Apple wants to make it easier for multiple users to pair their devices with A/V accessories such as HomePods

A newly granted Apple patent (number US 11974338 B2) shows that Apple wants to simplify the process of multiple users in a home pairing their devices with A/V systems such as HomePods.

About the patent

The patent generally relates to managing media playback across networked playback devices. In it, Apple notes that wireless audio/video (A/V) devices are becoming ubiquitous. For example, wireless speaker systems are used in many homes to play music. 

Wireless streaming devices are used to play video to television sets and/or audio through connected speaker systems. Sometimes the wireless speaker systems and/or streaming devices are smart computing devices that can be configured to stream and/or receive streaming audio and video data. 

In some cases, several smart A/V devices can be placed around the home and in different configurations to provide various A/V capabilities throughout the home and/or in different rooms of the home. Apple says that better systems are needed for configuring, monitoring, and controlling these various A/V devices.

Summary of the patent

Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “In some implementations a system can be configured to reduce the burden of pairing user devices with playback devices. For example, all users (or user devices) who commonly operate within a particular environment (e.g., a home) can be configured as authorized users of playback devices within the particular environment. 

“When one of the authorized users pairs a user device with a playback device, all of the user devices for all authorized users can be automatically paired with the playback device as a result of the single pairing. Thus, only a single authorized user is burdened with the pairing process in order to pair all authorized users with the playback device.”