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[Connect] Disable automatic switching between devices

[Connect] Disable automatic switching between devices

Spotify Connect is great but the automatic switching is not for everyone.

 

Please allow us to disable automatic switching between devices. I understand Spotify doesn't like user to play in more than one device and I am happy with that, but the application shouldn't switch devices if the user does not want to do this. It clearly creates frustration amongst users.

 

In my particular case I work from home listening to music on my computer. I find really annoying when I plug my headphones in my phone to take a call and suddenly the music starts playing in my headphones.

 

This is what happens step by step:

  • Spotify is in my mobile running in the back.
  • Spotify is playing in my computer.
  • My phone rings.
  • I take the call at the same time that I get my headphones on me.
  • I listed to a combination of my client/colleague and the music that I was playing in my computer, usually very loudly.
  • I stop the music.
  • I comment with my client/colleague how bad is Spotify.
  • I finish my call.
  • I go to my computer, change the playing device on Spotify to my computer and play again.
  • I do this a couple of times until I get fed up of Spotify and I play music from somewhere else.

This problem has been already described here: LINK  but it has incorrectly tagged as repeated (the problems and solutions suggested are different).

Reply
134 Replies

If I open the app, I can still choose whatever device destination I want, including Spotify Connect devices.

 

It's not streaming the music from my phone, so closing the app entirely has no impact on playback. All that setting does is keep Spotify open in the background. Disabling it doesn't disable Spotify Connect, it just disables the background process.

Hmm, OK thanks man. I will try this! Thanks for sharing

Plan

Premium

Country

France

Device

Xiaomi 11 lite 5G NE

Operating System

Android 13 - MIUI GLobal 14.0.9

 

My Question or Issue

I tried to find the solution to my problem but only found a topic for iphone.
When I'm listening to an album on my tablet at home (android 11) and I switch off playback but leave the app open and start playback on my phone, the song plays for 15-20 seconds and then switches back to the tablet. Even when I switch devices again and select my phone, playback systematically switches back to the tablet. I can't find a solution, apart from disconnecting all devices on my account.
Thanks for any future help.

 

Please fix this - this is incredibly annoying and will make me cancel our Spotify family plan. Add an if statement to your criteria - If switches to headphones and opens Spotify app, then play music on Spotify. If connects to headphones, but doesn't open Spotify app, then don't switch music over to phone. This is not genius level stuff here.

Will this ever get fixed? I give you guys a week before i cancell subcribtion. This is so annoying it makes Spotify worthless and definetly not worth the money you gus beg. FIX IT!!!!!!!

Possible work-around for BT below.

I'm happy to se that more people are continuing this blocked discussion from like 2019. It's a very frustrating bug that should never have been introduced. Please remove this intended feature alltogether!

I recently got a new phone (Samsung) and as I installed Spotify it requested the rights to access bluetooth directly. I denyed this acces and this phone has never cut off cast streaming (been going for many months) when connecting BT headset and/or taking calls. Maybe there's a way do revoke this access on installed devices too.

Quite concerning to read that the moderators believe this should be the intended behaviour, end of story. How about just creating a setting option for this? I don't understand. 

 

It seems the assumption becomes that if a media output device is connected to your mobile phone, play audio here, even if playing on different device. That's broken, invasive and a lot of people also agree. Why not just create a setting option? 

Why not? Because Spotify do not care about existing users. They work on **bleep** features no one wants or needs, and leave their technical debt on the table.

They're just **bleep**.

It's been three years and Spotify has still not fixed this issue. 

I work from home and have to devices running. Mac and a Iphone. I play music on my Mac and answer calls on my Iphone. After hanging up calls on my iPhone the music will immediately switch from Mac to iPhone. I then have to manually switch the spotify output back to my Mac. I take about 100 calls a day so i have to do this 100 time a day, 5 days a week for 52 weeks a year, for the rest of my life. Considering Spotify charges 100+million users 180USD a month and brings in 4billion USD per year you would think there would be some sort of quality control. 

Support staff please actually make an effort to escalate this to the development/admin teams as right now its seems you are just doing damage control without the intention of providing any sort of solution. 

It is as simple as requesting that there be an option for turning off the Spotify connect feature. 


It is not that hard to take initiative. 

I cancelled my family plan and now use Apple Music for the house. It's so much better for my scenario as Apple Music Family plan allows you to play music in more than one place at a time. So now the Alexa's are all using Apple Music and I dropped my Spotify to just me. And honestly that's only because of my playlists etc. 

