Patent Application
20120086247
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a headrest, and more particularly to a headrest for use in a vehicle and comprises an entertainment system which is arranged to electrically link to an external electronic appliance so that a user is capable of operating the external electronic appliance through the entertainment system or vice versa.
2. Description of Related Arts
A conventional vehicle, such as a car, has a car seat headrest installed on the car seat. A conventional headrest for a car seat usually comprises a head pillow and two parallel supporting rods downwardly extended from the head pillow to slidably engage with two retention slots of the car seat. Usually, the distance between the two supporting rods of the head rest must match with a distance between the two retention slots of the car seat.
In addition, most cars are modified to build a LCD screen at the rear side of the head rest for entertainment purpose. However, since most LCD screen is pre-installed into the headrest of the car seat, its functions are fairly limited. For example, a built-in LCD screen may only display certain multimedia materials, such as movies, retrieved from predetermined multimedia players, such as a built-in DVD player, or a portable DVD player. Other than playing movies or videos, the LCD screen mentioned above has little function.
One disadvantage of this existing vehicle head rests is that the LCD screen is inadequate to accommodate current entertainment or multimedia needs. More specifically, most people now have at least one portable communication or information processing device. For example, almost every person has at least one cellular phone and many people have laptop computers. When they are sitting in a car as passengers, the existing LCD displays for displaying movies simply cannot suit their need. Those passengers may want to utilize the LCD displays to perform more tasks than just simply watching movies.
Furthermore, the users of the LCD screens may want to utilize them for displaying what they are doing with their personal electronic communication devices. For example, when a passenger wants to share a particular photo stored in his laptop computer with other passengers, he may want to link his laptop computer with the LCD screens built-in in the car so that every passenger sitting in the car can observe the photo simply by looking at the LCD screens positioned in front of them. Conventional LCD screens for car seat headrests fail to perform such function.
The invention is advantageous in that it provides a headrest for use in a vehicle and comprises an entertainment system which is arranged to electrically link to an external electronic appliance so that a user is capable of operating the external electronic appliance through the entertainment system or vice versa.
Another advantage of the invention is to provide a headrest comprising an entertainment system that is capable of electrically connecting with a wide variety of external multimedia or electronic devices so as to allow users of the present invention to operate their own multimedia or electronic devices with the help of the display screen provided on the headrest.
Another advantage of the invention is to provide a headrest comprising an entertainment system that can connect to a wide variety of multimedia or electronic devices in a wireless or wired manner.
Additional advantages and features of the invention will become apparent from the description which follows, and may be realized by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particular point out in the appended claims.
According to the present invention, the foregoing and other objects and advantages are attained by providing a headrest for mounting on a vehicle seat of a vehicle, comprising:
a head pillow, which comprises:
a pillow body having a receiving cavity formed at a rear side of the pillow body; and
a mounting arrangement extended from the pillow body for mounting the head pillow to the vehicle seat; and
an entertainment system, comprising:
at least one display screen detachably mounted at the rear side of the pillow body within the receiving cavity; and
a communication tool electrically connected with the display screen, and is arranged to electrically communicate with an external electronic appliance in such a manner that the communication tool is arranged to electrically link the display screen with the external electronic appliance for establishing an interaction between the display screen and the external electronic appliance, such that a user is able to operate and control the external electronic appliance on the display screen through the communication tool.
Still further objects and advantages will become apparent from a consideration of the ensuing description and drawings.
These and other objectives, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, the accompanying drawings, and the appended claims.
Referring to a
The head pillow 10 comprises a pillow body 11 having a receiving cavity 12 formed at a rear side of the pillow body 11, and a mounting arrangement 30 extended from the pillow body 11 for mounting the head pillow 10 to the vehicle seat 70.
On the other hand, the entertainment system 20 comprises at least one display screen 21 and a communication tool 22. The display screen 21 is detachably mounted at the rear side of the pillow body 11 within the receiving cavity 12.
The communication tool 22 is electrically connected with the display screen 21, and is arranged to electrically communicate with an external electronic device 80 in such a manner that the communication tool 22 is arranged to electrically link the display screen 21 with the external electronic device 80 for establishing an interaction between the display screen 21 and the external electronic device 80, such that a user is able to operate and control the external electronic device 80 on the display screen 21 through the communication tool 22.
According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the head pillow 10 is mounted onto the headrest portion of the vehicle seat 70 on a rear side thereof for displaying image to the passenger sitting behind the vehicle seat 70 on which the entertainment system 20 is mounted. In other words, the user who actually accesses or watches the multimedia materials on the display screen 21 is the one who sits behind the vehicle seat 70.
The entertainment system 20 comprises a housing 23 whereas the display screen 21 comprises a LCD panel 211 having a LED backlit background and a touch-screen feature which fully supports operation by physical touching of the user of the present invention. In other words, the user is able to control both the entertainment system 20 and the external electronic device 80 by simply touching predetermined positions on the LCD panel 211. The LCD panel 211 is mounted onto the housing 23 which is then mounted onto the rear side of the pillow body 11 of the head pillow 10. Moreover, the communication tool 22 is also supported on the housing 23 for communicating with the user of the present invention.
