Audio Apparatus for Cross-Platform Hearing Profile Synchronization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing personal audio devices face challenges in synchronizing and applying user-specific audio output profiles across various computing devices and platforms, requiring cumbersome integration of cross-platform communication and hardware support, which complicates the user's hearing experience due to diverse device models and native applications.
Innovation Solution
A smart headphone device with a processor that receives an audio output profile, processes stereo audio signals, and outputs them through speakers, bypassing device-specific complexities by using a singular computing-device-agnostic design, incorporating a microphone for local sound input, and supporting wireless communication protocols to synchronize profiles across different devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If existing personal audio devices use device-specific audio processing integrated into each computing device, then each device can independently process audio signals, but the complexity of cross-platform synchronization and integration increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the audio processing functionality from individual computing devices and consolidates it into a separate peripheral audio device. This peripheral device receives audio output from any computing device and applies the user's hearing profile independently, eliminating the need for each device to have integrated audio processing capabilities and reducing cross-platform integration complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The peripheral audio device acts as an intermediary between the computing device and the user's ear. It receives the audio signal from the computing device, processes it according to the stored hearing profile, and outputs the modified signal. This intermediary approach allows the hearing profile to be applied consistently across different computing devices without requiring each device to understand or implement the profile.
2Adaptability or versatility
If each computing device integrates its own audio output profile processing, then device-specific audio customization is possible, but the ease of operation across multiple devices decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The peripheral audio device provides universal audio processing functionality that works with any computing device. Instead of each device needing to implement device-specific audio customization, the peripheral device handles all audio processing universally, allowing the user to connect any computing device and automatically receive personalized audio output based on the stored hearing profile.
3Productivity
If audio processing is distributed across multiple computing devices, then each device can optimize its own audio output, but the loss of time for profile synchronization increases
Solution Approach 1:
The hearing profile is downloaded and stored in the peripheral audio device in advance, before the user needs to use it with different computing devices. This preliminary action eliminates the need for real-time profile synchronization when switching between devices, as the peripheral device already has the necessary processing parameters stored locally and can immediately begin optimizing audio output from any connected device.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus for augmenting audio capabilities of a mobile computing device, including: a housing transiently encasing a portion of the mobile computing device; a communication module arranged within the housing, downloading a hearing profile of a user from the mobile computing device, and receiving an output audio signal from the mobile computing device; a processor arranged within the housing and processing the output audio signal according to the hearing profile; a secondary audio output module arranged within the housing adjacent an integrated loudspeaker within the mobile computing device and outputting a processed form of the output audio signal in place of output of the output audio signal by the integrated loudspeaker; a secondary microphone arranged within the housing adjacent an integrated microphone within the mobile computing device, the communication module transmitting an input audio signal from the secondary microphone to the mobile computing device.