Patent ID: 8624728

Claim:
A system supporting access and control of at least one home appliance at a first location from a remote second location, the system comprising: one or more circuits at the first location having media management capability to exchange media content among a plurality of devices selected to form a media exchange network for exchanging the media content and the one or more circuits to manage the at least one home appliance, wherein the one or more circuits are configured to communicate over a wired or wireless local area network with the at least one home appliance, the one or more circuits configured to, at least: identify the at least one home appliance configured to communicate with the one or more circuits; identify the plurality of devices of the media exchange network; receive one or more commands from a remote device at the second location via a wired or wireless wide area network to control the at least one home appliance, wherein when the remote device is one of the plurality of devices of the media exchange network, the one or more commands are passed to the at least one home appliance and when the remote device is not one of the plurality of devices of the media exchange network, the one or more circuits to verify authorization of the one or more commands and to communicate with the at least one home appliance for the access and control of the at least one home appliance; and enable control of the at least one home appliance from the remote device at the second location.