US 12,075,220 B2
Smart routing for audio output devices
Aarti Kumar, Los Altos, CA (US); Bob Bradley, San Jose, CA (US); Natalia A. Fornshell, Campbell, CA (US); Deepak Iyer, Sunnyvale, CA (US); Astrid Yi, Sunnyvale, CA (US); Michael J. Giles, San Jose, CA (US); Sriram Hariharan, San Jose, CA (US); Kang Sun, Sunnyvale, CA (US); Akshay Mangalam Srivatsa, Santa Clara, CA (US); Jonathan A. Bennett, San Francisco, CA (US); Taylor G. Carrigan, San Francisco, CA (US); and Anthony J. Guetta, San Carlos, CA (US)
Assigned to Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US)
Filed by Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US)
Filed on Jun. 21, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/352,661.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/042,408, filed on Jun. 22, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2021/0400388 A1, Dec. 23, 2021
Int. Cl. G06F 3/16 (2006.01); H04R 3/12 (2006.01)
CPC H04R 3/12 (2013.01) [G06F 3/165 (2013.01); H04R 2420/07 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method executed by two or more audio signal source devices for routing communication to a common audio output device connected to each of the audio signal source devices, the method comprising:
assessing, for each particular audio signal source device of the two or more audio signal source devices, a set of inputs comprising an operational state of the particular audio signal source device, a user activity with the particular audio signal source device within a time duration threshold, an audio-producing application being executed by the particular audio signal source device, and a degree of user activity with the audio-producing application;
generating, at a point in time, an audio routing score for each of the two or more audio signal source devices according to a weighted calculation of the set of inputs based on the assessing; and
determining an audio signal routing decision to route an audio signal from one of the two or more audio signal source devices to the audio output device, based on the audio routing score for each of the two or more audio signal source devices.