Roku Lands Patent for Audio Device With Cooling Fan Synced to Content’s Volume Level

​Roku landed a patent Tuesday for an audio device with a cooling fan that turns itself on and off automatically based on the volume level of the content being played. “This reduces the amount of time the cooling device is turned on during playback of the audio content,” says the patent (9,788,111), which is based on an application filed in March and names Roku Vice President Joe Hollinger and Principal Hardware Engineer Greg Garner as the inventors. Synching the operation of the cooling fan to the volume of the content “reduces audio interference, improves the user playback experience, and prevents overheating of the audio device which improves reliability and reduces audio device failure rate,” said the patent. An audio device “that is capable of playing a data stream encoded in various data formats may produce ambient noise during playback” because the device “may need to turn on a fan” to prevent overheating, it says. “This may be the case when the audio device is a small form factor device. This ambient noise may cause distortion in the playback of audio content.” Under the invention, the audio device “determines a volume level of the audio content using the data stream,” it said: The device “then controls a cooling device by comparing the volume level to a threshold value.” Roku representatives didn’t comment on plans to commercialize the invention.