Patent ID: 11968268
Assignee: DOLBY INTERNATIONAL AB
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. An audio session management method for an audio system of an audio environment, the audio session management method comprising:
establishing a plurality of smart audio device communication links between an audio session manager and a plurality of smart audio devices of the audio system, each smart audio device of the plurality of smart audio devices comprising either a single-purpose audio device or a multi-purpose audio device, each smart audio device including one or more loudspeakers and a media engine;
establishing a plurality of application communication links between the audio session manager and a plurality of application devices, each application device of the plurality of application devices executing an application of a plurality of applications, wherein the plurality of application communication links are established in response to a plurality of route initiation requests from the plurality of application devices, wherein the applications do not select the smart audio devices and the one or more loudspeakers of the smart audio devices, and wherein the applications are not aware of which smart audio devices are involved with implementing commands provided by the applications;
determining, by the audio session manager, one or more first media engine capabilities of each media engine of each smart audio device, each media engine being configured for managing one or more audio media streams received by the respective smart audio device and for performing smart audio device signal processing for the one or more audio media streams according to a media engine sample clock of the media engine;
receiving, by the audio session manager and via the plurality of application communication links, application control signals from each application; and
controlling, by the audio session manager, the plurality of smart audio devices according to the media engine capabilities of the respective media engine via audio session management control signals transmitted to each smart audio device via the respective smart audio device communication link using the application control signals, wherein the audio session manager transmits the audio session management control signals to each smart audio device without reference to the media engine sample clock of the respective media engine, and wherein the audio session manager acts as a gateway for all applications controlling the respective media engine, whether the applications are running on a smart audio device or on another device.