Using Spotify Family with Alexa

[stevehall116]

Hi All,

I have Spotify Premium Family with 4 users and we all use Spotify on our phones, in our cars and on Alexa's in the house.

The problem I have is that if I'm listening on my phone or in the car and somebody at home starts to play music on one of our Alexa devices it either cuts on what I'm listening to or starts playing whatever the person at home is listening to. 

If I restart my music is changes what the person at home is listening to. Is there a way to delink the two so I can play my music on the go and they can play theirs at home without us interfering with each other?

Thanks

[Pooley79]

Thank you for everyone who contributed to this thread! I'm experiencing the same issue, Spotify Premium Family account. Kids who do not and will not any time soon have their own phones or individual accounts, but have profiles on our family spotify. I just purchased our first Alexa Echo 5 as a test, and it's been great. However, it appears purchasing more for different rooms in the house won't work with Spotify as we are already having the issues with the kids wanting to change songs and it cuts out the podcasts I'm listening to on my phone. I want something when they can listen to their own music on their own alexa device. Seems this is not possible with spotify and switching to Amazon music is the option? 

Annoying because I looked into this before purchasing and both Spotify and Amazon support gives the 'set up Amazon Household' answer. Maybe other devices like those from Google might work better? 

[Garethm007]

H, we are having the EXACT same issue as you! Did you ever get anywhere with sorting this out?

[xboxlive_qwerty]

Voice commands would still work. Each person could have a speaker group "Alexa, play the chemical Brothers on "name of wife group"

[Garethm007]

But this would still use the same Spotify account, so if I was listening to sporting my car and my wife said this voice command in the house, my Spotify would either stop playing or start playing the chemical brothers. 

[apoklipsys]

This issue has been driving me nuts for years. Recently we had a Christmas eve party at home, where the kids were listening music in their bedrooms too and everytime the kids wanted to listen a song it removed the music from the downstairs speakers. This happens all the time and it’s been years without a fix by Spotify. I’m considering move to apple one or amazon music as it’s extremely annoying. Also, my Spotify playlist and yearly “rewinds” are now reigned by peppa pig and Taylor swift’s songs. @spotify do something now.

[Garethm007]

What I think I’ve managed to do is to just Bluetooth a phone or tablet with the individuals account to the Amazon echo speaker in each room. That seems to work for us, as one of my sons uses his phone with his Spotify account and connects to his echo on his bedroom via Bluetooth, as do my other 2 sons, so seems to work as a “workaround” but still means can’t use voice commands on the speakers, as once you do that, it will use my Spotify account to play the songs.

“Sort of” works this way…. Kids just have to remember to play via their devices. 👍

[Alisonspot]

What is the specific command? Do we always need to say “play music on Jane’s Spotify account’ every time to make sure the music is played from the correct Spotify account or is there a way to default and account to a specific device?

[apoklipsys]

That’s the way i figured out it worked, for me and my wife.

[walktheair]

I have been trying to look for a solution for the same issue for the past 9 months and still couldn't find anything. 

[#11]

I have a family account with 6 profiles.

Our Alexa’s are linked to my wife’s account however when my son plays music on his phone, if some starts to play music on an Alexa, it overrides the phone to whatever Alexa is playing.

This also works the opposite way too, so if my son then changes the music on his phone it overrides Alexa.

Do repeat they are logged in to different Spotify accounts so why does it override?

[beibiyein]

Same here, I am absolutely baffled at the fact that this is still not sorted out by Spotify/Amazon!! We specifically bought the echoes and the premium family service from spotify to avoid the sharing spotify account issue. My kids don't have their own phones (they are too young) and it doesn't make sense that they cannot access their own music in their room's echoes...it is 2024 for goodness sake! They should at least inform people about this when they are about to sign up for the Family Premium account. Massively disappointed as I am a spotify premium user since more than a decade...

[beibiyein]

UPDATE: Just connected to Amazon help and the guy in the chat said this "issue is, spotify does not allow us to have multiple spotify accounts registered to the alexa skill...unfortunately this is one restriction in place from the third party source" So they say Spotify is the one restricting the use of one spotify account to each amazon account...it's messed up, at least Spotify should come up with they own set of ai hardware to provide families with music!! 

[beeej]

I have the same extremely frustrating issue as everyone else - and only discovered it after paying for a Spotify Family subscription and buying two Echoes. Amazon wins because they still sell devices and some people switch to Amazon Music. Whereas Spotify don't seem to have an excuse? I can't find any thread that explains the limitation clearly and accurately.

@beibiyein when you say "spotify accounts registered to the alexa skill", is the result different if Echo 1 is setup using the Amazon account of Adult 1, and Echo 2 by Adult 2? Would that not be two different alexa skill configurations?

[suri_mues]

Def. feeling this - I felt brave again this evening, after about 8 months, and wasted about 60 min so far trying to sort this out. No solution in sight. But is there a smart speaker out there that would allow me to specify from which Spotify family profile to play from? I am ready to bin the echo dot and buy a new speaker - but I don't want to repeat the same saga and there is not much information about this specific use case. Everyone will tell you that their speaker supports Spotify connect but will not give details about the family plan. 

My kids don't have their own phones. 

[beibiyein]

Hi! yes, if you sign up with two different Amazon accounts, then you have two different “echo networks” i.e. they won’t communicate with each other…it’s a pain. We ended up connecting one spotify account to one echo and then connecting the other one through an ipad (we tought our daughter to ask alexa to connect to the ipad and it actually works ok. You cannot control the music with voice commands though, only stop it and set the volume) The whole thing is a joke...

[beeej]

For me, it's frustrating that Spotify can't explain clearly what the limitation is or isn't. They could also think about communicating which devices or situations work well in a typical "Spotify Family" and which don't.

To draw attention to the problem, I created a thread "Spotify support's solution is wrong or incomplete for families who use Amazon Echo devices" and they moved it from here to the Random forum:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Social-Random/Spotify-support-s-solution-is-wrong-or-incomplete-for...

[shakeheartbreak]

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Amazon-Alexa-Swap-Spotify-accounts-without-changing-Alex...