Patent Application
20110088143
This application claims the priority benefit of Taiwan Patent Application Serial Number 098135220 filed Oct. 19, 2009, the full disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The disclosure relates to a hat, and more particularly, to a hat with sound playing function.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional earphones have the advantages of small profile and high portability. However, a long-time use of earphones will damage the hearing and hurt the ears of users. Furthermore, since the earphones may drown out the ambient noise when being worn, the users will not notice outside noises that would typically warn of potential danger. Consequently, this may result in life threatening accidents.
In order to solve the above problems, U.S. Pat. No. 7,044,615 discloses a hat with audio assembly. The hat has an opening formed on the brim and the audio assembly comprising speakers, batteries, driving circuits and other electronic elements is arranged in the opening. In this manner a user may still listen to the music outdoors by wearing the above hat without the need of earphone.
However, the audio assembly of the above hat is arranged in the opening of the brim. This is not beautiful and the audio assembly will also be prone to vibrating on the brim. Furthermore, the above hat uses dynamic speakers, they are bulky and heavy. When the dynamic speakers together with the batteries and driving circuits are mounted on the brim, the brim will become heavy. As a result, the brim of the above hat will incline down to obstruct the sight of the wearer when the hat is worn.
A hat with sound playing function according to the present disclosure is provided.
In one embodiment, the hat with sound playing function according to the present disclosure includes a hat body, a brim and at least one slim speaker. The brim extends from the hat body and has a supporting layer and a decorating layer covering a surface of the supporting layer. The at least one slim speaker is disposed between the supporting layer and the decorating layer.
According to the hat of the present disclosure, the at least one slim speaker may be a capacitive speaker or a piezoelectric speaker. In this embodiment, the capacitive speaker includes a conductive plate, an electret diaphragm and a plurality of spacers. The conductive plate has a plurality of through openings. The electret diaphragm is disposed on a lower surface of the conductive plate and has a film body and an electrode layer, wherein the film body has static charges and the electrode layer is formed on a lower surface of the film body. The spacers are disposed between an upper surface of the film body and the conductive plate.
According to the hat of the present disclosure, the at least one slim speaker comprises two speakers configured to play left and right channel audio signals outputted from a sound source, respectively.
In addition, the hat of the present disclosure further includes a driving circuit, a wireless signal transceiving module and a control element. The driving circuit is configured to drive the at least one slim speaker. The wireless signal transceiving module is configured to receive an audio signal from an external electronic device and then transmit the audio signal to the at least one slim speaker through the driving circuit so that the at least one slim speaker may play the audio signal. The control element is configured to transmit a wireless control signal to the external electronic device through the wireless signal transceiving module.
The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the disclosure will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Referring to
Referring to
According to the present disclosure, the at least one speaker 130 is positioned on the brim 120. Preferably, the hat 100 includes two speakers 130 configured to play left and right channel audio signals outputted from a sound source, such as the external electronic device 190, respectively. In this disclosure, the at least one speaker 130 may be a piezoelectric speaker or a flexible capacitive speaker.
When the speaker 130 is a flexible capacitive speaker, it may be the single-diaphragm speaker 300 of
To have the speaker 300 work, the driving circuit 140 has to apply electrical signals having the same phase and opposite phase with the original sound signal, i.e. differential signals to the conductive plate 340 and electrode layer 324, respectively so that the electret diaphragm 320 is subject to the Coulomb forces from the conductive plate 340 and electrode layer 324 to bring about a push-pull effect. The push-pull effect will cause the electret diaphragm 320 to vibrate in accordance with the electrical signals. The vibration of the electret diaphragm 320 pushes the air to make sounds.
According to the present disclosure, when the hat 100 includes two the speakers 130 disposed on the brim 120, the speakers 130 may be the double-diaphragms speakers 400a and 400b of
To have the speaker 400a work, the driving circuit 140 has to apply first electrical signals having the same phases to the electrode layers 424a and 484a, respectively. The conductive plate 440a is grounded or applied a second electrical signal having the phase opposite to that of the first electrical signal by the driving circuit 140. Similarly, the driving circuit 140 has to apply third electrical signals having the same phases to the electrode layers 424b and 484b, respectively. The conductive plate 440b is grounded or applied a fourth electrical signal having the phase opposite to that of the third electrical signal by the driving circuit 140. The double-diaphragm speakers in this embodiment are also described in commonly-owned and copending Taiwan patent application serial number 098116129 filed May 15, 2009, entitled “ELECTRONIC DEVICE AND ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC TRANSDUCER THEREOF”. The double-diaphragm speakers disclosed in the above application is incorporated herein by reference.
