Sony Ericsson has filed a patent application for a Wireless home communication system method and apparatus. The patent, published last week, details how the device would route phone calls through your home television set in a similar way to an in car handsfree kit.

This appears to be an innovative way for Sony Ericsson to integrate the mobile phone into peoples homes. The device would allow you to keep your phone in any room of the house and to make and receive calls through the TV set.

It is not clear whether this system could be retro fitted to existing televisions or if Sony are intending to integrate hands free kits into their sets. I would guess that the latter route wouldn’t add much to the cost of a high end Sony set and could be a great selling point. The patent has been applied for by “Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications” so it is a mobile application rather than a TV add on at present.

Whilst this patent relates to making calls via the TV it isn’t too much of a jump to imagine Sony Ericsson streaming music and video from a Walkman handset to your TV.

Sony Ericsson makes a good case for users wanting to make hands free TV calls:

Due to the popularity of cellular telephones, individuals often use their cellular telephone as their primary communication device, even when they are at home. However, when the phone rings due to an incoming call, a cellular telephone may be located anywhere within the home. If a user is not close enough to the phone, users may miss the incoming call because they cannot hear the ring tones. In addition, while watching television, the volume of the television may prevent the user from hearing the ring tones associated with an incoming call.

Further, cellular telephones are often uncomfortable to use for long conversations. To address this, some cellular telephones include hands-free capabilities, i.e., speaker phone capabilities. However, due to the size of the speaker used by cellular telephones, the quality of the audio signals exchanged while using the cellular telephone as a speaker phone is limited.

Sony Ericsson TV phone

From the patent:

The present invention addresses at least some of these problems by using a home theater device, such as a television, as a hands-free interface for the mobile communication device. According to one embodiment, a short-range wireless transceiver in the home theater device exchanges call signals with the mobile communication device. Responsive to these call signals, a controller in the home theater device controls at least one of an audio output and a video output of the home theater device.

In one exemplary embodiment, the call signals may comprise call control signals, such as a received call notification at the mobile communication device. The mobile communication device routes the received call notification to the home theater device via a short-range wireless transceiver. Responsive to the received call notification, the home theater device controls at least one of an audio output and a video output of the home theater device to notify the user of the incoming call. For example, the home theater device may display a video message and/or generate an audible ring tone responsive to the notification signal. As a result, the user receives notification of an incoming call even when the distance to the mobile communication device and/or the volume of the home theater device prevents the user from hearing the mobile communication device.