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Using Spotify Family with young kids and Google Home

Using Spotify Family with young kids and Google Home

Plan: Family

Country: US

Device: Google Home Mini

 

I'm an Apple Music user, but we finally made the leap to using Google Assistant and we bought 4 Google Minis throughout the house which we use as speakers in the kids room and as assistants to connect our Sonos Speakers. Apple Music counts devices, not users, so we've never had a problem having different songs playing simaltaneously in different rooms and on different devices. But I've recently made the switch to Spotify Family and have hit a wall. 

 

Number 1: My kids are 2 and 4 and I WILL NOT create seperate accounts for them on Spotify or do Voice Match with Google. I actively do NOT want them controlling their Google Mini. I want to use it mainly for lullabies and bed time stories to help them go to sleep. Here's our use case.

 

I tuck my daughter in and start her Spotify lullabies on her Google Mini by using Google Assistant. I tuck my son in and start his Spotify bedtime story on his Google Mini. My wife and I listen to Spotify on our Sonos system. Repeat every night. 

 

We tried this and got the jarring "Your account is being used on another device." 

 

I reached out to Google Home support and they blamed it on Spotify. Can someone tell me if there is a solution or if this clear gap is acknowledged by Spotify and on their roadmap? 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

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Top Answer
Katerina
Spotify Legend

Hey there folks,

 

Thanks for posting about this here in the Community!

 

It's not possible for several people to listen to the same account on different devices simultaneously. This is because Spotify accounts are for personal use and create recommendations for the individual using the account.

 

You might also be interested in Spotify Kids. Right now, the Spotify Kids app is only available in a few select markets, so no worries if you're having troubles seeing it. We hope to have it available in other markets soon!

 

There's an idea about adding Spotify Connect in the Spotify Kids app - we'd recommend adding your +VOTE and feedback in a comment there to show your support and contribute to the discussion.

 

However, other users have shared that they'd like to see an option to switch on Kid's Mode on their Spotify accounts to allow younger kids using their account. If this sounds like what you have in mind too, we'd recommend adding your +VOTE and feedback in this idea

 

Hope this info is useful but don't hesitate to give us a shout if there's anything else we can help with.

 

Have a lovely day 🙂

21 Replies

Hello Jclay82. 

My family had the same problem a couple of years back, my siblings and I, however, weren't that young, and we all ended up creating our own accounts to avoid the imminent fights of whose turn it was to use Spotify. I've been using Spotify for as long as I can remember, either with a shared family account, a free Facebook account, and for the last past 5 years a Spotify Premium account.

I'm sorry to say that, as long as I've been using Spotify it's always been like that. The idea with Spotify Premium for Family is to allow people who live together to not pay for separate subscriptions, I REALLY understand that you don't want to create accounts for your toddlers, but allowing multiple people to listen and use the same accounts openly would result in people not living together abusing the Premium for Family subscription, and I can imagine that is something Spotify would try to strongly avoid.
Consequently, I believe that they won't change the "only one listener per account" policy, but I also believe in Spotify as a very user-friendly oriented music supplier. Several solutions through customer suggestions have been implemented by Spotify. If you have any suggestions on how Spotify could solve your problem in a sustainable way for all parties (so they can keep us supplied with amazing music experiences), then you can always post suggestions for them! 

I'm sorry I couldn't offer a direct solution to your problem, but I hope I've at least given you some more information regarding your issue! 

Same problem here, did you find a solution?

 

thanks

I second this. There's no reason why we should have to create another email for our device or for our young child. I can't rely on having access to my music because of this. My son will want to play something while I'm at work and take my account.

Even if I made a separate email account and added it to my family plan, I'd have to make google use it all the time if I dont want to add my young son's voice to voice match. So in the end it means I would have to make an email for a robot, and then lose access to all my playlists on our google home.

What the heck?

I can say as an engineer, and as evidenced by other products (apple music mentioned above), Spotify could add a feature to allow multiple listening licenses per email. Let me pay for the licenses and alot them to whatever email I want!

Hey there folks,

 

Thanks for posting about this here in the Community!

 

It's not possible for several people to listen to the same account on different devices simultaneously. This is because Spotify accounts are for personal use and create recommendations for the individual using the account.

