US Patent 12075109 Control with distributed command processing

Example techniques described herein involve a point-of-contact (POC) playback device that operates as an intermediary between the cloud and a media playback system that includes the POC playback device. As the intermediary, when the cloud issues a command to the media playback system, the POC playback device may perform some or all processing of the command to determine how to implement that command in the media playback system. For instance, the POC playback device may determine the target devices for a command, and then cause the target devices to carry out the command. This processing by the POC playback device may simplify control of the media playback system from the perspective of third party controllers, as these controllers need not have full and/or completely up-to-date knowledge of the media playback system functionality and status, among other possible benefits.