Unified Smart Home Control With Deeplinks for Third-Party Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing smart home control systems face inefficiencies when managing smart devices from multiple third-party manufacturers, as users often need to navigate multiple applications to access and control all devices, leading to increased computational resources usage and user input requirements.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of an active application that renders interactive graphical interface elements for controlling third-party smart devices, along with a selectable element that executes a deeplink to open the third-party application in a state providing additional information and control options for the smart devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If users control smart devices through multiple separate third-party applications, then each application can provide comprehensive control for its specific devices, but users must navigate multiple applications and perform more user inputs to control all smart devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple third-party application functionalities into a single unified application interface. The system integrates device control capabilities from multiple manufacturers into one application, allowing users to control smart devices from different third-party manufacturers through a single unified interface rather than navigating multiple separate applications. This merging approach maintains comprehensive control capability while reducing the number of user inputs required to access and control devices.
2Adaptability or versatility
If users control smart devices through multiple separate third-party applications, then each application can provide comprehensive control for its specific devices, but the system utilizes significant memory and processor resources
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple third-party application instances into a single application process. Instead of running separate application processes for each third-party manufacturer (which would consume significant memory and processor resources), the system consolidates these functionalities into one unified application that manages multiple device types and manufacturers efficiently, reducing overall computational resource utilization.
Solution Approach 2:
The unified application implements multi-functionality to handle various smart device types from multiple manufacturers within a single process. The application provides universal control capabilities that adapt to different device types (lights, thermostats, cameras, etc.) and manufacturers through a common interface and backend architecture, eliminating the need for separate specialized applications for each device category.
3Productivity
If a home control application provides control for multiple smart devices from multiple third-parties, then computational efficiency is improved, but the control afforded can be restricted relative to separate third-party applications
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a segmented architecture where the unified application maintains a common user interface layer for computational efficiency while providing access to device-specific control functionalities through integrated third-party application interfaces. When users require advanced or device-specific controls not available in the unified interface, the system can launch or integrate with the original third-party applications, ensuring comprehensive control capability is preserved while maintaining computational efficiency for routine operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The unified application serves as an intermediary between the user and multiple third-party device control systems. It provides a consolidated control interface for common operations while maintaining integration pathways to the original third-party applications for accessing specialized features. This intermediary approach allows the system to achieve computational efficiency through centralized management while preserving full adaptability by bridging to manufacturer-specific controls when needed.
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AI summary
Efficient control and/or linking of smart network connected devices. Some implementations are directed to rendering, within an active application that enables control of multiple smart devices from multiple parties, both: (1) an interactive graphical interface element that, when interacted with, causes corresponding control of smart device(s) of a third-party (3P); and (2) a selectable element that, when selected, causes execution of a deeplink to cause a 3P application to open in a state that presents additional information for the smart device(s). Some implementations are additionally or alternatively directed to, in response to determining that a 3P application is installed at a client device, but a smart device topology lacks any entries for 3P smart devices of the 3P, efficiently adding one or more particular smart devices of the 3P to the smart device topology.