Playing Family Premium on multiple devices

[mhawks]

Reading through posts I'm not the only one suffering from this problem and having recently set up a Family Premium account after leaving Deezer I'm becoming increasingly frustrated.

We've now got four accounts set up on the Family Premium, two as adults and two for our kids (I've had to use three separate email addresses for myself to get the kids set up, albeit they're all linked to my phone).  

We've got two Sonos speakers and two Amazon Dot Echo's in the kids bedrooms which are the devices we play on in the house.   At the moment the only time we can stream simultaneously is when both me and my partner are playing Spotify on our respective phones.   If we try to play on our phone and Sonos at the same time it only plays on one, on our phone and one Alexa it only plays on one, or both Alexas it only plays on one and Sonos and Alexa, it only plays on one

I can't imagine we're the only one having this problem.   How can we get Spotify to play on multiple devices.   The Family Premium is supposed to allow for up to six accounts!  

The solutions I've read seem quite complicated or maybe that's just me!  Is there a simple solution to this?

[Billy-J]

Hey @mhawks, thanks for reaching out to the Community!

I am sorry to hear about this. It sounds like you have these devices set up under one account. While it is okay to create an account for different devices (the same Spotify account is used for both the phone and Sonos), you still cannot listen to music simultaneously on both accounts. The purpose of the Premium Family plan is so other members have access to their own account with their own content, under one discounted plan. 

So, a workaround for this, is to create a separate Spotify account for any device you would like to play simultaneously and then link to the Family plan to enjoy those Premium benefits.

Hope this clears things up! Have a great day. 

[bkalber]

i have the exact same issue as OP and it's maddening. spotify family has NEVER worked as it's described. we have a premium family plan with 3 SEPARATE accounts under it. My account, my wife's account, and a kid's account, and all three of these accounts existed on their own before we grouped them under the family plan. 

i was in the zone working away listening to a playlist on my computer, when my kid started playing a song on their Echo dot, which completely took over my spotify on my computer (and vice versa).

additionally, my recommendations are (and have always been) completely ruined by my kid's listening since getting the family plan. it's never been true that the accounts grouped under a family account are separate. 

again, the three accounts under my family plan are separate accounts and existed before we got the family plan. 

the answer to this issue can't be "just create more accounts"

[Billy-J]

Hey @bkalber,

Thanks for your post and I am sorry to hear you are also facing trouble with your Family plan. It sounds like your child is logged into your account and not the Spotify Kids app, which are two different things. I would recommend logging out from your child's device, and make sure that they are logged into the Spotify Kids app. Once they are using it, you should be able to stream separately without interruption. 

Let me know how this goes! 

[bkalber]

I'm not sure about that. This is via my kid's alexa/echo, and that device is connected to their Spotify account. In fact, when they play something via that device, alexa responds by saying "Now Playing on {my-kids-name} Spotify".

[Joan]

Hi @bkalber,

Thanks for the reply. It's tricky to say what exactly is happening here but it all depends on which account is used where. Family accounts are always completely separate in terms of libraries and playback, so any overlap suggest that somewhere the wrong account is being used. 

From what you've described, it seems the Alexas are connected to your account and that's why playback takes over, since you can only play on one device at a time with each account as previously explained by @Billy-J. For the Alexa, it depends on what account was used to log in and which account was connected in the Alexa app. If yours was used, then this is why it's happening. If possible, your kid should configure the Alexa app for that specific Echo device using their own account and that will keep everything separate. 

Alternatively, if you have a spare spot in your Family plan that isn't in use, a possible workaround would be to create a sort of "burner account" for lack of a better term. Just create one more account with different login credentials, add it as a member to the Family plan and connect the Alexa app to it. This will keep the playback on the Alexa separate from that on any other devices with the actual user accounts. Be advised however that if you connect all Alexas to this one burner account, they will still interrupt each other if you try to play different things at the same time, as this is still one account and can only be used on one device at a time.

Hope this clears things up.

[bkalber]

It seems like it’s simply not possible to link a kids account to Alexa, according to this “solved” thread https://community.spotify.com/t5/Other-Podcasts-Partners-etc/Amazon-Alexa-How-to-add-Spotify-kids-ac...

[#8]

If my partner goes to the gym and listens to music on Spotify then it plays through my daughter's echo dot and knocks out her audio she is listening to.