With Apple widely believed to be planning to drop the headphone socket in the iPhone 7 in favor of Lightning-connected and wireless headphones, a patent application published today describes how a single set of headphones could switch smoothly between wired and wireless modes without any interruption of playback.
There’s of course nothing new in headphones that support both wired and wireless use – many Bluetooth headphones come supplied with a plug-in audio cable that allow them to fall back to wired use if they run low on battery power or you just want the higher quality a wired connection typically delivers.
But switching between wired and wireless use typically has a couple of issues, and Apple’s patent aims to solve both of them …
First, the phone may not automatically connect to the correct Bluetooth device if there are several known connections within range. Second, even if the phone does choose the correct device, it still takes a few seconds to establish the link and begin playing.
To address the first issue, Apple proposes that the headphones are coded in some way (the patent is a little vague on the details) so that the phone knows that the wireless device is the same as the wired one, and it should continue transmitting audio to it.
The method can include determining that the user device connected via the wired connection is the same user device as is connected via the wireless connection.
To tackle the second, Apple wants to include a data buffer in the circuitry of the headphones, allowing audio to continue to play from that buffer during the handover.
The processor can seamlessly transition speaker control between data received via the wireless transceiver and data received via the second contact. In some embodiments, the data buffer can be sized to operate the headphone for a predetermined amount of time without the receipt of additional data via the wireless transceiver or the second contact. This length of time can be greater than the length of time required to transition between storing data from the wireless transceiver into the buffer to storing data from the connector into the buffer.
The headphones would also keep track of the exact point at which one audio source ends and the second begins, so that the whole process is completely transparent to the user – you’ll just plug in or unplug and the audio will continue as if nothing had happened.
Finally, the patent describes how a single cable can supply both audio and power, which would allow the headphones to be charged from an iPhone. This may raise concerns from some about the battery-life of the phone, but certainly the complete tech package the patent describes sounds very cool.
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Nice :) Hopefully there would be a usb-c lead too so when/if our Mac/MacBook Pros get Usb-c’s we’ll be able to use them there too.
Hopefully the new iPhones support headphones via USB-Cand not lighting. The MFI program would make lithe availability of headphones sparse if Apple goes with lighting instead of USB-C. Manufactures have had the ability to make lightning headphones for years and they are just a handful of them on the market. MFI is broken and needs to be fixed.
Essentially this patent is just describing the apple pencil technology as applied to wired/wireless headphones, right? For Apple Pencil, you pair the device via bluetooth by simply plugging it into the lightning port. Once you’ve done that, the two devices are paired. In the above, same basic setup: you plug your headphones into the lightning jack, the two devices pair and when unplugged,
Yep, sounds like a similar approach, plus the audio buffering and tracking.
It works the same way as the magic mouse 2 as well.
This sounds fantastic! I was a few hours away from purchasing a Bluetooth pair of headphones, but even if these were a year away, they would still be worth the wait. If these can switch between a wired and wireless function as described, then I see a great opportunity for first (or even third) party adapters (so that instead of being wired for Lightning, they could be for USB-C for example) that would work via this plug/unplug for wired connection part.
They could be released as early as lunch, or as late as five years from now, or never. I wouldn’t hold off on a purchase based on this information.
regardless, he should probably wait until he sees how Apple handles the connector on the next iPhones before dropping $300+ on a new set of headphones.
They’re Bluetooth. They should work regardless of what connector they put on the phone.
There should be a way to plug in the (wired) headphones into the Lightning port and they just work without having to charge them, just as the audio jack headphones do now, too much hassle just to charge headphones after to some music
Can’t wait. When I (finally) get the SE the headphone jack placement is going drive me crazy. I really want Apple’s solution to be my first wireless pair. Though all the JayBird ads I’m being served clearly know they’d be my second option.
“There’s of course nothing new in headphones that support both wired and wireless use – many Bluetooth headphones come supplied with a plug-in audio cable that allow them to fall back to wired use if they run low on battery power or you just want the higher quality a wired connection typically delivers.”
Then why would this be patentable? Because they are coded to recognize a particular bluetooth source, and have a buffer? That really doesn’t seem like anything more than a refinement to existing technology.
It’s the auto-pairing and buffering – that’s a very different experience to existing ones.
If you’ve ever paired a phone to a car, you know it’s a pain every single time to set it up.
If you’ve ever paired a magic mouse 2 to a Mac, you know it’s as easy and plugging it in for 2 seconds and then unplugging it.
This patent covers the second case, applied to headphones, with the addition of seamless handoff so that it doesn’t interrupt the music.
I always use Bluetooth headphones. I have a trusty Plantronics Backbeat Go2 which I like very much. Reading this, I got a flash about this scenario:
Think of a BT headset that could charge via Lightning and stay on while charging IF it sees that the source is an iPhone. That could also solve the “handshake” issue you describe, where the insertion of the cable on both devices could force the handshake + connection to take place (and perhaps the initial pairing as well). In the meantime, audio playback happens through BT all the time. They *could* do the “buffering magic” you describe, but it’s too fussy compared to my take on the matter.
It is a logical consequence that the end of the cable that goes into the headset will be USB-C. USB-A is an obvious “no” and I don’t think Apple is gonna start playing with microUSB now.
If this is the case, then another bonus is that we can expect the next iPhone to ship with a USB-C-to-Lightning cable instead of the current USB-A cable, and a USB-C power adapter. And it’s about time. (today I received my ATV4, which has a usb-c port, and I was disappointed to see a usb-a charging cable for the remote :/ Argh! )
If we put all that in the same box, then the charging cable can become a bit interesting… If one cable is to be included in the box, then one end is gonna be USB-C. The other end will have to be Lightning (for the iPhone) and will need to take a Lightning-to-USB-C adapter, in order to feed the headset when needed. Unless, of course, Apple decides to drop the bomb and … drop Lightning on the iPhone 7 in favour of USB-C. We’ll see…