a plurality of Bluetooth® speakers, the method including populating a configurable speaker register of each of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers with an address of an upstream Bluetooth® speaker that is in the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers, populating the configurable speaker register of each of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers with an address of a downstream Bluetooth® speaker that is in the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers, and coupling an audio source to one Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers.

First claim

I claim:

1 . A method for forming a complete ring network of a plurality of Bluetooth® speakers, the method comprising:
populating a configurable speaker register of each of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers with an address of an upstream Bluetooth® speaker that is in the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers;
populating the configurable speaker register of each of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers with an address of a downstream Bluetooth® speaker that is in the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers; and
coupling at least one audio source to one Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving an audio signal from the audio source at the one Bluetooth® speaker coupled to the audio source; sending the audio signal from the one Bluetooth® speaker coupled to the audio source to a downstream Bluetooth® speaker; sending a tail signal from the one Bluetooth® speaker coupled to the audio source to an upstream Bluetooth® speaker; and sending the audio signal from the downstream Bluetooth® speaker to each additional downstream Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers until one of the downstream Bluetooth® speakers receives the audio signal and the tail signal.

3 . The method of claim 2 in which one Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers does not delay an output of the audio signal and at least some of the remaining Bluetooth® speakers of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers delays an output of the audio signal by a different time period.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a volume signal from the audio source; sending the volume signal to the one Bluetooth® speaker coupled to the audio source; sending the volume signal from the one Bluetooth® speaker to a downstream Bluetooth® speaker; and sending the audio signal from the downstream Bluetooth® speaker to each additional downstream Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising joining a new Bluetooth® speaker to the ring network of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers, including:
receiving an inquiry from the new Bluetooth® speaker at another Bluetooth® speaker in the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers;
responding via the other Bluetooth® speaker to the inquiry to join the network deleting the address of the other Bluetooth® speaker from the configurable speaker register of an original upstream Bluetooth® speaker;
adding the address of the new Bluetooth® speaker to the configurable speaker register of the other Bluetooth® speaker as a new upstream Bluetooth® speaker;
adding the address of the original upstream Bluetooth® speaker to the configurable speaker register of the new Bluetooth® speaker as an upstream Bluetooth® speaker of the new Bluetooth® speaker; and
adding the address of the other Bluetooth® speaker to the configurable speaker register of the new Bluetooth® speaker as a downstream Bluetooth® speaker of the new Bluetooth® speaker.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising removing one Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers from the ring network, including:
deleting an address of the Bluetooth® speaker being removed from the Bluetooth® configurable speaker register of an upstream Bluetooth® speaker from the Bluetooth® speaker being removed and from a configurable speaker register of a downstream Bluetooth® speaker from the Bluetooth® speaker being removed;
adding the address of the downstream Bluetooth® speaker to the configurable speaker register of the upstream Bluetooth® speaker as a new downstream Bluetooth® speaker;
adding the address of the upstream Bluetooth® speaker to the configurable speaker register of the downstream Bluetooth® speaker as the new upstream Bluetooth® speaker.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising sending a sync signal downstream from each of the Bluetooth® speakers in the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers to synchronize an audio signal from the audio source.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the audio source is a first audio source, the method further comprising:
coupling a second audio source to another Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers includes more than seven Bluetooth® speakers.

10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving data from the audio source at the one Bluetooth® speaker coupled to the audio source;
sending the data from the one Bluetooth® speaker coupled to the audio source to a downstream Bluetooth® speaker; and
sending the data from the downstream Bluetooth® speaker to each additional downstream Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers.

11 . The method of claim 10 in which the data includes an audio title or artist information.

12 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
sending data from the Bluetooth® speaker connected to the audio device to the audio device.

13 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising sending data from a Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speaker to each downstream speaker until the one Bluetooth® speaker connected to the audio device receives the data.

14 . A system, comprising:
a plurality of Bluetooth® speakers coupled in a ring formation, each Bluetooth® speaker configured to store identifying information of the Bluetooth® speaker upstream and the Bluetooth® speaker downstream; and an audio source coupled to one Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers.

15 . The system of claim 14 in which the number of Bluetooth® speakers in the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers is variable.

16 . The system of claim 15 in which the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers are configured to reform the ring formation when a Bluetooth® speaker is removed from the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers.

17 . The system of claim 16 in which the ring formation is a first ring formation, and when at least one Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers is controllably removed from the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers, the remaining Bluetooth® speakers in the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers are configured to form a second ring formation.

18 . The system of claim 16 in which the ring formation is a first ring formation, and when at least one Bluetooth® speaker of the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers is uncontrollably removed from the plurality of speakers, the remaining Bluetooth® speakers in the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers are configured to form a second ring formation.

19 . The system of claim 15 in which the ring formation is a first ring formation, and when a new Bluetooth® speaker is added to the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers, the plurality of Bluetooth® speakers forms a second ring formation that includes the new Bluetooth® speaker.

20 . The system of claim 14 in which the number of Bluetooth® speakers is greater than seven.

21 . The system of claim 14 in which the audio source is configured to send an audio signal to the one Bluetooth® speaker coupled to the audio source and the audio signal is sent to each Bluetooth® speaker of the ring formation until the audio signal is received at the Bluetooth® speaker upstream from the one Bluetooth® speaker coupled to the audio source that received the audio signal.

22 . The system of claim 21 in which the audio source is a first audio source and th

Assignees

• Avnera Corp

Inventors

• Hetke Theodore
• Speth John

Classifications

• H04R2227/005

  Audio distribution systems for home, i.e. multi-room use · CPC title

• H04R2420/07

  Applications of wireless loudspeakers or wireless microphones · CPC title

• H04R27/00

  Public address systems (circuits for preventing acoustic reaction H04R3/02; circuits for distributing signals to loudspeakers H04R3/12; {monitoring or testing arrangements for public address systems H04R29/007}; amplifiers H03F) · CPC title

• H04R3/12 Primary

  for distributing signals to two or more loudspeakers {(specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407)} · CPC title

• H04W4/80 Primary

  Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication · CPC title