New patent shows that in the future AirPods can turn off the noise reduction function by saying a secret code

      Apple is looking into how future AirPods could allow specific spoken codes, or your partner's voice, to override noise cancellation settings. "Interrupt for noise-canceling audio devices," is a newly disclosed Apple patent application that seeks to address this problem.

　　Apple stated in its patent application that audio devices such as headphones and earbuds may include noise reduction functions, in which sounds generated outside the audio device are detected and canceled by the audio device. In this way, a noise-reducing environment can be provided for the wearer of the audio device and/or an enhanced listening environment for the audio content generated by the audio device.

　　However, these noise reduction features of audio devices can prevent the user from hearing unwelcome external noise, but they can also prevent the wearer from hearing external sounds that the wearer may desire to hear. For example, the user may wish to be interrupted by one or more pre-designated contacts, or by a person who speaks a designated keyword to the user, who is identified as an interruption-authorized contact on the associated electronic device.

　　The net effect is that the AirPods will cut off noise cancellation in order to allow you to hear the person you decided to allow to interrupt you. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the AirPods themselves have to do all the processing to identify this person. Apple suggests that the AirPods do at least some processing to avoid false positives, and that volume information or arrival time difference information collected by the earphones can be factored into the decision to abandon noise cancellation. Separate AirPods can be used to calculate arrival time differences because each AirPod in a pair of AirPods receives external sounds at slightly different times. In most of Apple's examples, though, it's suggested that this calculation also uses the user's iPhone.

　　Apple proposes that when the music that the AirPods user is listening to is provided by the iPhone, the iPhone will listen to external noise, and it will at least perform a first-level recognition of the sound on the audio device. In this case, the password will be your name, but you can certainly set it to anything. Therefore, Apple's patent application includes some details about training the device to accept user-specific keywords.

　　The patent application focuses more on how to determine that an interruption is welcome, rather than what happens when an interruption occurs. It's possible that the AirPods could simply pick up a sound, turn off noise cancellation entirely, or switch to transparency mode. Once an interruption is triggered, the AirPods could do anything, like have Siri directly say someone is talking to you, just as Siri currently reads out text messages.