The entertainment system 20 further comprises a stereo system 24 provided on the housing 23, wherein the stereo system 24 comprises a sound module 241 received in the housing 23, and a plurality of stereo speakers 242 also provided on the housing 23 for generating audible sound to an exterior thereof.
The entertainment system 20 further comprises a storage device 25 preferably received in the housing 23, wherein the storage device 25 has a predetermined amount of storage capacity for storing multimedia materials. The storage device 25 is preferably embodied as a flash memory hard drive which may store a predetermined amount of movie and/or music files. The movies or music files are then played on the display screen 21.
The entertainment system 20 further comprises a microphone 26 provided on the housing 23 for allowing users of the present invention to input sound signal to the entertainment system 20. For example, the microphone 26 may be used to allow the user to enjoy karaoke while traveling. The user's voice will then be delivered to other passengers through the stereo system 24.
The entertainment system 20 further comprises a built-in multimedia player 27 provided on the housing 23 for processing multimedia materials and playing the multimedia materials on the display screen 21. The multimedia player 27 is preferably embodied as a DVD player. However, player for other types of multimedia materials, such as MP3 or CDs, are also possible alternatives or additions to the DVD player. In other words, the built-in multimedia player 27 is capable if playing at least one common multimedia materials (such as movie files stored in DVDs), but the multimedia player 27 can be embodied as having the capability to play more than one type of multimedia materials, such as music files in CDs.
The communication tool 22 comprises at least one USB connection port 221 provided on the housing 23 and/or on the display screen 21 for allowing the user of the present invention to connect his or her external electronic device 80 with the entertainment system 20 through the USB connection port 221. Thus, the user of the present invention may bring his or her own external electronic device 80 to the vehicle, such as an external hard drive containing movies or music files, and connect the external hard drive to the entertainment system 20 through the USB connection port 221 and a USB 228 cable so as to allow the display screen 21 and the stereo system 24 to play the multimedia materials contained in the external electronic device 80.
The communication tool 22 further comprises a WiFi connection module 222 provided in the housing 23, wherein the WiFi connection module 222 is arranged to wirelessly connect to an external WiFi network. When the entertainment system 20 is connected to a WiFi network through the WiFi connection module 222, the user is able to access to Internet via the entertainment system 20.
The communication tool 22 further comprises a Bluetooth connection module 223 also provided in the housing 23, wherein the Bluetooth connection module 223 is arranged to wirelessly connect to the external electronic device 80 through Bluetooth technology. The entertainment system 20 and the external electronic device 80 will then be able to exchange information in a wireless manner through Bluetooth connection technology.
Furthermore, the communication tool 22 further a WiMax connection module 224 also provided in the housing 23, wherein the WiMax connection module 224 is arranged to wirelessly connect to the Internet network through a predetermined telecommunication protocol. The entertainment system 20 will then be able to gain mobile Internet access through the WiMax connection module 224.
Moreover, the entertainment system 20 further comprises a central processing module 28 provided in the housing 23 and electrically connected to the communication tool 22, the stereo system 24, the storage device 25, the microphone 26 and the multimedia player 27 to control and coordinate the operation of each of these components. In addition, in order to facilitate control and interaction of the entertainment system and the external electronic device 80, the entertainment system 20 further comprises a control panel 29 electrically connected with the central processing module 28 for control of the various components mentioned above and to provide a platform for allowing the user to interact with the external electronic device 80. The control panel 29 can be a physical control panel separately extended from the housing 23. On the other hand, the control panel 29 may be incorporated into the LCD panel 211 so that the touch-screen feature of the LCD panel 211 can be used by the user for making inputting commands to control the entertainment system 20 or the external electronic device 80. Alternatively, the user may control the operation of the external electronic device 80 through its own control panel.
The operation of the present invention can be elaborated under the following examples by illustrating the use of different external electronic device 80 and by referring to
In this example (
In this example (
In this particular example, the calling control is accomplished through the LCD panel 211 (which has a touch-screen feature) so that the smart phone can be kept in user's pocket. This provides great convenience to the user of the present invention. Furthermore, the information displayed on the smart phone may be transferred to the LCD panel 211 so that the user is able to access the display of the smart phone by simply looking at the LCD panel 211. For example, emails or text messages can be displayed on the LCD panel 211, which also provides control panel for controlling an operation of the smart phone.
In this particular example (
In this example (
It is worth mentioning that the vehicle may be equipped with a plurality of headrests of the present invention, while the entertainment systems 20 of the headrests are wirelessly linked together by the communication tool 22 so that when one of the headrests receives information contained in the external electronic device 80, other entertainment systems 20 of other headrests in the same vehicle may receive the information through communication among different entertainment systems 20. Moreover, each of the entertainment systems 20 may also control the external electronic device 80 through the control panel 29. Moreover, a single laptop may be connected with a plurality of headrests.
One skilled in the art will understand that the embodiment of the present invention as shown in the drawings and described above is exemplary only and not intended to be limiting.
It will thus be seen that the objects of the present invention have been fully and effectively accomplished. It embodiments have been shown and described for the purposes of illustrating the functional and structural principles of the present invention and is subject to change without departure from such principles. Therefore, this invention includes all modifications encompassed within the spirit and scope of the following claims.
