Patent attributes
Voice-controlled devices that include one or more speakers for outputting audio. In some instances, the device includes at least one speaker within a cylindrical housing, with the speaker aimed or pointed away from a microphone coupled to the housing. For instance, if the microphone resides at or near the top of the cylindrical housing, then the speaker may point downwards along the longitudinal axis of the housing and away from the microphone. By pointing the speaker away from the microphone, the microphone will receive less sound from the speaker than if the speaker were pointed toward the microphone). Because the voice-controlled device may perform speech recognition on audio signals generated by the microphone, less sound from the speaker represented in the audio signal may result in more accurate speech recognition, and/or a lesser need to perform acoustic echo cancelation (AEC) on the generated audio signals.
