System and methods for home appliance identification and control in a networked environment Number:7,155,305 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) owispatent

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

Abstract: A home control and automation system and method. The system generally includes one or more wireless remote controls, a plurality of appliances (including network enabled appliances and traditional legacy appliances in the exemplary system), associated control centric devices, and associated content centric devices. Various methods for control and operation of appliances in the networked home control and automation environment are disclosed. Specifically, methods are disclosed which enable advanced home control features such as location based control setup and operation, network enabled legacy appliances and system integration, save and recall capabilities for appliance and media states, generic command based appliance controls, dynamic/complex macro command generation, and Internet based control capabilities from remote locations are disclosed in conjunction with the system of the current invention.

Patent Number: 7,155,305 Issued on 12/26/2006 to Hayes,   et al.

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Inventors:	Hayes; Patrick H. (Mission Viejo, CA), Black; Jeremy (Santa Ana, CA)
Assignee:	Universal Electronics Inc. (Cypress, CA)
Appl. No.:	11/047,441
Filed:	January 31, 2005

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Current U.S. Class:	700/224 ; 340/447; 455/403; 700/219; 700/221; 700/90
Current International Class:	G06F 7/00 (20060101); G06F 19/00 (20060101)
Field of Search:	700/90,221,219,224 455/403 340/447

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Primary Examiner: Masinick; Michael D.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Jarosik; Gary R.

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Parent Case Text

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RELATED APPLICATION DATA

This application claims the benefit of and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/978,860, filed Nov. 1, 2004, which, in turn, claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/517,283, filed on Nov. 4, 2003, which applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

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Claims

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What is claimed is:

1. A method for setting up a system device to command operations of an appliance, the method comprising: reading from an RFID tag associated with the appliance an identifying characteristic of the appliance; and disseminating the identifying characteristic of the appliance read from the RFID tag to at least one command centric device in a network, wherein the command centric device uses the identifying characteristic of the appliance read from the RFID tag to access data stored in an existing device database to configure itself to transmit commands for controlling operations of the appliance with the data being otherwise incapable of being communicated from the appliance itself to the network.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, comprising causing the at least one command centric device to access a network database to retrieve the data for use in generating the commands for controlling operations of the appliance.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, comprising causing the at least one command centric device to access its local memory to select the data for use in generating commands for controlling operations of the appliance.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the identifying characteristic of the appliance is read from the RFID tag as the appliance enters an environment.

5. 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.

6. The method as recited in claim 5, comprising causing the device to access a network database to retrieve the data for use in generating commands to control operations of the appliance.

7. The method as recited in claim 5, comprising causing the device to access its local memory to select the data for use in generating commands to control operations of the appliance.

8. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the device reads the identifying characteristic of the appliance from the RFID tag as the appliance enters an environment.

9. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the device communicates generic commands to the controller and the controller uses the generic commands to select corresponding ones of the commands to control operations of the appliance.

10. 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.

11. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the identifying characteristic is read from the RFID tag when the appliance enters and exits the control environment.

12. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the controllable appliance is a legacy device incapable of communicating directly with the network, the centralized command routing system associates the network address with a command transmitting device adapted to communicate commands to the legacy device, and commands intended for receipt by the controllable appliance are routed by the centralized command routing system to the command transmitting device.

13. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the controlling device comprises a remote control.

14. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the identifying characteristic read from the RFID tag associated with the controllable device is used to dynamically modify a pre-existing macro used to command plural operations of one or more controllable devices within the control environment to thereby include within the macro one or more commands designated for transmission to the controllable device determined to be present via the read appliance identity.

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Description

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BACKGROUND

The following relates generally to home control systems and, more particularly, relates to a system and associated methods for controlling and operating a plurality of home appliances from a variety of different locations in a networked home control and automation environment.

