System and method for home automation

• US 8,504,921 B2
• Filed: 10/06/2011
• Issued: 08/06/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wilson, Brian B., Brown, Carlton L., Multach, Jeffrey, Hubscher, Mark B.
• Primary Examiner(s): TAN, ALVIN H
• Application Number:
  US13/267,713
• Publication Number:
  US 20120262628A1
• Time in Patent Office: 670 Days
• Field of Search: 715/736, 700/17, 348/552
• US Class Current: 715/736
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2807 Exchanging configuration information on appliance services in a home automation network arrangements for maintenance or administration involving network analysis for automatically determining the actual topology of a network H04L41/12; hardware or software tools for network management using graphical user interfaces H04L41/22; address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/282 based on user interaction within the home receiver circuitry for displaying additional information being controlled by a remote control apparatus H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/285 Generic home appliances, e.g. refrigerators
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805

Abstract

A home automation system and method are disclosed for configuring a device state including but not limited to receiving an input from the client device at the server, configuring the device state in the database at the server in accordance with the input, and sending the configured device state from the server to the client device.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium containing a computer program comprising instructions that when executed by a computer, perform functions to configure a device state of a home automation controllable device, the computer program comprising:

instructions to use channel selection data to access nature of content data in an electronic program guide;

instructions to use subscriber identity data and the nature of content data to access stored device state data wherein the stored device state data indicates a plurality of operational states comprising on, off, dimmer, variable power, volume and flicker associated with stored context data for the subscriber identity data and nature of content data; and

instructions to send the stored device state data from an internet protocol television server to the client device to configure the home automation controllable device to one of the plurality of operational states.

2. The medium of claim 1, the computer program further comprising:

instructions to receive at an internet protocol television server, subscriber identity data and internet protocol television channel selection data input from a client device.

3. The medium of claim 1, wherein the stored context data further comprises learned context data for the subscriber identity data and the nature of content data, wherein the learned context data comprises subscriber name, content name, date and time of day and device state for the home automation controllable device.

4. The medium of claim 1, wherein the nature of content data further comprises a program name and wherein the home automation controllable device further comprises a security system.

5. A tangible non-transitory machine readable medium having stored thereon a data structure for storing at a server, device state data for a home automation controllable device, the data structure comprising:

a computer program comprising instructions that when executed by a computer, perform functions to configure a device state of the home automation controllable device, the computer program comprising;

instructions to use channel selection data to access nature of content data in an electronic program guide;

instructions to use subscriber identity data and the nature of content data to access the stored device state data wherein the stored device state data indicates a plurality of operational states comprising on, off, dimmer, variable power, volume and flicker for the home automation controllable device in accordance with content characterization data; and

instructions to send the stored device state data from an internet protocol television server to a client device to configure the home automation controllable device to one of the plurality of operational states;

a nature of content field for storing data indicating the nature of content data accessed from the electronic program guide for the channel selection data; and

a learned context field for storing learned context data for the device state data in accordance with the nature of content data and the subscriber identity data, wherein the context characterization data further comprises the nature of content data to configure a device state for the home automation controllable device to one of a plurality of operation states in accordance with the learned context data, subscriber data and nature of content data.

6. The medium of claim 5, wherein the learned context data further comprises a scheduled content time data, video content characterization data, event data, and event participant data.

7. The medium of claim 5, wherein the data structure further comprises:

a business rule field for storing a business rule for application to the learned context data and an input.

8. A tangible non-transitory machine readable medium containing a computer program comprising instructions that when executed by a computer, perform functions to configure a device state of a home automation controllable device, the computer program comprising:

instructions to send a learned context data input indicating a plurality of operational states comprising on, off, dimmer, variable power, volume and flicker in accordance with subscriber identity data and content characterization data for a channel selection data from a client device to a server for configuring a learned device state in a database at the server in accordance with the learned context data input, wherein the content characterization data further comprises nature of content data accessed in an electronic program guide for the channel selection data to configure the device state for the home automation controllable device in the database at the server in accordance with the learned context data input, subscriber identity data and nature of content data; and

instructions to receive the configured device state indicating one of the operational states from the server at the client device, wherein the configured device state is used to configure the home automation controllable device to one of the plurality of operational states.

9. The medium of claim 8, wherein the learned context data input further comprises stored device state data associated with stored context data for the subscriber identity data and nature of content data for display during a commercial break in the content data.