 

You might also be interested in Spotify Kids. Right now, the Spotify Kids app is only available in a few select markets, so no worries if you're having troubles seeing it. We hope to have it available in other markets soon!

 

There's an idea about adding Spotify Connect in the Spotify Kids app - we'd recommend adding your +VOTE and feedback in a comment there to show your support and contribute to the discussion.

 

However, other users have shared that they'd like to see an option to switch on Kid's Mode on their Spotify accounts to allow younger kids using their account. If this sounds like what you have in mind too, we'd recommend adding your +VOTE and feedback in this idea

 

Hope this info is useful but don't hesitate to give us a shout if there's anything else we can help with.

 

Have a lovely day 🙂

KaterinaModerator
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 It’s unfortunate that this use case has slipped through the cracks as it is a common scenario with no real solution at the moment. Having young kids means they are not eligible for their own Spotify account. This means any smart speaker they have in their rooms must be linked to an adults account. This causes problems during the day if an adult is listening from work and the child from home. It also complicates night time listening if you have more than one child with the constant overriding of the active account when an adult tries to play bed time music. Hope there is a solution being considered.

I found a work around until Spotify finds a solution to fix the Spotify Kids Account to play individually on a desired google home hub/speaker. However in order for this work around to work, Spotify Kids HAS to enable casting on "available devices"

 

I tried with my 13yr old. She listened on our office google home and I played my account on my computer by casting on each of our phones to the desired speaker.

 

I thought to myself okay, Its one extra step and not as cool as asking google to play from a distinguished account, so I will just have my 8yr old access her Spotify Kids account through her ipad and cast it on her room's speaker.. Easy right?

Wishful thinking!!  SPOTIFY, CAN YOU PLEASE ENABLE THE CASTING ABILITY TO ALL AVAILABLE DEVICES???!!!!! just like the regular Spotify platform PLEASE!!!! Why on earth would you remove that ability on Spotify Kids??  This would save all us parents a huge headache and would love Spotify way more

 

 

 

Hey there @Fobiazero,

 

Thanks for sharing this here in the Community!

 

There's an idea about adding Spotify Connect in the Spotify Kids app - we'd recommend adding your +VOTE and feedback in a comment there to show your support and contribute to the discussion.

 

Hope this info is useful! We'll be right here if there's anything else.

 

Have a lovely day 🙂

KaterinaModerator
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I’ll pile on to this...  It’s beyond ridiculous, really.

 

I recently signed up for a family plan, after having used Amazon Music Unlimited (the paid version) for the last 3+ years.  We recently made the switch to Google Nest WiFi, so I thought it would make sense to give Spotify a try.

 

I was *horrified* to find that there’s no easy way for us to play different music on different devices.  I have a five year old that likes to ask Google to play a song or two throughout the day.  I can’t predict where he is going to be when he asks, but if he does it’s going to kick me off my device, even though we’re both at the same public IP address?  Wow.  

 

I’m sure Spotify has done the math and concluded they would lose revenue to account sharers if they opened this up...  Cheaters are going to cheat, but I suspect people that are actually interested in sharing a family account across households are doing that just fine because they register their devices to different email addresses.  Different from the household that has devices that are shared by members in the home, such as Google Home.

 

I guess I should give YouTube Music a try instead.

LOL, I ended up reading this discussion because YouTube Music doesn't work at all with Google Family Link accounts for kids under 13.  I'm currently using a Google Play Music family plan to let my kids listen to music independently on their Nest Mini speakers, and it works great.  The problem is that GPM is disappearing sometime this year, so I was investigating if Spotify could be a replacement.  Apparently not, which is disappointing.

 

My suspicion is that all of these companies need to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which limits the collection and use of personal information (listening habits, in this case maybe) of children under 13.  I'm sure that, technically, this can all be made to work, but legal issues are the roadblock.

 

I may have to introduce my kids to something called "over the air radio"!

Not to mention that with the kids using the adult account, Spotify's suggestions, recommendations, year in review, etc is now horribly skewed/out of whack. My discover weekly now consists almost entirely of things my 8 year old would listen to. Me, not so much. 

 

I have no problem making the kids their own Spotify accounts on the family plan but in this case, Google requires EACH Home/mini user to have their OWN device (phone/tablet) in order to make profiles. So even with individual Spotify accounts, they can't use them on the home/mini without their own device to link the two.