Current home appliances and associated remote controls ("legacy" appliances) have limited functional abilities and minimal interoperability features. Emerging advances in wireless and distributed computing technologies, coupled with network enabled home appliances (such as those that may be addressed, accessed, monitored, and managed remotely over networks and the Internet) and industry wide interoperability standards (e.g., Universal Plug and Play ("UPnP") and Home Audio Video interoperability ("HAVi") standards) provide a rough framework for network enabled home environments having increasingly integrated home control capabilities, functions, and features. A background and overview of home interoperability technologies and projected features may be found in the Intel Technical Journal, Volume 6, Issue 4, published Nov. 15, 2002 entitled "Interoperable Home Infrastructure" which is fully incorporated by reference herein.

Though promising in their goals and objectives, the UPnP, HAVi, Intel Interoperability Infrastructure, etc. do not currently provide for many advanced control based features relating to networked home control and automation environments. Accordingly, it is desired to provide a system and method that functions to enable advanced home control features such as location based control setup and operation, network enabled legacy appliances and system integration, save and recall capabilities for appliance and media states, generic command based appliance controls, dynamic/complex macro command generation, and Internet based control capabilities from remote locations. Additional inventive features and functions will also be evident from the home appliance control system and methods hereinafter described.

SUMMARY

In accordance with these needs and desires, a control system and associated methods for control and operation are described for use in a networked home control and automation environment.

Generally, the system includes one or more wireless remote controls, a plurality of appliances (including network enabled appliances and traditional legacy appliances in the exemplary system), associated control centric devices (generally devices whose chief function is providing control based functions and services, including but not limited to control pods, control servers, device state monitors, etc.) and associated content centric devices (generally devices whose chief function is providing content based functions and services, including but not limited to content managers, content servers, content renderers, etc.).

Additionally, various methods for control and operation of appliances in the networked home control and automation environment are disclosed. Specifically, methods that function to enable advanced home control features such as location based control setup and operation, network enabled legacy appliances and system integration, save and recall capabilities for appliance and media states, generic command based appliance controls, dynamic/complex macro command generation, and Internet based control capabilities from remote locations are disclosed in conjunction with the system of the current invention.

A better understanding of the objects, advantages, features, properties and relationships of the subject system and methods will be obtained from the following detailed description and accompanying drawings which set forth illustrative embodiments which are indicative of the various ways in which the principles of the system and method may be employed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the system and method described hereinafter, reference may be had to preferred embodiments shown in the following drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary networked home control and automation system;

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of components of an exemplary remote control;

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of components of an exemplary control device;

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary network enablement device;

FIG. 5 illustrates a VPN implemented with the networked home control environment;

FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary system for implementing a generic command structure within a home appliance network; and

FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary networked home control environment incorporating RFID enabled devices.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

With reference to the Figures, an integrated home control system and associated control and operation methods are described for use in a networked home control and automation environment.

The system envisaged by the current invention provides for both the interoperability of various network enabled and legacy home appliances, and advanced command and control functions for such appliances. To this end, the networked home control and automation system (shown generally in FIG. 1) includes one or more remote controls 10, a plurality of appliances 12 (including network enabled appliances and traditional legacy appliances in the exemplary system), associated control centric devices 14 (generally devices whose chief function is providing control based functions and services, including, but not limited to, control pods, control servers, device state monitors, etc.) and associated content centric devices 16 (generally devices whose chief function is providing content based functions and services, including, but not limited to, content managers, content servers, content renderers, etc.).

