Patent ID: 8392601

Claim:
A method of operation of networked devices including a first device and a second device, each of the first device and the second device comprising a transceiver for sending and receiving messages, a message handler and a memory for storing a simple device description message precompressed from human readable format, the method comprising the acts of: forming a hierarchy having predetermined top level elements at a top level including a controller device type and a basic device type, and at least one further level of subsidiary device types depending from the basic device type and inheriting properties of higher level device types on which the subsidiary device type depends, but not including any further level of subsidiary device types depending from the controller device type; transmitting from the first device to the second device a request for the simple device description message of the second device, the simple device description message being in the form of a token-compressed message compressed from a human-readable message format; reading by the message handler of the second device the simple device description message from the memory of the second device and sending it through the transceiver of the second device in response to the request from the first device, wherein the simple device description message has a defined overall length and does not contain any free text fields so that the overall length is deterministic; including in the simple device description message by the second device a device type value representing a type of the second device, wherein the device type value identifies a location of the second device within the hierarchy; transmitting from the second device to the first device the simple device description message including the device type value; and determining by the first device that the second device is controllable by the first device based on the device type value that identifies the location of the second device within the hierarchy, wherein the determining act is performed by the act of determining a lowest level of device type that either is the device type of the second device or is a higher level device type from which the device type of the second device depends, wherein the method further comprises the acts of: establishing an address of the second device for performing the act of transmitting the request to the second device; and receiving from the second device the simple device description message of the second device, wherein the top level includes a controller and the hierarchy does not include devices below the top level that are directly connected to the controller so that there is no hierarchy of the controller below the top level.