Location based services audio system
An audio system comprising a plurality of speaker devices allows seamless transitioning of playing audio between speakers in different locations. A mobile device may be used to determine a location for which the associated speakers should be used for playback. The speaker devices at the different locations may be synchronized to a common clock in order to allow the audio playback to be transitioned seamlessly from one location to another.
1. A method for controlling media playback at one or more speaker devices, the method comprising:
playing back audio at a first speaker device of a plurality of speaker devices, the first speaker device associated with a first location;
detecting a location change of a mobile device from a first location to a second location based on one or more location based services (LBS) signals transmitted by a plurality of speaker devices; and
transitioning media playback from the first speaker device to a second speaker device of the plurality of speaker devices associated with the second location;
wherein transitioning media playback comprises:
adjusting playback speed based on an amount of buffered media, wherein adjusting playback speed comprises adjusting the playback speed according to playback speed factor α:
α
=
1
+
(
buffer
threshold
-
buffer
current
)
buffer
threshold
where:
buffer threshold is a buffer level required to sustain normal playback of the media; and
buffer current is the current amount of media data in the buffer.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein transitioning playback comprises stopping playback at the first speaker device and starting playback at the second speaker device.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the speaker devices transmits LBS signals including a unique identifier associated with a location of the respective speaker device.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of speaker devices comprises a respective clock that is each synchronized to a common clock.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein transitioning media playback comprises:
streaming media to the one or more different speaker devices;
beginning playback of the media at a specified time of a synchronized internal clock.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
adjusting a volume of one or more of the speaker devices playing back media based on a distance of the mobile device from the respective speaker device.
7. A method for controlling media playback at one or more speaker devices, the method comprising:
playing back audio at a first speaker device of a plurality of speaker devices, the first speaker device associated with a first location;
detecting a location change of a mobile device from a first location to a second location based on one or more location based services (LBS) signals transmitted by a plurality of speaker devices; and
transitioning media playback from the first speaker device to a second speaker device of the plurality of speaker devices associated with the second location;
adjusting a volume of one or more of the speaker devices playing back media based on a distance of the mobile device from the respective speaker device, wherein adjusting the volume comprises adjusting the volume according to:
L
n
=
L
0
+
10
log
(
d
0
d
n
)
where:
L 0 is a desired volume level, in dB, at a selected one of the plurality of speaker devices;
d 0 is a distance from the mobile device to the selected speaker device;
L n is the volume of the n th speaker device in dB; and
d n is a distance from the mobile device to the n th speaker device, where the plurality of speaker devices, other than the selected speaker device, are enumerated from n=1 to N−1 with N being the number of speaker devices playing back media.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein transitioning playback comprises stopping playback at the first speaker device and starting playback at the second speaker device.
9. The method of claim 7 , wherein each of the speaker devices transmits LBS signals including a unique identifier associated with a location of the respective speaker device.
10. The method of claim 7 , wherein each of speaker devices comprises a respective clock that is each synchronized to a common clock.
11. The method of claim 7 , wherein transitioning media playback comprises:
streaming media to the one or more different speaker devices;
beginning playback of the media at a specified time of a synchronized internal clock;
adjusting playback speed based on an amount of buffered media.