Apple Patent Reveals How Its HomePod Speaker Plays To The Room
The patent sheds more light on the fancy software
algorithms Apple engineers created to help the company’s new speaker perform
“adaptive acoustics.”
When I heard a demo of Apple’s new HomePod smart speaker last month, I was told that the
speaker sends out audio signals into the room, then uses software to tailor-fit
the sound it’s putting out for the environment. But the details on how
that actually works were a little thin.
An Apple patent published today sheds more light on the fancy software algorithms
Apple engineers created to help the HomePod shape its sound to the room.
The patent doesn’t make it clear
if this is the technology used in the HomePod, but given Apple’s boasts,
there’s a good chance it is. The challenge tackled by the tech in the patent is
to make the HomePod’s audio sound good no matter where the device
is placed in the room. If the HomePod is placed in the corner of
a room, for instance, the close presence of the two converging walls can
cause the audio to sound bassy and muddy in the room, according to the patent.
When the HomePod’s speaker starts emitting
sound, an external microphone on the device starts to measure the acoustic
pressure of the sound waves returning after bouncing off the walls, ceiling,
floor, and objects in the room. Based on that information, it understands
the acoustic response of the room. So if the HomePod is in a corner,
the microphone will detect the close presence of the two walls
from the strength of the sound waves bouncing off them and returning.
That microphone then shares what it learned
with a microchip within the speaker. That chip is also collecting information
from an internal microphone listening only to the speaker output. Now that it
knows both what the speaker is outputting and how that output is being received
out in the room, it can–through some fairly intense algorithms–instruct the
speaker’s digital signal processor to tweak the equalization of the music to
fit the room.
The patent says the same method can be used
to balance the output of two or more speakers sounding in the same room.
Apple notes in the patent that similar
automatic adaptive acoustic technology has been used in other speaker systems.
While it will do lots of other things, Apple will begin by marketing it as a high-end audio device for the
home when it goes on sale in the fourth quarter of this year.
[Via: Apple Insider]
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BY MARK SULLIVAN
https://www.fastcompany.com/40438533/apple-patent-reveals-how-its-homepod-speaker-plays-to-the-room?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fcdaily-top&position=2&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=07072017
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