In-ear audio device customization
AssigneeBose Corporation
InventorDaniel M. Gauger, Jr.
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An in-ear audio device has a casing on which is disposed one or more bags are positioned to be filled with fillable material during a customization process in which a test sound is acoustically output into an ear canal by an acoustic driver of the in-ear audio device while the one or more bags are being filled, and a microphone acoustically coupled to the ear canal is employed to detect sounds within the ear canal that are indicative of the frequency response of the acoustic output of the acoustic driver to determine when the degree of sealing of the ear canal by the one or more bags is sufficient to achieve a desired quality of frequency response.
Claims17
A method of customizing the fit of a portion of a casing of an in-ear audio device within a portion of an ear, the method comprising:
- driving an acoustic driver of the in-ear audio device to acoustically output a test sound into the ear canal of the ear;
- monitoring a microphone that is acoustically coupled to the ear canal to detect sounds within the ear canal that are indicative of the frequency response of the acoustic driver acoustically outputting the test sound into the ear canal;
- filling a bag of the casing with a filling material as the acoustic driver is driven to acoustically output the test sound and the microphone is monitored;
- and
- employing the sounds detected by the microphone that are indicative of the frequency response of the acoustic driver acoustically outputting the test sound into the ear canal to determine if a degree of sealing between the portion of the casing and the portion of the ear achieves a desired quality of frequency response of the acoustic driver acoustically outputting the test sound.
An apparatus comprising:
- a filling control to controllably convey filling material into a first tube structured to be coupled to a bag of a casing of an in-ear audio device;
- an earpiece interface to at least signal the in-ear audio device with a test sound to be acoustically output by an acoustic driver disposed within the casing of the in-ear audio device;
- a processing device;
- and
- a storage storing a sequence of instructions that when executed by the processing device causes the processing device to:
- operate the earpiece interface to cause the acoustic driver to acoustically output the test sound into an ear canal of an ear;
- monitor a microphone that is acoustically coupled to the ear canal to detect sounds within the ear canal that are indicative of the frequency response of the acoustic driver acoustically outputting the test sound into the ear canal;
- operate the filling control to fill the bag with the filling material as the acoustic driver is driven to acoustically output the test sound and the microphone is monitored;
- and
- employ the sounds detected by the microphone that are indicative of the frequency response of the acoustic driver acoustically outputting the test sound into the ear canal to determine if a degree of sealing between the portion of the casing and the portion of the ear achieves a desired quality of frequency response of the acoustic driver acoustically outputting the test sound.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.