Audio Control & Playback without a smartphone

[dylan3220]

So I know this has been discussed before and devices like the Mightyvibe allow users to control Spotify playback without a smartphone. The device I am trying to make is a little different than the vibe. I want it to output the audio as well as control the playback, I also want to add buttons that autoplay specific playlists, like an old boombox with saved stations. I just want to be able to press a button and for music to start coming out of my speaker, No phone. 

For the prototype I am using a Raspberry Pi (model 3B+) loaded with raspotify and a python code using the spotipy library. This works okay, but the issue I am having is whenever I turn off the Raspberry Pi and turn it back on I have to use my phone to move playback to the Raspberry Pi before it can output/control the music. This completely defeats the purpose of the device, since the whole goal is to be able to listen to music without a smartphone.

Is there anyway for the device to start playback on boot without my transferring it from my phone first? Is what I'm doing even possible with the Spotify API? Has anyone tried to do this before? Will the Spotify UI police show up at my door tomorrow and kneecap me for thinking that the native Spotify app isn't the holy grail of user experience? Somebody please help I have read through the Spotify documentation on authorization, access, and refresh tokens so many times I think I'm starting to learn Java. I don't want to learn Java, I didn't intend to learn Python but here we are.