System and methods for home appliance identification and control in a networked environment

A method for setting up a system device to command operations of an appliance, the method comprising:

• reading with a device from an RFID tag associated with the appliance an identifying characteristic of the appliance;
• using the identifying characteristic of the appliance read from the RFID tag at the device to retrieve data from an existing device database for use in generating commands to control operations of the appliance;
• and
• disseminating the retrieved data from the device to at least one controller via a network, wherein the controller uses the retrieved data to configure itself to transmit commands to control operations of the appliance with the data being otherwise incapable of being communicated from the appliance itself to the network.

A method for routing communications between a controlling device and a controllable device in a control environment, comprising;

• using an identifying characteristic read from an RFID tag associated with the controllable device to determine the presence of the controllable device within the control environment;
• associating in a centralized command routing system a network address within the control environment with the controllable appliance in response to the controllable appliance being determined to be present via the read identifying characteristic;
• receiving a command request at the centralized command routing system from the controlling device;
• determining at the centralized command routing system from the received command request that the controllable appliance is intended to be a recipient for one or more commands intended to control one or more operations of the controllable appliance;
• and
• in response to the determination that the controllable appliance is intended to be the recipient for one or more commands, causing the centralized command routing system to use the network address that has been associated in the centralized command routing system with the controllable appliance to route one or more commands corresponding to the command request received at the centralized command routing system from the controlling device to the controllable device.