US 2006/0080408 A1Published application

Smart home control of electronic devices

AssigneeVulcan Inc.

InventorsAnthony Istvan, Rod Fleck, Robin Budd, Korina Stark, Marcellino Tanumihardja

Life of this patent

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Abstract

A content management (CM) system is provided to centrally control operation of one or more connected devices by issuing control requests and/or data requests. In some situations the connected device(s) include devices that control presentation of television programming-related content, such as digital video recorder (“DVR”) devices and media center devices, and in other situations may include other types of media devices and/or other electromechanical (“E/M”) devices that may be centrally controlled, such as E/M devices for home automation that may operate independently or in conjunction with the media devices. In some situations, the CM system communicates with the connected devices via a network and using appropriate protocol(s), and may be accessed remotely via a network so as to allow a user to remotely operate the CM system. The CM system may further control searching, identification, selection, and presentation of pieces of media content by the connected device(s).

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system configured to control a plurality of networked devices in an environment, the computing system comprising:

one or more processors;
and
a management system that when executed by the one or more processors communicatively couples to at least one media device via a first network connection that uses a first communication protocol and to at least one computing system via a second network connection that uses a second communication protocol, the computing system being coupled to at least a first one of a plurality of electromechanical devices to allow the computing system to control operation of the first one of the electromechanical devices, the media device being communicatively coupled to at least one content presentation device and to at least a second one of the plurality of electromechanical devices, the management system further configured to couple to at least a third one of the plurality of electromechanical devices via a third network connection that uses a third communication protocol, the content management system including:
a core module to generate control requests and data requests related to operation of the at least one media device, the computing system, and the third one of the plurality of electromechanical devices;
first, second, and third gateway modules corresponding respectively to the at least one media device, the computing system, and the third one of the plurality of electromechanical devices, the gateway modules being in communication with the core module to receive the control requests and data requests from the core module, and further being in communication with the core module to provide responses to the control requests and the data requests to the core module;
and
first, second, and third communication interfaces respectively included with the gateway modules to provide the control requests and the data requests generated by the core module to the at least one media device, the computing system, and the third one of the plurality of electromechanical devices via the respective first, second, and third network connections using the respective first, second, and third communication protocols, and to provide responses to the control requests and the data requests to the core module.

4 more elements

A method for a computing device to control a plurality of networked devices in an environment, the method comprising:

configuring the computing device as a central control point, the computing device capable to issue control requests and data requests related to operation of the networked devices, the networked devices including a media device, a computing system, and a plurality of electromechanical devices;
using separate gateway modules of the computing device to correspondingly communicate the control requests and data requests to the media device, the computing system, and at least one of the plurality of electromechanical devices, the gateway modules being usable to communicate using at least one communication protocol via respective network connections to the media device, the computing system, and the at least one of the plurality of electromechanical devices, the control requests being usable to allow the computing device to control operation of the media device and to indirectly control operation of the at least some of the plurality of electromechanical devices through the computing system, the control requests further being usable to allow the computing device to directly control operation of the at least one of the plurality of electromechanical devices;
and
using context information to allow the computing device to determine which of the networked devices to control in a complementary manner.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 11/120,653Filed 2 May 2005
Priority: 30 Apr 2004
Published: 13 Apr 2006
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification30 codes

H04L 12/282
Controlling appliance services of a home automation network by calling their functionalities: based on user interaction within the home
G06F 16/95
Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types: retrieval from the web
G11B 27/034
Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals: on discs
G11B 27/329
Table of contents: on a disc [VTOC]