Starting Wednesday, November 20, people with free accounts can add Spotify to their Amazon Alexa products, including the full range of Echo speakers and Fire TV devices. To play Spotify on Alexa is easy, and you can do everything with just a voice command. However, if Alexa is not recognizing your music or command, you can always go to the Spotify App on your phone and play the music on the phone. You can stream the same music to your Alexa device directly from the Spotify app.
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- Alexa With Spotify
Amazon Echo and other Alexa-powered devices can now play audio content from Spotify for free. The streaming service announced this week that a subscription is no longer necessary to access its library of music and other audio content through Alexa.
Alexa Gets Same Support as Google Assistant
Before this update, only Spotify users who paid the monthly subscription fee could stream on Sonos, Bose, and Amazon devices that use Alexa as a voice assistant. The free version was limited to a shortlist of smart speakers using Google Assistant, including Google’s own stable of Nest smart speakers. Despite Apple recently making it easier to play Spotify music through Siri, the Apple Homepod is still not on the list, although it can stream Spotify music via a smartphone.
Spotify’s free streaming service is supported by intermittent ads and lacks features like being able to save music to play offline and skipping an unlimited number of songs in a playlist, but it is still enormously popular, as Spotify has 217 million monthly users and around 100 million paying subscribers. The free version of Spotify is only available to the new devices in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States at the moment.
Alexa Turns Up the Music
The support for Alexa devices comes hot on the heels of SiriusXM adding an archive of more than 10,000 hours of its shows to Alexa users this week. The update also includes personalized music stations through Pandora and the ability to sync across Alexa-powered devices. It’s almost the inverse of the Spotify news, as the extra SiriusXM features are limited to subscribers. The competition between voice assistants is running almost in parallel to one among audio streaming services. Google Assistant integrated SiriusXM into Google Nest devices just last month, and both voice assistants have been added to a rapidly growing array of devices built by both parent companies and partner brands like Bose and Sonos.
Google and Amazon are both keen to get more people to build smart homes around their respective voice assistants. Google has been adding a variety of new smart home devices to its lineup, including the Nest Wifi, a router with Google Assistant built-in. Amazon too has been pumping out a lot of new Alexa-powered devices as it angles for dominance in the industry. Supporting the free version of Spotify eliminates one more reason people might buy a Nest Home over an Echo. The choices people make early on when deciding on a smart speaker can influence their choices in similar products for years afterward, so it makes sense that Alexa wants to fill in any gaps in its services compared to Google Assistant should any of the millions of Spotify’s free services make their decision based on its availability.
Streaming has changed how we listen to music. Where once you had to store your music library as files on your computer, phone or MP3 player after buying songs online or ripping your CD collection, nowadays online streaming services give you instant access to millions of songs, so you can listen to new music or enjoy some old favourites - wherever your mood takes you.
With more than 75 million subscribers around the world, Spotify is the undisputed king of music streaming services. It’s compatible with Amazon’s Alexa personal assistant, so if you have a compatible device, you can stream a song just by asking for it, and play songs, compile playlists, search for artists or find a public playlist - all using just your voice.
It only takes these simple steps to open up a whole world of hands-free music streaming.
Note: You’ll need a Spotify Premium account to control Spotify with Alexa: if you only have the free Spotify account, voice control is not available. We’ll explain the difference between the types of account in step 2.
Can I Use Free Spotify On Alexa Uk
Step 1: Set up your Amazon Echo speaker
For this you’ll need the Alexa app, which you can download for both iOS devices and Android devices. Setting it up is pretty straightforward – for your complete step-by-step guide, from getting it out of the box to mastering all its tips and tricks, check out our guide to setting up Amazon Echo.
Step 2: Download Spotify
The Spotify app is free to download for iOS and Android devices – you can find it on the Apple App Store or in Google Play. The basic version is free to use, but it’s a limited service – you can only skip so many songs at a time, for example, and you can’t pick which song plays when on a playlist. You’ll also have to listen to adverts between songs – these can’t be skipped.
If you pay £9.99 a month, you’ll get no adverts, unlimited skips, the ability to listen offline and to pick which song plays when. You’ll also get higher quality audio. This is known as Spotify Premium.
Premium is cheaper for students. There’s also Premium for Family, which gives access to up to six people living at the same address. This costs £14.99 a month.
Can You Use Free Spotify With Alexa
Whichever option you choose, the Spotify app is free to download, so you don’t have to worry about being charged anything. But as we said earlier, you'll need Spotify Premium in order to control it using Alexa.
Step 3: Log into Spotify
Now it’s time to log into Spotify. Just enter your email address/username and password when prompted.
Not used Spotify before? No problem. You can sign up in just a few seconds.
Spotify On Alexa Free
Step 4: Link your Spotify account
Within the Alexa app, go to Settings (the cog icon in the bottom right corner of the screen) > Music & Media> Spotify. Tap the link to Link account on Spotify.com and you’ll be prompted to log into Spotify.
It will then alert you that Alexa will be able to receive this Spotify account data – this includes the proviso that your information may be transferred outside the EEA. If you’re OK with that, tap Okay.
Can't Link Spotify To Alexa
Your Spotify account is now linked with your Amazon Echo speaker.
Step 5: Make Spotify your default music service
How To Play Spotify On Alexa
It’s all well and good having Spotify linked to your Echo speaker, but it’s a pain having to request Alexa to open the programme each time you want to play a song.
Thankfully there is a way around that – make it your default music service. That way, you can just say “Alexa, play pop” and it’ll start blasting out the hits of the day directly from Spotify.
To make Spotify your default music service, go to Settings> Music & Media within the Alexa app, then tap Choose Default Music Services. By default, your default music service is Amazon Music. Just tap the Spotify box to change it to Spotify, then tap Done.
Step 6: Start controlling
Now it’s time to start using Spotify hands-free on your Echo speaker. You have a ton of voice commands at your disposal: most of them are pretty obvious but some are a little more niche.
The basics include “Play”, “Pause”, “Shuffle” (and “Stop shuffle”) and “Resume”, all of which are self-explanatory.
You can also be more general with your requests, for example “Play some music”, “Play what’s hot in Brazil” and “Play songs similar to the sixties.”
Alexa With Spotify
You can be more specific, too. These controls include “Play [song/album/artist]”, “Play [name emotion] music”, “Play [radio station name]”, “Play [playlist name]”. You can create playlists, add songs/albums/artists to an already existing playlist, and block songs with explicit lyrics, all by asking. You can also request information by asking questions like “Who’s the lead singer for [band name]?”
Which devices support Alexa control for Spotify?
A range of Alexa-compatible devices support hands-free Spotify control. These are: the Amazon Echo, Echo Show, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, Amazon Tap (which isn’t currently available in the UK), Fire TV Cube (again, not yet available in the UK) and Sonos One smart speaker.
All of these have Alexa built-in, so you can control your Spotify just by speaking. To get set up on any of these devices, just follow the steps above.
What if I don’t want to control Spotify by speaking?
No problem. You can connect to your Echo speaker over Bluetooth and use the Spotify app on your phone to control it remotely.