Patent ID: 8886774

Claim:
A remote control device comprising: a communication unit that can perform communication through a network; a remote control unit that can transmit one or more control commands directly to a desired controlled device in response to an operation by a user, in which the desired controlled device is a controllable type device located external to the remote control device which is desired to be directly controlled by the user of the remote control device; a storage unit that stores control command information specifying the one or more control commands to be transmitted from the remote control unit; and a setting unit that automatically sets or stores the control command information, representative of a respective control command or commands transmittable by the remote control unit directly to a respective controlled device, to the storage unit after the remote control device and the respective controlled device are connected to the network without a need for the user to perform a selection procedure to obtain the control command information, wherein the setting unit is configured to automatically set or store the control command information to the storage unit by (i) automatically transmitting a device search signal from the communication unit to the network so as to detect the respective controlled device, and (ii) automatically acquiring device information of the detected respective controlled device from the detected respective controlled device and deciding the control command information to be set to the storage unit based on the acquired device information, in which the acquired device information of the detected controlled device includes information corresponding to at least one of a manufacturer or a model of the detected controlled device.