New Sonos Patent Describes Emulating Radio Dial for Better Music Discovery
Sonos landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for a tunable “music discovery dial” on a user's “command device” by emulating the functionality of an old-fashioned radio, says the patent (10,877,726), based on a May 18 application. For users who might want…
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to “stumble across something that they would not normally listen to,” modern graphical user interfaces or voice commands may lead users “to listen to the same music over and over,” it says. The invented command device may include a dial to facilitate tuning to different streaming audio channels, “similar to how rotating the frequency dial of a radio tunes the radio to different stations,” it says. Unlike the dial on a traditional radio, the command device can be personalized via a user’s “playback history,” says the patent. “Using such history, streaming audio channels can be configured to include music that is unexpected or new for a particular user, rather than just generally out-of-the-mainstream.” Sonos didn't comment on commercialization plans.