ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,526,896, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to Leviton Manufacturing Co. Inc. (Melville, N.Y.).
"Smart wall-plate system" was invented by James Shurte (New Orleans), Aaron Ard (New Orleans), Jesse Ide (New Orleans) and Ronald J. Gumina (New Orleans).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A smart wall-plate system having customizable device controls to initiate automation functions, routines, actions, activities, or control to be performed by a variety of local or remote devices is disclosed. The smart wall-plate system may be connected directly or indirectly to any number and type of local and remote devices as well as various cloud service platform...