By way of example only, the appliances 12 may include, but are not limited to, televisions, VCRs, DVRs, DVD players, cable converter boxes, amplifiers, CD players, game consoles, home lighting, drapery, fans, HVAC systems, thermostats, personal computers, security systems, network enabled automobiles, etc. According to the exemplary system, some or all of the above devices, appliances, and components are configured to be network enabled and interoperable (e.g., as defined and described in the UPnP and/or HAVi specifications which can be found at the upnp.org Web site and the havi.org Web site respectively, which specifications are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety) such that basic device addressing, accessibility, monitoring, remote management, and other network communication based features are possible in a home control and automation environment. The networked home control and automation environment 100 itself may utilize well known centralized networking methods, ad hoc networking methods (including peer-to-peer networking), powerline or phoneline based networking methods, or a combination of the above (whether wired or wireless) to accomplish the features and goals of the present invention. Additionally, it will be appreciated that particular appliances, devices, and components of the exemplary system may incorporate some or all of the features, functions, and capabilities of other individual devices such that a minimal number of separate physical devices are required in a given home environment to accomplish the goals of the current invention. For instance, devices such as a Media Center PC or network enabled TV (e.g., one compliant with the UpnP and/or HAVi specifications) may include, in additional to standard computing and/or audio/video playback functions, system wide control capabilities, content management and rendering abilities, and location based services. As such it will be appreciated that the various system elements defined and described herein should be considered as functional modules capable of implementation individually or collectively in a single physical device or a software module in a software product, or one or more elements may be implemented in separate physical devices or software modules, without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.

Looking now to FIG. 2, for use in transmitting command codes, generic commands, macro commands, etc. to one or more of the appliances (both network enabled and legacy) the remote control 10 may include, as needed for a particular application, a processor 24 coupled to a memory device (such as ROM memory 26, RAM memory 27, and/or a non-volatile memory 34), a key matrix 28 (e.g., physical buttons, a touch screen display, or a combination thereof), an internal clock and timer 30, transmission circuit(s) 32, receiver circuit(s) 33, and/or transceiver circuit(s) (e.g., IR and/or RF), a means 36 to provide feedback to the user (e.g., LED, display, speaker, and/or the like), and a power supply 38 as generally illustrated in FIG. 2. As will be understood by those of skill in the art, the memory device may include executable instructions that are intended to be executed by the processor 24 to control the operation of the remote control 10. In this manner, the processor 24 may be programmed to control the various electronic components within the remote control 10, e.g., to monitor the power supply 38, to cause the transmission of signals, etc.

The non-volatile read/write memory 34, for example an EEPROM, battery-backed up RAM, Smart Card, memory stick, or the like, may be provided to store setup data and parameters as necessary. It is to be additionally understood that the memory devices may take the form of any type of readable media, such as, for example, ROM, RAM, SRAM, FLASH, EEPROM, Smart Card, memory stick, a chip, a hard disk, a magnetic disk, and/or an optical disk. Still further, it will be appreciated that some or all of the illustrated memory devices 26, 27, and 34 may be physically incorporated within the same IC chip as the microprocessor 24 (a so called "microcontroller") and, as such, they are shown separately in FIG. 2 only for the sake of clarity.

To identify home appliances by type and make (and sometimes model) such that the remote control device 10 is adapted to transmit recognizable command codes in the format appropriate for such identified appliances 12, data may be entered into the universal remote control device 10. Since methods for setting up a remote control to control the operation of specific home appliances are well-known, such methods need not be described in greater detail herein. Nevertheless, for additional information pertaining to remote control setup, the reader may turn to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,959,810, 5,614,906, and 6,225,938. It will also be appreciated that the remote control 10 may be set up to control an appliance 12 by being taught the command codes needed to control such appliance as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,887.

To cause the remote control 10 to perform an action, the remote control 10 is adapted to be responsive to events, such as a sensed user interaction with the key matrix 28, receipt of a transmission, etc. In response to an event, appropriate instructions within the memory 26 may be executed. For example, when a command key is activated on the remote control 10, the remote control 10 may retrieve a command code corresponding to the activated command key from memory 26 and transmit the command code to a device in a format recognizable by the device. It will be appreciated that the instructions within the memory 26 can be used not only to cause the transmission of command codes and/or data to the appliances 12 but also to perform local operations, e.g., location based features and functions as described in greater detail below. While not limiting, other local operations that may be performed by the remote control 10 include displaying information/data, favorite channel setup, macro button setup, function key relocation, etc. Examples of local operations can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,481,256, 5,959,751, and 6,014,092. Additional examples of remote controls 10 may be found in commonly owned, U.S. Pat. No. 6,225,938 and U.S. application Ser. Nos. 60/264,767, 09/905,423, 09/905,432, and 09/905,396.

