[Social] Real Time "Listen with Friend(s)"

[Hardline]

There ought to be a feature where I can click on a friend and listen in real time to whatever they're listening to, not just their playlist. If they change songs, my Spotify changes with them. 

With this feature, a person could remotely DJ if they wanted, or you could just know that you and a friend are hearing the same thing at the same time. 

[Rebellem]

What you just asked is a total different feature from what I want. Spotify team is still confusing between the different meanings of this thread title, unfortunately.

[brianelete]

Rebellem who and which comment do you mean?

[AdamDamon]

This sounds like a great idea; I can imagine one of my friends and I having a lot of fun listening to the same music together on Spotify with this potential feature!

[ghostlysounds]

This is a fantastic way to bring people together during the pandemic. 

[MattSuda]

Good news!

The new Group Session (beta) feature for premium users allows groups of 2-5 people to listen together simultaneously in the mobile app all online no matter where everyone is located. 💚 🏘️ 🌎 🔊

For more info on this new feature and how to use it read the news article and the support article

You and your friends/family can now each listen to the same content at the same time on your own devices (as well as control playback). You can start a group session by sharing a “join” link via messaging apps or social media with each other. Group sessions currently support 2-5 people in the same session.

With this feature you can also control the playback of the music when everyone is in the same room like a party mode. Listen on one device and control it from multiple devices in the same room.

This feature is still rolling out, so make sure your Spotify app is up to date.

Click or tap the Connect menu in the bottom-left corner of the play screen and scroll down to "Start a group session." Then, share the invite link with your guests or have them scan the Spotify code to join the session.

Note: Group Session is in Beta, which means it’s being tested and features could change. This feature might also unexpectedly not work right during the beta.

[MattSuda]

I tested the new Group Sessions (remotely) and I found the answer to what will be the most asked question.

Does it work over Connect (Devices Available) so I can do a video call at the same time?

It does work over Connect! YES! I just tested it. Playback via Spotify desktop app while controlling the session from the mobile app works. You can also play to your sound system or any Connect speaker in house while controlling in the Spotify mobile app. It will be kinda awkward just listening so you can also chat with them in a third party messenger app at the same time. Or you can have the session playing on another device / sound system using Connect and then video calling them over FaceTime or another app (make sure to mute both your mics) right from your phone (or even a desktop computer that has a camera). Or you can do a muted video call and a third party chat app at the same time. Only the playback is built in, but you can make this really awesome by chatting in an app or doing a muted video call. There are a few glitches still but I am surprised by how well it works doing the Spotify session and the video call at the same time on a good WiFi network.

[brianelete]

MattSuda I just tried it with my friend and I am really happy that now we can listen to the same songs even if we are apart. The strange thing was that only I could control the tracks and when he tried to change tracks the new track was only playing on his device.

Now the two features are mixed and it is causing some side-effects I think, but correct me if I'm wrong. I read the news article and it is not clear how you can choose between different behaviors:

1. case:

We are in the same room and only want to listen on one device but want to control the tracks from all the devices.

2. case:

We are apart and we want all of our devices to play, but only I could control the tracks.

3. case:

All devices playing all of them can change tracks.

It would be nice if the session host could toggle two parameters for separately for all of the session joiners: "device is playing music", "device can change tracks".

Please consider this last part because it would make things so much clearer!

Thanks!

[MattSuda]

Hey @brianelete 

The new experience is still rolling out so you might not have it yet. To see if you both have the new option to listen apart, tap the Connect menu in the bottom-left corner of the play screen and scroll down to "start a group session."

It should look like this:

If you don't see this new green button then you are still seeing the old experience. Once you have the new experience, tap the Connect menu in the bottom-left corner of the play screen and scroll down to "start a group session." After you send the link to the other people you want in the session, they will get a popup that allows them to select if they want the music to playback on your device or they want the music to play back on their device too. In both cases, all members in the session can control the playback and what songs are playing.

The way the new Group Sessions experience works is that your cases 1 and 3 would work. Case 2 is not currently an option, right now all members in the session will be able to control the playback. Also right now only the other members of the session control how it works (plays on your device only, or their device too).

If you would like to see an option to limit only the host of the Group Session to be able to control playback and songs, you can add your +VOTE to this idea:
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Mobile-Allow-Deny-Full-Control-in-Group-Sessions/idi-p/4...

Hopefully this info helps. Let me know if you run into anymore problems. And also remember that this feature is still in beta testing so it might unexpectedly not work right or could change later on.

[itsguih]

Hi, @MattSuda

As the other community users I'm really happy that Spotify Team could deliver the value of real time listening with friends. It's amazing! I hope the company give the responsible team, the acknowledgement they deserve.

But besides that, I think you guys should really pay attention to what @brianelete said.

I did some tests with a friend and we had the same experience. Only the host can change the songs effectively.
Despite non-hosts could change the songs, it was not applied to all listeners and after some period, the non-hosts went automatically back to the song the host defined.

According to what you said @MattSuda, this behaviour was not expected, right? Everyone in the session should be able to change songs (controle the playback), not only the host, right?

[itsguih]

Hi, MattSuda!

As the other community users, I'm really happy that Spotify Team could deliver the value of real time listening with friends. It's amazing! I hope the company give the resposible team the acknowledgement they deserve.

Besides that, I think you guys should really pay attention to what @brianelete said.

I did some tests with a friend and we had the same experience. Only the host can change the songs effectively.
Despite non-hosts could change the songs it was not applied to all listeners and after some period, the non-hosts went automatically back to the song the host defined.

According to what you said @MattSuda, this behaviour was not expected. Everyone in the session should be able to change songs (controle the playback), not only the host, right?