Help us improve Chromecast

[pompa]

Hi all,

I’m the Product Manager for the Big Screen Experience here at Spotify.

As you may have noticed, we have made a change recently in how the Chromecast app looks and performs.

Our main goal with this change was to rebuild the underlying infrastructure and logic to make it more performant and permit us to develop faster on the platform.

This also required us to overhaul the whole user interface. As you can see, it doesn’t look much today and our intent is to quickly learn and improve the experience.

We've already received a lot of feedback from you - the community. We would like to understand the feedback better which is why we’re opening up this thread to discuss with you directly on what could be improved and understand the why’s.

One of the things that we came across was that many people were missing previous and next song which was shown in the old design but isn’t anymore. Please let us know more how this was used and why it’s important for you.

Thanks.

[kenbaert]

My Chromecast crashes every time Spoyify plays an ad.  I works fine until an ad appears and then it crashes.  I have tried to reboot Chromecast and Reinstall Spotify.  Nothing fixes the problem.  As soon as ad comes Chromecast disconnects.  

[JeffHash]

Firstly, I've been using your casting feature for practically every day these past coupla years. This effort of collecting our feedback to improve the Chromecast GUI is much appreciated. Kudos, guys!

Though I can't help but wonder whether it was wise to make the current "work in progress" interface live and running for all users right this very moment. Why shelve the previous working-pretty-okay version and downgrade to this new first draft? Sure, you guys got lurkers like me to voice their concerns to you, but you sadly also got a whole segment of customers irked and considering jumping ship to swim towards your competitors. I have to say that you guys tripped up a bit there.

Anyway, I echo everyone's sentiments and suggestions above. I'll add that you guys should really put the 10-foot user interface theory into practice with this new design. Big bold album art and text that you can easily read from across the TV. Full and smart use of space. I'm very sure your UI/UX staff know these theories like the back of their hands and are more than ready to pitch their ideas. Have a listen to your UX guys too, y'know?

I gotta say I miss the soft green tones of the background; it was a good way of cementing your brand in our minds. Maybe figure out a non-intrusive way to remind us we're using your service? Some other users have suggested doing the same thing as the mobile app wherein the background hues change with the subsequent song's album art colour; I second this heartily.

Also maybe you guys can figure some sort of way to shift the onscreen images around a bit? It would help prevent screen burn-in on some older TVs (like mine, hahaha sigh).

Lastly, just a general bug report: When I disconnect from Chromecast to listen to my phone, the "Spotify Remote Control" message just remains stupidly on the screen (and without the very comforting photo of the listener lying on her sofa with her adorable cat) and my Chromecast doesn't go back to its idle mode. I'm running version 8.4.8.467 on iOS 10.3.2 on casting to a 1st-gen Chromecast, if that helps. Hope you can look into that.

Looking forward to getting my mind blown away with your latest Chromecast look. All the best; Viva la Spotify!

[user-removed]

To be honest I think it would be perfect if you just went back to the old UI, but instead of having the static background color (green), you could have the background color adapt based on the album art, similar to how it works in the Spotify mobile app.

[pompa]

The change had to be made to get the technical solution to a better state.

Yes, it can feel like the UI was prematurely released but this way we've already learned so much from all of you and we're working quickly on implementing a better experience as we speak.

Stay tuned for more updates soon.

[minifreddusch]

Well maybe the change had to be made for a technical issue, but the former UI was way quicker and more stable apparently.
(Plus the design was way better.)

[user-removed]

Thanks Pompa for this opportunity...

1) Please, please incorporate gapless playback when 'Chromcasting', as is on a phone or desktop.  Listening to the Beatles 'Abbey Road', etc. with those long gaps is painful.

2) Please, please incorporate A to Z shuffling with large playlists when 'Chromcasting', as is on a phone or desktop.  When 'Chromecasting', only a portion of songs are shuffled, not an entire playlist.

3) Yes, bring back aesthetically pleasing green background, "Spotify" in top left corner, previous/next songs w/ smaller album art, appropriate size song name and artist name below time tracker and controls that are consistent with phone.

4) It is great for get-togethers/parties, so make as pleasing to the eye as possible, and make use of all 16:9 ratio.

Love Spotify!

Add: Using Spotify Premium with Android phone (Galaxy S7) on both Chromecast Gen 1 and Gen 2.

[kazame]

Hello pompa,

I am very happy that you guys are now allowing us to leave feedback on your chromecast experience. I am a long time user of Spotify, in fact I have been using your service for over 7 years.

I started using Spotify on my first generation chromecast about two years ago. Half a year ago I brought home a fairly serious hi-fi system in my living room, hooked up in my TV, so Spotify on chromecast has been everyday driver for music to my speakers. I honestly like the new design of the big screen. As many others I miss the next/previous album art, because without it the big screen feels bland and less interactive. But to me, the overall experience with a chromecast application is NOT in design. I frankly do not care about the looks. To me, what makes the experience great or not so great is how it feels to use the application and also, of course, how it sounds.