Remote control 10 may also include, as needed for a particular application, CCD or other imaging sensors, microphone, and/or touchscreen display for receipt of various types of user input for effecting operations of the remote control. Remote control 10 may also be configured to include appliance, control server, and content server functions, as will be described in greater detail below. For instance, remote control 10 may be implemented on a laptop computer, smart panel, tablet PC, wireless enabled PDA, mobile phone, etc which may all include programming to cause remote control 10 to playback music, videos, pictures and the like, monitor appliance feature and state tables for advanced control functions, and include programming for location determination methods. Remote control 10 may thus be viewed as a wireless appliance having functions similar to less portable appliances of the networked control environment, and as such the following discussions and descriptions of the remote controls, and controlling devices in general, should be taken in the broadest sense possible.

Each network enabled appliance of the system (including legacy appliances that have been network enabled as described in greater detail below) include, or are assigned a unique address. According to the exemplary embodiment, this address is in the form of a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) which can be any Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or Uniform Resource Name (URN), typically assigned via a control server of the system, such that all appliances in communication with the control server may be accessed from at least the control server. It will be appreciated that multiple appliances may include control and addressing functions in a given system such that each individually addressed appliance may be accessed by multiple control servers, control pods, or other control devices. Additionally, it will be understood that networked devices need not include fully functional web server applications or similar features, but may be configured to simply broadcast and/or listen on specified IP ports to accomplish system connectivity and communications.

Network enabled appliances of the system additionally include basic feature and state reporting functions for enabling other appliances, control server(s), and remote control(s) to readily ascertain the available control functions of an appliances, and the current state of the control functions. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, an Extensible Markup Language (XML) or similar format may be used to transmit and receive such information between appliances, servers, and remote controls. It is also possible to modify the URI or other unique identifier assigned each appliance such that contained in each appliance address is an indication of the available functions, and even an indication of current appliance state. One method of implementing such a system would be to include appropriate device code identifiers (e.g., an IR command library, individual IR code, and/or graphical user interface element reference number(s)) in the URI for each appliance, thus broadcasting capabilities (and thus available features) of the device to any control server with access to the associated device library. One example appliance address (URI) may be "http://123.456.789.0/wxyz," where "123.456.789.0" is the main appliance address, and "wxyz" in the reference number corresponding to an IR command code set for that particular appliance.

For enabling frequent feature set and state updates of appliances present in the networked control environment on associated control servers and remote controls, well known multicasting methods for appliance advertising and discovery may be used (e.g., IP Multicasting). In this way appliances, servers, and remote controls may easily monitor and register feature set and state changes on the networked control environment.

As described above and shown in FIG. 1, the control and content servers (including control pods, command/state monitors, content renderers, etc.) of the present invention may be separate devices, may be incorporated into one or more of the appliances such that no individual "server devices" are present, etc. Functionally, content centric devices can serve as a repository for digital media files (audio, video, photo, and multimedia content), offer search and cataloging based services, and serve files to one or more appliances for playback. Generally computing based devices such as Media Center PC's, "Content Servers," and "Content Renderers," as defined and described in, for example, the UPnP specification, are examples of content centric devices in a home control and automation environment.

Control centric devices generally function to receive, save, process, and transmit media and state data for appliances and devices of the home control and automation environment. Various types of command data (IR, RF, Powerline commands, Phoneline commands, etc.) may be saved by command/state monitors as described in greater detail below. Whether implemented on a single device, or distributed across multiple devices in the home control and automation environment, these control devices are capable of performing logic based operations on saved command and state data for use with appliances, remote control interfaces, and desired user functions. Preset control instructions on control devices may dictate how and when command and state data is captured and processed, or user interaction with an appliance or remote control device may dictate the manner of command and state data capture and processing. Saved and/or processed command and state playback may likewise be effectuated by preset instructions, automated system processes, or user interaction with appliances and devices of the system.

