Patent ID: 8812970

Claim:
A method for presenting a representation of a current state of a device having device storage, the method comprising: receiving, from the device, identifications of a plurality of states from a set of possible states for the device, and identifications of one or more user interface elements associated with each of the plurality of states from the set of possible states; receiving, from the device, an identification of a current state of the device, the current state being one of the plurality of states; and presenting a representation of the current state of the device through a user interface of a host system without use of a device-specific driver or application, the presentation of the representation of the current state comprising: presenting, based on the received identifications of the plurality of states and based on the received identification of the current state of the device, the one or more user interface elements associated with the current state; and presenting, based on the received identification of the current state of the device, and in conjunction with the presentation of the one or more user interface elements associated with the current state, an additional user interface element from a database on the host system, wherein the one or more user interface elements associated with the current state and the additional user interface element from the database on the host system represent a state of interaction between the device and the host system.