Access, monitoring, and control of appliances via a media processing system

An apparatus for controlling an appliance using a media exchange network, comprising:

• a communication interface configured to communicate with a plurality of appliances over a home network and with a plurality of devices selected to form a media exchange network for exchanging media content within a closed and secure network environment formed by the media exchange network;
• and
• a processor, configured with the communication interface, to provide processing to exchange the media content within the media exchange network and to identify one or more appliances for accessing by the media exchange network, wherein the processor enables an access to a particular appliance by configuring a link to the particular appliance in response to receiving a command from an initiation device.

An apparatus at a first location having a media processing system to exchange media content and to access appliances, comprising:

• a communication interface configured to communicate with a plurality of appliances over a home network and to communicate over a media exchange network to exchange media content among a plurality of devices selected to form the media exchange network for exchanging the media content and the communication interface to receive a command from an initiation device at a second location to access a particular one of the plurality of appliances;
• and
• a processor, which provides processing for the media processing system and configured to operate with the communication interface to receive the command, is configured to identify the plurality of devices of the media exchange network and is configured to identify the plurality of appliances, wherein when the initiation device is one of the plurality of devices of the media exchange network, the command is linked to the particular appliance and when the initiation device is not one of the plurality of devices of the media exchange network, the processor is to verify authorization of the command and to communicate with the particular appliance for the access to the particular appliance.