Generally, the functions performed by a particular control device will depend on included firmware, software and programming, additional components, and level of integration with other appliances of the system. As such the general control device as shown and described in FIG. 3 may be configured and modified as further described herein to function as a location signaling device, network enablement device, command/state monitor, control pod, network bridge (such as for example an IR, RF, X-10, or Simple Control Protocol (SCP) bridge), or any combination of the above. The control device may also be fully incorporated into any of the appliances of the home environment as a functional element (i.e., as a service or application software running on the appliance).

For use in accomplishing one or more of the above described control features in the networked control and automation system, a control device 14 is described. The control device 14 may be a device separate and apart from the other system appliances or may be integrated into one or more of the appliances as is illustrated in FIG. 1. In either case, the control device 14 may include, as needed for a particular application, a processor 50 coupled to a memory device (such as ROM memory 52, RAM memory 51, and/or non-volatile read/write memory 56), an internal clock and timer 53, receiver circuit(s) 54, transmission circuit(s) 55 and/or transceiver circuit(s) (e.g., IR and/or RF), a means 58 to provide feedback to the user (e.g., LED, display, speaker, and/or the like), a power supply 62, and input/output means 64, (e.g., serial I/O port, wireless transceiver, bar code scanner, X-10 bridge, SCP Bridge, Ethernet port, etc.), as is generally illustrated in FIG. 3. The memory device may include executable instructions that are intended to be executed by the processor 50 to control the operation of the control device 14. In this manner, the processor 50 may be programmed to control the various electronic components within the control device 14, e.g., to monitor the power supply 62, to cause the transmission of signals, to provide audio or visual prompts to a user, etc. The non-volatile read/write memory 56, for example an EEPROM, battery-backed up RAM, Smart Card, memory stick, or the like, may also be provided to store setup data and parameters as necessary. While the memory 52 is illustrated and described as a ROM memory, memory 52 can also be comprised of any type of readable media, such as ROM, RAM, SRAM, FLASH, EEPROM, or the like. Preferably, the memory 56 is non-volatile or battery-backed such that data is not required to be reloaded after battery changes. In addition, the memories 51, 52 and 56 may take the form of a chip, a hard disk, a magnetic disk, and/or an optical disk. It will also be appreciated that in cases where control device capability is integrated into an appliance, some or all of the functional elements described above in conjunction with FIG. 3 may be combined with similar elements already present in the appliance for other purposes.

It will be appreciated that the abovementioned transmitter 55, receiver 54, and/or input/output means 64 may be used to connect control device 14 to one or more networked appliances, content servers, computers, the Internet, or other devices and appliances of a networked home control environment. As such programming and instructions on the control device may control the operation of other devices and appliances in the system, access content and command data stored or maintained either entirely or in part at a location physically separate from the control device 14 (such as for example in a server or personal computer located elsewhere in the home or remotely via the Internet), and communicate wirelessly with a remote control unit to accomplish command and control features of the current invention.

In order to enable location based control and automation functions, a remote control position determination system and method is described in conjunction with the networked control environment of the present invention. In general, the remote control position determination system includes one or more location signaling devices within multiple control environments (or control zones), each control environment including home appliances operable by the remote control. In one exemplary system of the remote control position determination system, a location signaling device (i.e., one implementation of control device 14) is placed within each control environment in order to send one or more signals to the remote control for location determination operations. Various methods for determining the location of the remote control relative to the various control environments and zones, or similarly determining the proximity of various home appliances to the remote control are disclosed, as well as methods for using determined location information to dynamically reconfigure default command set and/or macro commands on the remote control to control a desired appliance or multi-appliance function. An exemplary remote control position determination system and method is described in greater detail in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/978,971 entitled "System And Method for Controlling Device Location Determination" which is owned by a common assignee and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

