US 11,726,161 B1
Acoustic identification of audio products
Christopher T. Eubank, Mountain View, CA (US); Martin E. Johnson, Los Gatos, CA (US); Daniel K. Boothe, San Francisco, CA (US); and Jonathan D. Sheaffer, San Jose, CA (US)
Assigned to Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US)
Filed by Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US)
Filed on Sep. 1, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/464,559.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/082,392, filed on Sep. 23, 2020.
Int. Cl. G01S 3/808 (2006.01); G06F 16/68 (2019.01); H04R 3/00 (2006.01); H04S 7/00 (2006.01)
CPC G01S 3/8083 (2013.01) [G06F 16/686 (2019.01); H04R 3/005 (2013.01); H04S 7/301 (2013.01)] 26 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of identifying a target audio device, the method comprising:
capturing, by an observing device, an image of the target audio device;
determining, by the observing device, one or more candidate audio devices that match the target audio device;
transmitting, by the observing device, a command to each of the candidate audio devices to play an acoustic identification signal;
processing, by the observing device, the corresponding acoustic identification signals received from a subset of the candidate audio devices to generate corresponding metrics for each of the candidate audio devices from the subset; and
determining, by the observing device, one candidate audio device from the subset of the candidate audio devices as the target audio device based on the corresponding metrics for the candidate audio devices from the subset and the image of the target audio device.