Detecting the positions of earbuds and use of these positions for selecting the optimum microphones in a headset

摘要

Embodiments of the invention determine whether speaker earbuds of a headset are positioned in a user's ears. The headset may be a “Y” shaped headset with two earbuds having speakers and a plug for insertion into a jack of the audio device. Multiple microphones are located on wired lengths to the earbuds and a common wire between the lengths and the plug, to receive speech from the user's mouth. Each earbud may have a front and rear microphone, and an accelerometer. Embodiments can detect user speech vibrations at one or more of the microphones, and in the accelerometers in the earbuds. Based on these detections, it can be determined whether one or both of the earbuds are in user's ears. To provide more accurate beamforming, when only one of the earbuds is in the user's ears, only the microphones leading to that earbud are selected for beamforming input.

主权项

1. A method for operating a headset, the method comprising:
detecting an audio signal through at least one of a plurality of microphones of the headset having a plurality of earbuds including a first earbud and a second earbud; detecting the audio signal through at least one of a plurality of accelerometers that are not the same items as the microphones and that are located in the earbuds by (1) high pass filtering at least one output of the at least one of the plurality of accelerometers to pass frequencies of audible sound and (2) generating a binary signal that indicates detection of frequencies of audible sound in the at least one output; based on the detections of the audio signal through the at least one of the microphones and through the at least one of the accelerometers, determining whether one or two of the first and second earbuds are in an ear of a user, wherein determining includes using the binary signal; and if it is determined that only one earbud is in an ear of the user, selecting one or more microphones of the only one earbud, for user beamforming data input.