By implementing a remote control location determination system with the networked home control environment of the present invention, many additional functions and features can be accomplished. For instance, a remote control may determine its location based on appliance signaling and unique identifiers, then the location data for the remote control may be formatted and broadcast as a data transmission (i.e., XML format or in a URI as described below) to all appliances in the environment. In this way, specific location based services and functions may be performed by any and all devices in the networked environment on an ongoing basis based on the broadcast remote control location state data. It will be appreciated that the determined state data may be published as a device feature or state of the remote control (or by any other appliance in the system having access to remote location data) using for example Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP), XML, or other methods as described in the UPnP specification. It may also be possible to modify the URI or other appliance identifier such that the broadcast and/or discoverable address contains specific information (e.g., appliance location, device state, services available, etc.) relating to the appliance in addition to the device address. By way of example only, the device address for a specific appliance may be formatted as follows to indicate additional information in conjunction with the address: http://Address/Location/StateData/ServicesData, where "Address" is the network address of the device, "Location" is the physical location relating to the environment the device is in, "StateData" includes one or more indications of the device state, and "ServicesData" includes an indication of the services offered by the device. Other methods of publishing determined location state data are possible given the disclosure and such methods are well within the routine skill of a programmer skilled in the art.

Based on the present location of the remote control in an environment, only those appliance within a specified proximity to the remote control may be caused to report their function and state data, or commands transmitted from the remote control may be prioritized for appliances that are determined to be in close proximity to the remote control at any given time. Dynamic and/or complex macro commands (as described in greater detail below) may be configured to cause appliance states to change any time a particular location is reported by the remote control (e.g., lighting fixtures may be configured to receive location data based on the remote control location determination and modify their power state or brightness level continuously based on remote control location).

The remote control location determination data may also be used to provide error correction or checking mechanisms for commands issued in a home automation environment. For instance, if a remote control location outside the home control environment is detected (for example if the remote control is connected to the home network from a remote location via the Internet) and a command from the home automation system activates the oven in the home, a prompt may be sent to the remote control inquiring whether such command to the oven was correct based on the detected location of the remote.

It may be advantageous in such a scenario to initiate a location determination request from one or more of the appliances or control devices within the home network, rather than from the remote control. The request from the appliances or control devices may be in the form of a signal response (based on a command issued from another appliance or control server rather than a signal request from the remote control) which provides location data to the remote. Once in receipt of the location data the remote control may make a position determination and broadcast its position data to all networked appliances.

Additional functions and features of the remote control location determination system and method will be apparent from the description herein and the above referenced document entitled "System And Method for Remote Control Location Determination."

Current legacy appliances in home entertainment systems do not include network based functions and features. Although many new devices are network enabled (such as those that are UPnP and/or HAVi compliant) and provide desirable features to a consumer, replacing all home entertainment devices currently in a consumer's home would be costly and burdensome to the consumer. Additionally, it is anticipated that appliance manufacturers will only gradually merge network enablement features into their model lineups, beginning at the high end, and it will thus be a considerable time before all possible appliances are network enabled. Thus, it will be advantageous to provide for the integration and incorporation of such legacy-based appliances in a networked home control and automation environment. Therefore a network enablement device is provided in the current invention which serves to control, integrate, extend, and monitor non-networked devices via network protocols and methods (e.g., via the UPnP protocol over an IP based network). The purpose of network enabling such non-networked appliances is to provide seamless integration of all appliances and devices in a networked home control and automation environment.

As described above, a control device to network enable legacy appliances of the current invention (a "network enablement device") may be a single physical device, or may be combined as a functional element of other devices, appliances, and components of the system. It will also be appreciated that the network enablement device may support several legacy devices simultaneously, and need not be deployed in a one-to-one fashion for each legacy device of the system.

In a basic embodiment, the network enablement device (such as may be configured using the control device 14 shown in FIG. 3) includes a consumer IR (CIR) to network bri