This is where Spotify on chromecast miserably fail to deliver. There are two major flaws with Spotify on chromecast that needs to be addressed. First of, the delay of any interraction is too high. From my Honor 8 cell phone, it takes about 1.5 seconds to play/pause any song. Moreover it takes about 2 seconds to change any song (pressing next track for example) and whats worse is that it takes another 6-10 seconds of silence before the track loads. So if I want to change a song (which I do freqently when I am the only listener), it takes around 8-12 seconds from the button press to the next song. This is horrible!! I would suggest a solution within the frames of maybe playing the current song until the next one is ready. This way, the delay (unless shortened) will be there but at least it wont be in silence. Maybe this is in the hands of how chromecast works? Similar problems exists within the youtube on chromecast, but there the delay is much much smaller (and we are talking video stream).

My sister uses Deezer, one of your direct competitor. While I have not tested the delay issue with Deezer on chromecast, I have noticed one other major flaw that Spotify has but Deezer does not. This one is pretty tricky to explain without listening, so I attatched a recording from my speaker while I played one of the songs from Spotify on chromecast with my hifi system. Please have a listen as I do think this is the single most big flaw with the Spotify on chromecast right now.

I started the recording right after I changed to the song "Feels So Real" by Rusko so you get a true example of the delay aswell. The first seconds of silence is what I experience every time I swap song. Anyways, the real problem is all the "popping" sounds that occours. They happen at the same time in the song every time you play the song, so the occurrences are NOT random. Something is flawed behind the gears of how Spotify plays music over chromecast. This type of error does ONLY happen when I use Spotify on chromecast. It does not happen with Deezer on chromecast, it does not happen with Spotify over AUX to the same hifi system. It does not happen with Spotify on the same TV over HDMI. Of course, this happens on several songs, I just picked one I know pops a lot in the intro.

That one last flaw is preventing me from proudly using Spotify at home parties and it does bring shame to whichever song suffers from this error. As a seven year old loyal customer I wish nothing more than having the quality and ease of use that Spotify on all other platforms have given me in the past. The concept of having Spotify as a wireless solution to your TV is amazing, but sadly in practice it is nothing more than a bad mediaplayer in shiny looks.

I apologize for the long post, but seeing as this issues has been haunting me for some time now, I really want you kind guys over at Spotify to know of it. Thank you a thousands if you guys will take the time to read it all!

Cheers!

[12132561058]

As stated a couple posts above my main issue is that when shuffling a large playlist only a section of the list is shuffled, I end up hearing the same songs/bands over and over even though its a very long list, I can get around it by going back to playing through my phone hitting shuffle, then cast, but eventually it goes back to a smaller section of the list.

As others have also stated there needs to be more happening on the TV, maybe on the side it can be scrolling through the bands bio or the upcoming list of songs while the current track is off to the side.

But good to know this is activly being worked as I stream to my TV almost every day, I'll be hanging out for new releases.

[michmike]

It's true that there is a popping sound at some point in some tracks. It happens the most on live tracks where the audience applauds. It's a very unpleasant sound, and it only happens on Chromecast.

[TomGarro]

Yes, you are right and there's no other way to describe it. Like.

[TomGarro]

In my personal experience, the app is much slower and it automatically pauses my music while my cellphone (the casting device I normally use) isn't in the app or it's blocked. It really frustrated me and I had to close the Spotify cast functionality and use my screen casting device service to hear the music, but it is no what I'm expecting from Spotify' services. Sorry for the bad grammar in my reply but it's not my native language. Thanks again for the quick response.

[toshkent]

This new UI is totally downgraded version of the previous UI. My TV screen was fuller before now it "seems" that something is missing. Something really good is missing.

Another thing that bothers my Spotify Chomecast combo is the fact that Spotify app on my Android looses contact with the my first gen Chromecast. This is really annoying because I cannot skip the song.

Please fix these issues.

[Toshi_akea]

Hello from Spain! And sorry for my bad english (XD)

I always have connected Spotify in Chromecast from my android.

But since one month, more of less, my Spotify App can't find my Chromecast!! And I don't know another way to make it work!

Please, help!!! i can see Youtube or Netflix in my Chromecast, baut no listen Spotify :'(

I attached an image (sorry, in spanish). Before, there appears the Chromecast, but today, only instruction to connect several devices that doesn't work to my Chromecast.

[TomGarro]

Hello, i'm from Argentina and I'm having the same problem as you, I can
watch Netflix and YouTube I can even hear music from SoundCloud but
spotify's chromecast app bugs itself every time I try to use it.

[TomGarro]

Hello, i'm from Argentina and I'm having the same problem as you, I can
watch Netflix and YouTube I can even hear music from SoundCloud but
spotify's chromecast app bugs itself every time I try to use it.

[isakb]

If you force stop Spotify (not just close it normally), can you then discover your Chromecast again?

[TomGarro]

Yep, I do it all the time and nothing

[TomGarro]

Yep, I do it all the time and nothing

[cloudblue]

tHE ABILITY TO SEE THE PREVIOUS AND NEXT IN THE ON-SCREEN WAS IMPORTANT TO ME FOR FLOW PURPOSES.   i WAS VERY DISSAPPOINTED TO SEE SUCH A PLAIN JANE "FIX"?  wHICH LOOKS LIKE A DEGRADE IN DESIGN.   tHUMBS DOWN.   Plain and simple, this "upgrade" SUCKS.   Bring back the old UI if you don't do anything else to it.

[Toshi_akea]

Oh! It works!

i have been a month without use Spoty on Chromecast.... but since yesterday, it works!

Today still works!

Some new update, maybe?

Ok, thanks for all 🙂