Patent ID: 8694165

Claim:
A method, comprising: establishing a communication pathway to a building element configured to control at least one environmental setting within a room; establishing a video conference communication pathway to an endpoint configured to participate in a video conference meeting session; communicating an ability to control the environmental setting within the room to the endpoint configured to participate in the video conference meeting session via the video conference communication pathway, wherein the ability to control the environmental setting extends to multiple rooms, and wherein the endpoint is designated as a meeting host for exclusively controlling the environmental setting for the video conference meeting session; receiving, over the video conference communication pathway via a menu of a user interface provided by a video conferencing platform, a command from the endpoint to adjust the environmental setting during the video conference meeting session; communicating the command to the building element; and designating, by the meeting host, an other participant in the video conference meeting session to be able to control the environmental setting for the video conference meeting session, wherein the meeting host retains override control over any environmental setting change made by the other participant.