According to the guys at Protocol, the speaker manufacturer Sonos wants to cut back the increasingly growing competition it faces from Apple and Amazon, without forgetting Google (although it seems to play in another league) and is studying new ways to optimize audio using wireless signals.
Protocol claims that Sonos has filed a patent that takes a different approach than the original HomePod (the model that hit the market in 2018) to optimize sound quality. In the patent filed by Sonos, titled Systems and methods for status detection via wireless radios, the manufacturer claims that Certain Wi-Fi signals can be "adversely affected by water".
This patent can be used for the "detection or absence of a human given his physical properties" (that we are essentially water). Thus, if the speaker detects a human, it could automatically "adjust the audio characteristics" based on your location, so that we will always enjoy the best sound quality.
The HomePod that Apple launched in 2018 uses the built-in microphones to listen to the surroundings of the room you are in and adjust the playback, so if it is placed close to a wall, it will adjust the sound quality to spread the sound throughout the room.
Like any other patent application from large companies, their registration does not mean that they are about to hit the market, since sometimes, it can only be an idea that, at that moment, there is no way to test.
However, it seems that Sonos has already tested this technology in their labs, rather than having the idea and registering it, so the next generation of the Sonos range is likely to already include this new functionality that will undoubtedly improve sound quality.
