Spotify Family + Google Home + Casting

[liamj]

I currently have a personal (not family) Spotify Premium account.

I also have a Google Home, which is connected to my Spotify account.

I love the recommendations Spotify gives me.

My family all play music on the Google Home (via voice commands). However, not all people in my household share my tastes. 

I'm considering getting Spotify Family and adding my spouse to it with her own account. Then I was thinking I'd set the account connected to Google Home as her account, not mine. So that my precious recommendations are unaffected.

The only outstanding question I then have is - will I still be able to cast something from within the Spotify app on MY phone to the Google Home which will be connected to HER Spotify account?

Any gotchas to be aware of in this scenario?

Thanks 🙂

[liamj]

Does anybody know? 😕 

[Elena]

Hey there @liamj!

Welcome to the Community and thanks for reaching out. 

This is indeed a bit of a tricky situation but we have a suggestion that should help you keep your recommendations in check.

If you decide to start a Family plan, you can take a look at this page to see how you can set up Google Voice Assistant. 

With that option you should be able to connect your wife's Spotify account to the Google Home speakers and when she gives a voice command the music should stream from her own account without affecting yours.

You can also find more info on the process here under ''Can I listen to multiple Spotify accounts on my Google Home?''

Let us know if that helps. We'll be here if you have any further questions.

Have a great day!

[liamj]

Thanks Elena. I'd already figured that would mostly work - the only thing I still need clarification about is:
What happens if I try to cast from my Spotify app (on my phone) to my Google Home speaker? Given that the speaker would be using a different Spotify account to my phone...

Thanks in advance 🙂

[NeoMod · Accepted solution]

Simply, you can't. 

That's because Google never fixed this issue or worse never make a good attempt at it, despite Spotify users are reporting this issue since 2017. (as far as I can remember!)

Specifically, this:

you should be able to connect your wife's Spotify account to the Google Home speakers and when she gives a voice command the music should stream from her own account without affecting yours.

---

It's just a plain-old-dream. Try it, and after a couple of days your playlists and your recommendations from Spotify will end up messing with your wife's playing history, because Google can't tell the difference, when it comes to Spotify, between you and your wife.

Even if you train the Google Voice Match a thousand times, and even if the assistant correctly identifies both of you from the command "Who am I?"; it will always, always, default to the first Spotify account that has been linked to the house via Google Home.

We are five in the family, I have 5 speakers (mini, home, nest, hub, etc.) all around the house and I know very well the frustration of having my playlist messed up by all other family members musical taste.

In the end, the only solution I could find is leaving connected my parents account (so they easily address Google for the music) and when I want to play something I just cast from Spotify, running on my phone, to the Google Device that is in the room. (and the same thing, of course, is for other members of the family).

[adamEDM]

NeoMod is 100% correct.... I bought a family plan and still have it pay good money for it. I have many google devices paid good money for them as well. I meticulously added all my family members and their accounts to each device, had them train their voice profiles. Right, so what happens? my daughter asks her home mini "who am i" - it identifies her correctly, cool all good right? wrong! she then says play kids playlist. it works all good right ? wrong. Here is me in the other room listening to EDM coding away when my music suddenly stop on my laptop and my stream is swiftly cast to the google home mini with a kids play list. I can tell because wen i switch to spotify desk top app i can see it has done so.

This issues is not resolved the, the incorrect information was initially provided very subversively with a choice operative work "should work". well the answer is it dosn't. Oh btw my annual report form spotify is always fun because it has the children sleep time music as my number 1 hit! Very frustrating. i pay for 4-5 streams of music but effectively though google i can only use one.

Now here comes the blame game (or lack of accountability game) you see if i post here, either no one will reply because - its too hard basket or its not our fault its google AND the same if i post on google. so the net result is nothing will change.

So its the regular old hey customer pay you money ans shut up, we make promises we don't have to keep them.

[Tarpii_]

In total agreement with the above two posters. Wondering why bother with a family plan when I can only listen to one account at a time. Also please fix your explicit filters, these don't work with Google either.

[erikhagen]

What the above 3 people said.

I've been paying for a family plan for over a year now and have yet to be able to have my kids stream their music through their Spotify on our Google Home system. Trained voice recognition and everything again and again.  My Industrial favorites are scattered with KidzBop recommendations. And occasionally, their Disney playlist ends and starts playing profanity laced Industrial. Awesome.

I don't think this is a Spotify issue as much as a Google issue. As even my own Google Nest Hub will recognize me, connect to my phone and tell me my upcoming appointments only right after I force it to recognize such. But there after it won't give me any schedule updates like I want to hear first thing in the morning.

[duyve]

Same issues as those above have specified. Is there any word from google or spotify for a fix for the issue?

[Bradbeebranch]

Thanks for the post. I experience an almost identical issue. It's frustrating that neither google nor spotify will fix this. 

[mvrab]

The simplest solution would be to default to a private session when playback is started from a Google home or other connected device. I don't understand how this can't even be toggled on when using a connected device (greyed out in settings). 

Recommendations are Spotify's biggest strength. By assuming that only the linked account owner will use a smart speaker in your house it ruins the primary draw of Spotify. Private session is the solution for this in the app, and there's no reason it can't work for connected speakers as well. 

[nicholasdgoodman]

My recommendations are permanently ruined by a week of the kids having unfettered access to a Google Home which I accidentally linked to my own account. We have a premium family plan and have to create a special "fake account" just to use with the Google Home device so that its a dumping for crappy recommendations and useless history.

The default for smart home devices should be "Private session" - period.

And apparently there is neither a way to remove items from your history, nor to change what history items feed into your recommendation engine. Spotify should encourage its users to experiment with new music genres; but now, I almost always try out new stuff in a Private session just in case I don't like it.

The lack of ability to manage my own data is infuriating.

[rurounimaikeru · Accepted solution]

The work around I found was: 

1. Create a new Spotify profile linked to a different Google home email address

2. Link your new Spotify profile to your family account

3. Login to your new spotify profile on your mobile device

4. You can cast from your mobile device to your Google devices using your Spotify profile or you ask Google to play using your 'main' google account. 

In this situation if your kids try to use your Google device it will use your 'main' google/spotify account not the one one your mobile device. This should therefore protect your mobile device or casting from getting 'stolen' by your kids. 

It doesn't solve though the ability to have two users in one home ask Google to play their own spotify accounts. Based on various user reports that still seems to be buggy and not very straight forward to set up. 

EDIT: I note this is similar to the solution suggested above by NeoMod who just leaves their parents account logged in to Google devices.