In this embodiment, the film bodies 422a, 422b of the electret diaphragms 420a, 420b may be integrally formed. Specifically, the film bodies 422a, 422b are made of a same film 422. The electrode layers 424a and 424b are formed on the film 422 and electrically isolated from each other. Similarly, the film bodies 482a, 482b of the electret diaphragms 480a, 480b may also be integrally formed on a same film 482 and the electrode layers 484a, 484b are formed on the film 482 and electrically isolated from each other. In order to have the electret diaphragms 420a and 420b vibrate independently from each other and to have the electret diaphragms 480a and 480b vibrate independently from each other, a strip of adhesive material 462 attached to the film 422 is disposed between the film bodies 422a and 422b, and a strip of adhesive material 464 attached to the film 482 is disposed between the film bodies 482a and 482b. Then the two adhesive materials 462 and 464 are attached to each other. In this manner the electret diaphragms 420a, 420b, 480a and 480b may vibrate independently from each other. In this disclosure, the adhesive materials 462 and 464 may be double-sided tapes and that two double-sided tapes may be replaced with a thicker double-sided tape. In addition, the spacers 350, 450a, 450b, 470a and 470b are made of adhesive materials, such as double-sided tapes.
It is to be noted that other capacitive or piezoelectric speakers may also be used as the at least one speaker 130 of the present disclosure in addition to the above speakers 300, 400a and 400b.
Referring to
To prevent the decorating layer 124 from separating from the supporting layer 122, the decorating layer 124 is stitched on the supporting layer 122 with stitches 121 near the edge 122a of the supporting layer 122. A narrow accommodating space 123 is therefore formed between the stitches 121 and the edge 122a of the supporting layer 122, and between the supporting layer 122 and decorating layer 124. The control element 160 and microphone 170 may be disposed in the accommodating space 123 to be fixed on the brim 120. This way the control element 160 and microphone 170 may be securely placed and therefore not move in the narrow accommodating space 123. It is to be noted that although the control element 160 and microphone 170 are covered by the decorating layer 124, the switches 162 may still be pushed and the voice from the wearer's mouth may still pass through the decorating layer 124 to arrive at and be received clearly by the microphone 170. Therefore, whether the decorating layer 124 is present or not will not give any influence on the manipulation of the switches 162 and the function of the microphone 170. The driving circuit 140, wireless signal transceiving module 150 and electrical power 180 may be arranged in the hat body 110, for example, on the inner surface 116 of the hat body 110 in such a manner that these elements are positioned corresponding to the forehead of a wearer when the hat 100 is worn. In order to have the above elements immovable in the hat body 110, an accommodating bag 118 is disposed on the inner surface 116 of the hat body 110 and corresponding to a wearer's forehead. The driving circuit 140, wireless signal transceiving module 150 and electrical power 180 are placed in the accommodating bag 118. If the electrical power 180 includes a solar cell, the solar cell may be disposed on the outer surface 114 of the hat body 110 and/or the upper surface 126 of the brim 120 so as to receive more light.
According to the hat of the present disclosure, it may be a golf hat, baseball hat or bicycle hat. A user may still listen to the music outdoors by simply wearing the hat of the present disclosure without the need of earphone. In addition, the wearer may further answer a phone call through the microphone of the hat. Since the speakers of the hat of the present disclosure are slim and may be attached to the brim, the hat of the present disclosure has an appearance similar to that of a common hat. In addition, since the slim speakers have less power consumption than conventional dynamic ones do, they may be continuously used for a long time without the need to change the battery. Finally, since the slim speakers are lightweight, the brim of the hat will not incline down to obstruct the sight of the wearer when the hat is worn.
Although the preferred embodiments of the disclosure have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure as disclosed in the accompanying claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 098135220 | Oct 2009 | TW | national |
