Patent ID: 8239559

Claim:
A system for reproducing a media, the system comprising: a plurality of media renderers, each media renderer connected to a wireless network and assigned to one or more zones; a mobile media device operably communicating with the media renderers via the wireless network, the mobile media device comprising: a repository for storing media; a zone manager configured to the receive responses from the media renderers responsive to broadcasting messages periodically to the media renderers by the zone manager, the responses indicating presence and states of the media renderers, the zone manager further configured to track communication signal strength information indicating strength of wireless signals to and from the media renderers; and a control point configured to: interact with the zone manager to identify media renderers assigned to a zone based on the responses collected by the zone manager, select and reserve media renderers within the zone for rendering a media stream corresponding to the stored media, receive communication signal strength information from the zone manager, and select another zone assigned with at least one media renderer compared to the zone responsive to communication signal strength from a media renderer in the zone being below a threshold.