Common distribution of audio and power signals
AssigneeOneView Controls, Inc.
InventorsIan Ronald Davison, Kenneth Dale Jones
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Techniques for implementing an audio distribution system using only standard network cabling for both power transmission and audio signal transmission. The system comprising of one or more Audio-streaming Source Units and one or more self-contained Network-powered Speaker Units where a plurality of audio streams can exist simultaneously and any audio stream can be directed between any Audio-streaming Source Unit and any Network-powered Speaker Unit.
Claims27
A network-powered speaker unit (“NSU”), comprising:
- a power management subsystem, including at least a control signal input to dynamically set an output voltage level;
- a digital processing subsystem including at least a control signal output to the power management subsystem, the control signal output value being derived from the measured power envelope of a digital audio signal;
- a network interface coupled to the power management subsystem and coupled to a data pass-through to the digital processing subsystem, the power management subsystem configured to draw electrical energy from a network cable connected to the network interface, and the digital processing subsystem configured to receive a digital audio stream transmission via the network interface and the data pass-through to pass the digital audio stream to the digital processing subsystem;
- and
- an amplifier powered by electrical energy with a dynamically set output voltage level from the power management subsystem and configured to use the electrical energy to amplify the digital audio signal driving one or more audio transducers to produce audio.
A network-powered speaker unit (“NSU”), comprising:
- a power management subsystem;
- a digital processing subsystem;
- a network interface coupled to the power management subsystem and coupled to a data pass-through to the digital processing subsystem, the power management subsystem configured to draw electrical energy from a network cable connected to the network interface, and the digital processing subsystem configured to receive a digital audio stream transmission via the network interface and the data pass-through to couple the digital audio stream to the digital processing subsystem;
- and
- an amplifier powered by electrical energy from the power management subsystem and configured to use the electrical energy to amplify a digital audio signal from the digital processing subsystem to directly drive two or more audio transducers with different frequency responses using only digital filtering for range separation.
A system comprising one or more network-powered speaker units (“NSUs”), each NSU comprising:
- a power management subsystem;
- a digital processing subsystem;
- a network interface coupled to the power management subsystem and coupled to a data pass-through to the digital processing subsystem, the power management subsystem configured to draw electrical energy from a network cable connected to the network interface, and the digital processing subsystem configured to receive a digital audio stream transmission via the network interface and the data pass-through to couple the digital audio stream to the digital processing subsystem;
- and
- an amplifier powered by electrical energy from the power management subsystem and configured to use the electrical energy to amplify a digital audio signal from the digital processing subsystem to directly drive one or more audio transducers to produce audio;
- wherein each NSU of the one or more NSUs is configured to emit a unique audio signal for decoding by a device in proximity to the respective NSU, uniquely identifying the respective NSU.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.