Apple Inc.

Thomas A Dilligan

Arun Godfrey Mathias

Kevin P McLaughlin

Anush G Nadathur

Matthew C Lucas

Srinivas Rama

Nathan E Carroll

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 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

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Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Thomas A Dilligan