Relayed Wireless Audio Link for Cross-Body Interference
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Solution Overview
Problem
True wireless Bluetooth stereo earbuds face reliability issues due to cross-body interference and small antenna sizes, leading to dropped connections and unreliable audio streams.
Innovation Solution
The system dynamically selects the earbud with the strongest signal strength or least interference to establish a connection, allowing for audio data to be relayed between earbuds using either magnetic or Bluetooth secondary communication links, ensuring reliable audio communication even when the primary link is disrupted.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If Bluetooth antenna size is reduced to enable smaller earbud designs, then device compactness is improved, but communication reliability deteriorates due to cross-body interference
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a magnetic communication link as an intermediary communication path between earbuds. When the primary Bluetooth link experiences cross-body interference, the magnetic communication link serves as a relay to forward audio packets, ensuring continuous audio stream delivery despite the small antenna size constraints
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically switches between different communication parameters - using Bluetooth for normal operation and magnetic communication when interference is detected. This parameter change allows the system to maintain reliability without increasing antenna size, as the magnetic link operates on different physical principles less susceptible to cross-body interference
2Reliability
If dynamic relay communication is implemented to improve reliability, then audio stream reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The magnetic communication link acts as a simple intermediary that only activates when needed. The earbuds maintain basic Bluetooth functionality and add magnetic communication as a supplementary relay path, managed through protocol-level logic rather than complex hardware changes, thus limiting the increase in overall system complexity
3Reliability
If relayed communication is used to overcome interference, then communication reliability is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements periodic monitoring of Bluetooth signal quality and only activates the magnetic relay communication when interference is detected. This periodic check-and-activate approach ensures reliability when needed while minimizing power consumption during normal operation, as the magnetic link remains dormant until triggered by actual interference conditions
Data Source
Figure 1A~1B
Figure 2A
Figure 2B~2C
AI summary
This disclosure provides systems, methods and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media for reliable communication between a source device, and two or more sink devices. In one aspect, a sink device closest in proximity to the source device can establish a wireless data transfer with the source device. In another aspect, the sink device having the more favorable radio channel conditions can establish a wireless data transfer with the source device. In some aspects, the sink devices can forward audio data received from the source device over a secondary communication link. The audio data can be forwarded to the other sink device automatically, or upon request from the other sink device. The secondary communication link can be implemented as a magnetic communication link, or as a Bluetooth communication link.