Patent ID: 8755394

Claim:
A gateway device, comprising: one or more processors, a communication interface configured to communicate with at least one home device over a home network, the communication interface comprising at least one of: a serial port interface, a wireless networking interface, a wired networking interface, an audio interface, and a video interface; a wide area network interface configured to communicate with at least one wide area network, the wide area network interface comprising at least one of: a serial port interface, a wireless networking interface, and a wired networking interface, wherein traffic from the at least one wide area network is passed to the home network via the gateway device; an application engine executed by the one or more processors on the gateway device, the application engine configured to provide access to the communication interface and the wide area network interface, the application engine executing at least one application configured to communicate with at least one home device coupled to the gateway device via the home network, wherein one of the at least one home device comprises a home appliance, the at least one application comprising: logic that receives a request from a user interface rendered in at least one of a display device coupled to the gateway device, a browser or a mobile device, the request associated with modifying an operating condition of the home appliance; logic that generates a command to modify the operating condition of the home appliance; logic that communicates the command to the home appliance via the communications interface over the home network; logic that receives a request from a first client device to access at least one media source in a media library accessible to the gateway device; logic that streams the at least one media source to the client device via the wide area network interface over the wide area network; logic that streams the at least one media source to the first client device via at least one the local area network; logic that determines whether a utility usage metric tracked by the utility metering device is within a usage threshold; logic that issues a command via the home network to the home appliance to alter an operating state of the home appliance to a first operating state, the first operating state changing consumption of a utility tracked by the utility metering device; logic that receives a request to download content on behalf of at least one computing device; logic that schedules a task offload on behalf of the at least one computing device; logic that determines whether a current time reflects a peak bandwidth time; logic that schedules the content download task during an off peak bandwidth time; logic that identifies a type of network traffic received by the gateway device designated for at least one home device; and logic that allocates a percentage of at least one of wide area network bandwidth and home network bandwidth for the type of network traffic designated for the one of the at least one home device.