Patent ID: 7831699

Claim:
A system for managing a plurality of networked, heterogeneous devices, the system comprising: an application configured to communicate with a user, wherein the application is further configured to control heterogeneous devices; a session manager configured to manage the heterogeneous devices as a group wherein the application utilizes the session manager and event notifications from the session manager to achieve at least one operation; wherein the session manager maintains a dynamic session by forming a group of the heterogeneous devices and retaining the attributes of the group of the heterogeneous devices, wherein the session manager manages the group of the heterogeneous devices as a single logical device that transitions from one state to another state based on state interaction of the managed heterogeneous devices necessary to control the managed heterogeneous devices, wherein the session manager provides high level state information for the logical device by sending session state event notifications to the application when the state of the logical device changes, the session state event notifications providing the high level state information representing state transitions of the logical device.