Apple Inc.

Matthew C Lucas

Anush G Nadathur

Kevin P McLaughlin

Srinivas Rama

Nathan E Carroll

Arun Godfrey Mathias

Thomas A Dilligan

Andrew W Burks

Gokul P Thirumalai

Dennis Mathews

Joe S Abuan

Daniel Ben Pollack

Nicholas Joseph Circosta

Pierre Jonathan De Filippis

Bhaskar P Sarma

Jose A Lozano Hinojosa

Ryan A Williams

Justin R Etzine

David S Evans

Adam Y Syed

Chieh Lu

Priya Shah

Sean Geiger

David J Browning

Stephen M Lynch

Kevin P Mclaughlin

Kevin Mclaughlin

Pravin Iyer

An automated environment can include multiple controller devices capable of communicating with multiple accessory devices. The controller devices can automatically elect one of their number as a coordinator device for the environment and can automatically perform a new election if an incumbent coordinator becomes unavailable or resigns. The election processes can be transparent to any users. An elected coordinator can perform various operations to facilitate management of the automated environment, including routing of communications between controllers and accessories.

Selection of a coordinator device for an automated environment

Modifications made by multiple controller devices to an environment model describing a shared automated environment can be coordinated. One of the controller devices can be designated as a coordinator, and any controller device other than the coordinator can send an update request to the coordinator. The coordinator can determine whether to accept or reject the requested modification and can report its determination to the requesting controller device. If the coordinator accepts the request, the coordinator can instigate operations to update the environment model across all controller devices of all users. If the coordinator rejects the request, the environment model is not updated. The controller device that made the request can update its local copy of the environment model and roll back the update if the request is rejected.

Coordinating modifications by multiple users to a shared automated environment by initiating a pair setup process with an accessory

The present disclosure generally relates to synchronizing copies of a data object.

Group activity session synchronization

A relay service can relay messages between controllers and electronically controllable accessory devices that may be located remotely from the controllers. Relaying of messages by the relay service can be decoupled from any knowledge of the functionality of the accessory or the content of the messages. Device identification and relaying of messages can be managed using 'relay aliases' that are meaningful only to the relay service and the endpoint devices (the controller and accessory). The endpoint devices can implement end-to-end security for messages transported by the relay service.

Relay service for communication between controllers and accessories

A data transfer process can include multiple verification features usable by a 'source' device to ensure that a 'destination' device is authorized to receive a requested data object. The source device and destination device can communicate via a first communication channel (which can be on a wide-area network) to exchange public keys, then use the public keys to verify their identities and establish a secure session on a second communication channel (which can be a local channel). The data object can be transferred via the secure session. Prior to sending the data object, the source device can perform secondary verification operations (in addition to the key exchange) to confirm the identity of the second device and/or the locality of the connection on the second communication channel.

Secure transfer of a data object between user devices

Coordinating modifications by multiple users to a shared automated environment

A controller and an accessory controllable by the controller can communicate using secure read and write procedures. The procedures can include encrypting identifiers of accessory characteristics targeted by a read or write operation as well as any data being read or written. The procedures can also include the accessory returning a cryptographically signed response verifying receipt and execution of the read or write instruction. In some instances, a write procedure can be implemented as a timed write in which a first instruction containing the write data is sent separately from a second instruction to execute the write operation; the accessory can disregard the write data if the second instruction is not received within a timeout period after receiving the first instruction.

Secure wireless communication between controllers and accessories

Controllers can be used to control the operation of various accessories. Controllers with access to a particular accessory (or group of accessories) can be organized into a controller network to facilitate control. The controller network can include various proxy devices including bridge and tunnel proxies that can relay messages to and from accessories, perform protocol translations, and/or provide communication security. Some proxy devices can include decision logic to enable coordinated control over one or more accessories by the controllers in the controller network.

Controller networks for an accessory management system

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Matthew C Lucas