 

I've come to REALLY dislike Spotify. It's full of **bleep** features, it's always showing annoying popups, the limitation of the client, doesn't work with Amazing Slow Downer app anymore...the list is endless 

Playing Spotify on my desktop PC to my Sonos speakers in my office. Suddenly for absolutely no reason at all Spotify decides to transfer it to my android phone. This happened multiple times. The phone is just sitting on my desk not in use. I HATE THIS! IT's STUPID! I also hate when I exit my truck and it starts paying on my phone. What the **bleep** are the developers thinking? Again this is STUPID!

And here we are in August 2024 and Spotify still hasnā€™t resolved this stupid behaviour. In my case,  I use a tablet windows 10 pc connected to my home stereo to play Spotify and use my iPhone 14 Pro as a remote control.  I often have Bluetooth headphones connected to my phone to take calls.  If I get a call, the music stops playing through the home hifi from my pc& I can hear the music playing through my headset along with the other caller.  Sometimes Spotify remains playing from the win 10 pc but when I terminate the call, the Spotify switches playback from the pc to my phone / Bluetooth headphones.    

 

it even happens randomly if I change the Album or skip a track using my phone to remotely control spotify playing through win 10 pc. 


A response to Ops original post said that device playback is supposed to swap automatically to provide seamless playback. That is seriously total BS. I get that if I am playing Spotify through my home stereo from a pc  and hop in my car to go somewhere that Spotify will transfer audio playback from the pc to my phone / car stereo, but in that case Iā€™m no longer in the same location / wifi network. 

ffs, they canā€™t even design a useable web form - Iā€™m only able to see 4 lines of narrow text on iPhone 14 Pro using safari. 

And what is it with the inane popcup asking me if this ā€œarticleā€ is useful and the survey popups.  Spotify epitomises banker modern tech - create as much friction for the user as possible and gaslight them until their stickiness is exhausted and they tell Spotify to go get fracked.  Total fracked munters.

Devs don't think, they code. They do what they're told to do based on the spec from the Product Manager! It's the PMs that**bleep** at Spotify!

I've just bailed over to Apple Music. It's refreshingly simple actually. Used a great tool to copy over all my playlists. 15 years I've been with Spotify! I was a member when it was invite only... Bye bye, thanks for ruining something that was great!

Why won't Spotify fix this issue? I do not want Spotify to randomly start playing on my phone when I'm answering the phone - sometimes it plays over the person talking on the phone. wth.

Because they are too busy working on **bleep** features no one wants. I have now cancelled my subscription and am using Apple Music. 15 years I have been with them. In fact, I joined when it was invite-only. It has got worse and worse, more bloated, more **bleep** features, so much technical debt. Plus they are woke as **bleep**.

New wrinkle to this broken-ass app:

Open spotify on desktop and play music for some amount of time. Pause music because I need to head to another location. In a new location - miles away from my desktop - open spotify on my phone for the first time today. Attempt to play music through my phone or through my earbuds, but it doesn't work. The app flashes for half a second that it is connected to my desktop, despite me not being anywhere near my home network. Kill the app, reopen it, still doesn't function. Disconnect my earbuds, reconnect, flush background apps, and it just keeps failing. I had to reboot my phone, open the app, and manage to catch the 'player' screen before it vanished to display that it thinks it's connected to my desktop. Searches for devices, eventually shows my phone/earbuds as an option. Eventually connect minutes later to listen to music on a platform I PAY FOR.

 

The Android app doesn't function with device switching. It never has, and based on the lack of a spotify response on this thread, it never will. Nobody seems to care that the app doesn't function at all. Spotify needs to wake up, read this entire thread, and understand that customers WANT to use the product. We can't use it because you've never hired a competent developer to fix what your interns developed years ago.

 

Pretend like you care for once in your pathetic lives. 

Nailed it man. Too busy creating **bleep** features NO ONE WANTS, and leaving all their technical debt on the table. Dont even get me started with them not being able to resume audiobooks, or them removing support for the API that made Amazing Slowdowner work with Spotify.


I find this ā€œfeatureā€ extremely annoying, too. Suppose Spotify is paused on my phone and I want to watch TV, I disconnect my Bluetooth headphones from my phone and connect them to the TV. Then Spotify starts playing at full volume on my PC in the office! This is beyond stupid, I am not even in that room, the PC is idle, the screen is locked, no one is using the computer, and I just wanted to watch TV.

 

Please have your UX people think about real life needs of real people.

Would you mind telling me what app / tool did you use to migrate playlists from Spotify to Apple Music?  Cheers!

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