Apple files patent on self-adjusting earbuds

The earbuds will be able to adjust to poor seal, ambient noise, and mismatched left and right sound

Apple’s standard issue earbuds leave much to be desired. The most recent upgrade was something of an improvement, but they’re still kind of…meh.

Apple knows this, which is why it’s looking to improve customers’ listening experience with a new patent on noise cancelling, self-adjusting earbuds. The patent was filed back in February and was unearthed this week by AppleInsider.

Much of the technology in the patent application centers around the seal created by the earbuds in the wearer’s ear, and how that affects sound quality.

A description of the technology refers to a microphone that will be placed in the speaker, so that as the speaker drives the sound out, it will also drive an audio signal back into the microphone to measure sound level at a predetermined frequency. Using speaker impedance measurements, the earbuds will apply test tones to the speakers to gauge the seal quality.

If there’s a poor seal, that can affect sound quality by letting in ambient noises, resulting in loss of overall volume, poor stereo balance, and less effective noise cancellation.

As the patent application explains:

When properly positioned in the user's ear, the earbud forms a seal with the user's ear. The seal blocks ambient noise. The seal also forms an enclosed cavity adjacent to the ear. 

A poor seal generally results in poor earbud performance. For example, a poor seal may change the acoustic properties of the enclosed cavity in a way that disrupts the normal operation of the earbud speaker. Bass response may be significantly reduced. Noise cancellation performance may also suffer. A poorly sealed earbud may also sound much quieter to the user than a well sealed earbud, so a poor seal may adversely affect the balance between right and left channels during stereo playback. 

To counteract that kind of performance degradation, the earbuds would respond by sending a message to the user displayed on the device to inform her or him of the poor seal, but also utilizing some high-tech tricks. The self-adjusting earbuds could also compensate for a poor seal by increasing the volume, correcting an imbalance between the right and left earbuds, adjusting equalization settings, and making adjustments to noise cancellation circuitry.

No word on whether or not the earbuds will actually…you know…stay in your ears. 

Image source: i.i.com.com