US 12,470,871 B2
Audio-based and video-based social experiences in a networked media playback system
James Nesfield, London (GB); Dayna Bateman, Seattle, WA (US); Klaus Hartung, Boston, MA (US); Nicholas D'Amato, Santa Barbara, CA (US); and Seth Kaplan, Santa Barbara, CA (US)
Assigned to Sonos, Inc., Goleta, CA (US)
Filed by Sonos, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA (US)
Filed on Jun. 8, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/342,322.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/036,316, filed on Jun. 8, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2021/0385579 A1, Dec. 9, 2021
Int. Cl. H04R 5/04 (2006.01); H03G 1/02 (2006.01); H04N 21/4223 (2011.01); H04N 21/442 (2011.01); H04R 27/00 (2006.01); H04S 7/00 (2006.01)
CPC H04R 5/04 (2013.01) [H03G 1/02 (2013.01); H04N 21/4223 (2013.01); H04N 21/44218 (2013.01); H04R 27/00 (2013.01); H04S 7/302 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A video communication device comprising:
at least one speaker;
at least one graphical display;
at least one processor;
at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium; and
program instructions stored on the at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium that are executable by the at least one processor such that the video communication device is configured to:
receive, from a computing platform via a wide area network (WAN), a composite stream including video content and audio content corresponding to a video call;
render (i) the video content via the at least one graphical display and (ii) the audio content via the at least one speaker;
while rendering (i) the video content and (ii) the audio content, determine that a user of the video communication device is located more closely to an audio playback device than to the video communication device, wherein the audio playback device is connected to the video communication device via a local area network (LAN); and
based on determining that the user is located more closely to the audio playback device than to the video communication device:
continue rendering the video content;
discontinue rendering the audio content;
transmit a request to the computing platform to thereby cause the computing platform to switch from (a) transmitting the composite stream including the video content and the audio content to the video communication device to (b) transmitting a first stream and a second stream to the video communication device, wherein the first stream includes the video content and the second stream includes the audio content; and
transmit the audio content in the second stream to the audio playback device via the LAN such that the audio playback device renders the audio content while the video communication device renders the video content.