Don't switch to playing on phone when I connect a Bluetooth device

[lehons]

I play Spotify across many devices: On my computer while I work, on my daughter's speaker during bedtime, etc...

Whenever I connect a bluetooth device to my phone, Spotify switches to playing on my phone. 

How can I stop Spotify on my phone from taking over when I connect my phone to a bluetooth device?

For example, I'm at my computer with music playing all day through speakers. Every time I get ready for a call and turn on my headset, music switches to my phone and I have to switch it back after the call. If I put on a bedtime story for my daughter and then put in my earbuds to listen to a podcast through a different app, it takes over her story.

[lehons]

Hey @lehons,

Thanks for posting in the Community and welcome.

When a Bluetooth device gets connected to your phone, it sends an "audio check" or an outright audio playback command via Bluetooth to make sure that the connection is properly paired. Some devices take that check signal to start playing audio. As Spotify could be recognized as the primary audio app, this may redirect the playback to the phone that just started the Bluetooth connection with your headphones.

That being said, we can confirm this is currently the expected behavior if the app is open on your phone, even in the background. To prevent this from happening, make sure the app is fully closed and isn't running in the background. We understand where you're coming from, and we appreciate the time you took to let us know about this. We'd recommend making sure to close the app on your phone and you should be good to go. The automatic change of devices should not kick in then.
 

Hope this clears things up. If you have any questions or need a hand with anything else, we're always a post away.

[AlejaR]

Hey @lehons,

Thanks for posting in the Community and welcome.

When a Bluetooth device gets connected to your phone, it sends an "audio check" or an outright audio playback command via Bluetooth to make sure that the connection is properly paired. Some devices take that check signal to start playing audio. As Spotify could be recognized as the primary audio app, this may redirect the playback to the phone that just started the Bluetooth connection with your headphones.

That being said, we can confirm this is currently the expected behavior if the app is open on your phone, even in the background. To prevent this from happening, make sure the app is fully closed and isn't running in the background. We understand where you're coming from, and we appreciate the time you took to let us know about this. We'd recommend making sure to close the app on your phone and you should be good to go. The automatic change of devices should not kick in then.
 

Hope this clears things up. If you have any questions or need a hand with anything else, we're always a post away.

[Gieseking]

Plan: Premium

Country: UK

Device: Redmi Note 10 Pro, 4 x Amazon Echo Dots, WiiM Pro streamer

My Question or Issue:

I have four Amazon Echo Dots in various rooms of the house which I use to listen to Spotify. I also use it on a network streamer and my Android phone. Whenever Spotify is playing on any of the Echo devices or the streamer, if I make a new Bluetooth connection from my phone (e.g. to a headset, earbuds or external speaker), Spotify immediately switches from whichever device it was playing on and starts playing on my phone. It happens whether or not the Spotify app was running on my phone. This is incredibly annoying.

For some reason Spotify Connect ALWAYS assumes a new Bluetooth connection must be where I want to listen. Is there any way of disabling this feature? I have looked in vain for a setting in the app itself or in the phone's Android settings.

[pduisters]

Hello,

I listen with different phones (business and private) on different Bluetooth devices.

For example, I often listen on headphones, but on the car radio or on speakers to spotify. I notice that Spotify keeps switching to other devices. If I listen to music on a speaker and I receive a phone call and put in my headphones, I suddenly have the music on my headphones. This automatic switching is very annoying and I would like to turn it off, but I can't figure out how to turn off this automatic switching. I want to be able to decide for myself where I listen to my music and that is normally never the last device I turn on.

Hopefully you have some tips

Greetings Peter

[pduisters]

But what should you do if you want spotity to keep working? If I work from home I want to listen music on my tablet and be able to take a phone call on my phone?

[MrGlenn]

@AlejaR How is this the expected/recommended behavior when Spotify Connect by design keeps the App active in the background for example to enable multimedia lockscreen controls?

Having to forcefully close the Spotify app before connecting your Phone to your BT headset, just to prevent the music from automatically switching between devices, feels like a workaround at best. I can't imagine any scenario where this automatic switching makes sense.

[New user]

When I turn my Bluetooth headphones on Spotify automatically switches from my desktop and to my phone, pauses whatever I was listening to/watching, and starts playing. This also happens in a similar way when I turn my headphones off, when I get to work I put Spotify on my pc browser, then turn off my headphones, but frequently Spotify will then immediately switch back to playing on my phone but from the speaker which can be disruptive to the other people in my office.

[Rolfensteiner]

I have this same issue, and sometimes force closing Spotify is not a desired solution if it's used as the main controller (when casting to home speakers fx). Also when picking up a call by turning on a bluetooth headset, you actually end up with music playing during the call. I understand why this might be the preferred behavior, but would really appreciate if there was a way to disable it, it results in me using YouTube Music more often than Spotify.

[yossariandent]

Agree with everyone else here—Connect should be able to recognize if audio is currently playing on another device and not switch devices, even if the app is the default music player/running in the background. The app could simply reject the incoming check/play request in that case.

[kartana]

I have the same annoying issue. I could understand if Spotify is playing on the phone and I connect a BT device that it would switch to that but if I have another device playing Spotify (like another phone or Alexa etc) and it then switches to the phone just because I have BT headphones connected can not be the expected behavior.

[deicide112]

Spotify connect makes me angry on a daily basis. I'm very very very close to cancelling Spotify because of this **bleep** "feature."

[vipzslay]

This is not an acceptable answer nor solution, there absolutely needs to be a feature in-app or bound to a profile to disable this.

[Van_Doale]

Look Aleja, the thing is that this should not be the expected behaviour. Users want this behaviour to stop, and only switch when the user tells spotify to switch.

You provide no fix, no options, no nothing, just a half baked description of spotify's faulty functioning.

If I select a device to play the audio, I want that device to play it, and not another device just whenever spotify likes it. THAT should be the "expected behaviour". The behaviour should be what the USER expects.

And for love's sake, please fix the queue sync between devices if spotify's developers are not able enough to fix this obnoxious auto-switching.

[jeroen_xxx]

This. So. Much!

[huismuis1995]

Well well well, anybody here to start a riot?

[huismuis1995]

Go to the Spotify app in device settings , remove nearby devices permissions. Also just disable Spotify connect control. 

For me this fixed it, and it doesn't seem to have lost functionality. I am happy, music plays where I said it should.

[cquoica]

Yes! This is the most annoying thing and used to not behave like this for me until a few months ago. Possibly a change in Android BT handling but it's not acceptable. There's literally a device playback selection! If I want to move from an active session on my Google Nest speaker to my phone, I can do so from that menu. This makes no sense. Instead of spending your money in buying exclusive rights to right wing maga podcasters, spend it of developing basic features! I'm about to cancel my subscription because functionality for $12 should be a million times better.