Patent ID: 6919790

Claim:
A control system wherein home electric appliances installed inside a home and a controller controlling the home electric appliances are connected via a local network built inside the home, wherein said controller has a gateway function that allows said controller to connect to a network outside the home to connect the network outside the home to the local network in the home, and wherein the home electric appliances connected to the network system inside the home can be remotely controlled from outside the home via said controller, wherein said controller comprises: a password setting unit that stores a password specified by a user for each home electric appliance connected to the network in the home; a source determination unit that, when a home-electric-appliance operation-request message is received over the network, determines whether a source of the message is inside or outside the home; a password acquisition unit that, if said source determination unit has determined that the source of the message is outside the home, sends a password request message to the source of the message and receives a message, which includes a password, returned in response to the request; and a password authentication unit that determines if the received password matches a password of the home electric appliance that is stored, and wherein said controller executes a control operation of the home electric appliance connected to the network in the home when the passwords match.