This is exactly why I'm here. I walked into my 7 year old's room to hear Eminem's Godzilla (unfiltered) because I switched to YouTube Music from GPM (same reason, trying to get ahead of the involuntary switch). Decided it was time to give Spotify a try... guess I'll just take advantage of the trial period and go crawling right back to Google. It's a shame because I like the Spotify app a lot more. It's probably tough to hear because it's not an easily solved issue (except to let more cheaters in the door) but I have 3 kids under 10 and I'm not creating each one of them Spotify account, and HOPING Voice Match actually figures out who they are and shutting off my music.

How do I link spotify kids to my google home?  

I have exactly the same issue. I found out on google support that each family member needs to have a google account AND their own device (phone or tablet) AND a Spotify account !!! wth ! My daughter is 5 ! I’ll not buy her a phone nor create a google account for her ! 
I tried to create another account (via a fake email address with my name) and invite it to my premium family account, but it didn’t work, saying that it seems that I’m not at the same address (than myself 😂). I’ve asked the question as well on another topic here because But nobody really answered and I’m furious to see how it is difficult to get help and impossible to contact anyone ! At least when I was using Apple Music I could talk to someone to help me not just posting on a forum praying that someone would answer me ! 

Hey there @Ledesk,

Thanks for searching for the answer you need here!   

If you've created a second account for your daughter to use under your supervision, it would still need to be linked to your device via the Google Home app. If you're having trouble adding it to your Family play, we recommend that you have a look at this Spotify Answer. 

Perhaps a possible solution for you would be to create for her a Kids account. You can find out more this feature here. Keep in mind however that Spotify Kids doesn't support connect and can't be used in combination wit Google Home. If this is what you'd like to have introduced, it seems that other Spotify users also mentioned they'd like to see in this feature and posted this idea. You can add your support there by up-voting the idea.

Hope you find this useful. Keep us posted if you have any questions.

Have a nice day!

Mihail Moderator
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Like you guys I am utterly amazed that Spotify has not fixed such a blindingly obvious requirement people will have with a family membership. Family will of course have different age groups who will want to listen to different music on different devices. The growth of Smart speakers is huge. We have 4 in our household.  

Come on Spotify are you really going to stop people in the same household listening to different music on different speakers in the house. This is sheer madness!! We don’t want to mess around connecting phones and downloading music because we are forced to try off-line mode. As the others have said, your competitors have cracked it. I have always seen Spotify leading the innovation, not lagging behind and failing to keep up with music trends. Please get this sorted. 

Hi @Ianpscott1002,


Thanks for sharing your opinion in the Community!

 

Spotify constantly strives to improve the user experience with its features and the easiest way to achieve this is by regular app updates. That’s why we appreciate you taking the time to share your suggestion.

 

If you have an idea on how to make the app better, go ahead and create an idea on the relevant idea board. We always take new ideas and feedback into consideration to improve the app. Here you can read more on how ideas work.

 

We also suggest checking this help article for useful tips on how to submit an idea. As a heads-up, it's good to know that the higher the number of votes an idea gets, the more likely it is for the idea to be implemented.

 

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any more questions.

AlexModerator
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Hi @alex,

 

It would have been useful to link to an existing idea to try and upvote it rather than suggest raising a new idea. As your minimum for discussing new ideas is 500 it will be hard to reach if there a multiple ideas out there (all essentially the same). Do the moderators review the new ideas and link them so that the total votes are counted towards the target number?

 

Hey there @Bernice74,

 

Thank you for your reply in this thread.

 

We suggest that you have a look at the ideas that @Kate provided earlier in this thread.

 

If there's duplicated ideas we usually merge them 🙂

 

If you have any questions we're always one reply away.

 

Cheers!

JeremyModerator
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Live, love, laugh and listen to music 🙂

If more than one family member can’t listen to their own music at the same time than a FAMILY membership is utterly useless!!! Come on Spotify companies like Netflix have a far more sensible approach and a family membership is exactly what you expect. It’s ridiculous you sell a family membership and then block family members from using it at them same time. 

you also have an equally ridiculous restriction of only being able to play music on ONE smart speaker at a time. We have FIVE in the same house.

By your logic I would need NINE individual Spotify memberships (me, my wife, two children and 5 speakers). 

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