Apple Inc.

Srinivas Rama

Anush G Nadathur

Kevin P McLaughlin

Arun Godfrey Mathias

Joe S Abuan

Matthew C Lucas

Andrew W Burks

Bob Bradley

Craig P Dooley

Zaka Ur Rehman Ashraf

Gregg J Golembeski, Jr

Nathan E Carroll

Thomas A Dilligan

Dennis Mathews

Jared S Grubb

Keith Walter Rauenbuehler

Daniel R Borges

Kyle C Brogle

Wayne A Lee

Hung Q Le

Praveen Chegondi

Benjamin S Turner

Devin E Gund

Christopher M Garrido

Karthick Santhanam

Ming Jin

Hsien-Po Shiang

Vinay A Ramaswamy

Wenhui Xu

Harlan Haskins

Gregg Golembeski, Jr

Andrew Burks

Kevin P Mclaughlin

Gregg Golembeski Jr

Dennis Matthews

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

A uniform protocol can facilitate secure, authenticated communication between a controller device and an accessory device that is controlled by the controller. An accessory and a controller can establish a pairing, the existence of which can be verified at a later time and used to create a secure communication session. The accessory can provide an accessory definition record that defines the accessory as a collection of services, each service having one or more characteristics. Within a secure communication session, the controller can interrogate the characteristics to determine accessory state and/or modify the characteristics to instruct the accessory to change its state.

Uniform communication protocols for communication between controllers and accessories

A wireless access device can be configured to determine a list of accessory groups corresponding to accessories connected to a network managed by the wireless access device. The wireless access device may also be configured to identify at least one firmware update that corresponds to at least one accessory group of the list of accessory groups and request all firmware updates that correspond to the at least one accessory group. The wireless access device can also be configured to receive one or more firmware updates that corresponds to at least one of the accessories of the at least one accessory group for which a respective firmware update is available and transmit at least one firmware update of the received one or more firmware updates to at least one corresponding accessory of the at least one accessory group.

Network access tokens for accessories

Embodiments of the present disclosure present devices, methods, and computer readable medium for enabling controller device to control proprietary digital media players, network accessories, and virtual assistants, providing an overall improved user experience. The techniques disclosed herein reduce clutter because a single controller can control various different devices and accessories. The techniques discloses also can include identifying a change in the configuration information for the computing device. The technique for accessory control can include transmitting updated configuration information for the controller, the configuration information associating a function for the computing device with a user interface element value for the controller.

Techniques for authorizing controller devices

A controller device within a home network (or any suitable network) can be configured to manage network access tokens for various accessory devices within the home network. These network access tokens can be used by the accessory devices to access the home network without needing the network owner's network password. The network access tokens can be revocable and/or for a limited time. The controller device can generate the network access tokens, and can provide them to the accessory devices (or other user devices) as well as to an access device on the home network. Once the access device is provisioned with the accessory device's network access token, the router can control whether the accessory device is to be granted access to the home network and for how long.

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. A group of accessories can be organized into an accessory network that can facilitate coordinated control of multiple accessories. The accessory network can be organized according to an environment model that can include a hierarchical representation of a physical environment where accessories are present. The environment model can be synchronized across different controllers that have access to the accessories.

Accessory management system using environment model

Growing community of inventors

Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Srinivas Rama