Concurrent family usage mobile and at home

[jameseturner]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

Iphone, Samsung and Alexa devices

Operating System

(iOS , Windows 10, Alexa, etc.)

My Question or Issue

I have just signed up to a premium family account on Spotify - I have just left Amazon Music as I heard that Spotify is better(?!).

I want to be able to have music available at home on different Alexa and Sonos devices (sometimes the same music in different rooms, sometimes different). I also obviously want to be able to have music available on my and my wife's mobile / laptop when away from the house. However it appears that if we start playing music on our portable devices then the music stops playing at home.

Sometimes it'll be me at home, sometimes my wife or kids, and sometimes just the dog, so which account should I use for the 'home'?

Am I missing something as this seems like a pretty serious limitation and one that Amazon Music Family subscription (which is cheaper) doesn't have?

(sorry if this question has been asked multiple times, but I couldn't find an answer)

[Mario]

Hi @jameseturner,

Thanks for reaching out here and welcome to the Community!

Great to hear that you decided to give our Premium Family subscription a try. We'll do our best to answer your questions and explain how you can get the best out of the deal.

With the Family plan you can get Premium for up to 6 individual Spotify accounts. So, in order for you and your family members to be able to listen to music on different devices at the same time, you first of all need to create accounts for as many devices you want to use separately for each family member and invite them to join your Family plan. You'll find all the steps to do so in this article.

Then, if you wish to play the same music on multiple speakers in your home, you can group those speakers and control them through the Connect feature.

Lastly, here you can find some useful info on how to link your Alexa device to a Spotify account.

Hope this is helpful. Let us know if you have any other questions 🙂 

[jameseturner]

Thanks for your email and sorry for my delayed reply.

So are you saying that if I want my Sonos system and Alexa speakers to be
able to play music when anyone asks them (for example, "Alexa, play new
music in the kitchen"), then I'll need to create an extra 2 accounts, one
for "Sonos Family" and one for "Alexa Family"?

Otherwise it seems that if Alexa is always using one person's account
(mine, for example), then all the home speakers will stop playing whenever
I'm using Spotify away from the house.

I think I understand it, but it seems like quite a large limitation that
other streaming providers (Amazon Music, for example) don't have. I have
just cancelled my Amazon subscription, but that allowed me to use my login
to sign into Amazon Music on both Sonos and Alexa. And it then allowed
different speakers in the household to play multiple different songs at
once and allow me to play music from my phone when away from the house. I
never had it stop playing just because I started playing elsewhere.

(I also can't really be bothered to create two new fake email addresses,
just so I can create two new spotify accounts that will only be used to
sign in to 'Spotify on Sonos' and 'Spotify on Alexa')

Thanks in advance,

James