Abstract: A smart home system comprising a data repository defining categories or groupings of smart home appliances or devices, and storing, for each individual appliance, an indication of a controller which governs the individual appliance; a user interface which may present a menu of the categories and which may enable a smart home end-user to enter a selection of a command and an individual category from among the categories to which the command is to be applied; and a hardware processor which, responsive to the selection, retrieves from the data repository the indication of the controller which governs each appliance in the individual category, to define a set of controllers to which the command is to be communicated, and communicates the command to all controllers in the set.