Alexa App Spotify Two Devices

Amazon Echo and Spotify work together really well. In this article, I will tell about the many different possibilities you have, for instance: How to control Spotify with Alexa with voice commands, how to use an Echo Device with Spotify Connect or even hot to setup a cheap multiroom solution for playing synchronised music in different rooms.

Using Spotify On Alexa
Alexa App Spotify Two Devices Download
Alexa App Spotify Two Devices Compatible

How to setup Spotify on Amazon Echo (Alexa)

(Pocket-lint) - Amazon's Echo devices support multi-room audio, but you need to use the Alexa app to group them up. This feature lets you play music across multiple Echo devices in your home at. I went into the Alexa app / Link Service / Music Setting, and the Spotify link is a dead link. Apple, Pandora, Tidal all work, but Spotify is unreactive. I've turned off all four Alexa devices around my home, restarted my iPhone, updated Spotify on the desktop, but none of these steps have solved the problem.

It’s very easy to use Spotify with your Amazon Device. Important: You need Premium to listen to Spotify with Alexa (free doesn’t work). Here’s how:

If you haven’t done: Set up your Alexa device using the Amazon Alexa App.
Go to Settings in the Alexa App, then Music & Media and link your Spotify account.

A lot of Amazon Devices are supported: Amazon Echo, Amazon Echo Show, Amazon Echo Dot, Amazon Echo Spot, Amazon Tap and Sonos One.

How to play Spotify songs on Alexa with Spotify Connect

The concept of Spotify Connect is simple and really easy to understand: Just play your music on the Spotify App (for instance iOS App or Desktop Mac App). Then, you can choose the Alexa Device as output channel and your Spotify App behaves like a remote control (means: you hear the music not on your iPhone or Mac, but through the speakers of your Alexa Device).

Make to sure to check this:

All devices (your Spotify App and the Alexa Device) have to be on the same network
You have to use the same Spotify account for all Devices
Make to sure to run the latest software versions

Cheap Setup for streaming Spotify using an Amazon Echo Dot

Buy an Amazon Echo Dot. Connect some ordinary speakers you already have at home with a 3.5 mm audio cable. Et voilà: That’s a really cheap Spotify wireless streaming solution you can control with your smartphone.

And if you are concerned about privacy: Even if you don’t want to use the voice commands and the microphone (because of privacy reason), you can disable this functionality permanently (press the mute button at the top, the echo dot glows red and doesn’t listen any more).

Voice Commands: How to control Spotify with Voice control

Here are some of the supported voices commands. Of course, you have to start with Alexa, ….

“Play [title] from Spotify.”
“Play [title] by [artist] from Spotify.”
“Play songs by [artist] from Spotify.”
“Play music composed by [composer] from Spotify.”
“Play from Spotify.”
“Play [genre] from Spotify.”
“Play Spotify.”
“Spotify Connect. / Connect to Spotify.” (enables Spotify Connect)
“Show me [songs / playlists / genres / albums] from Spotify.”

And of course, you should know the basic music commands like:

Volume up / down
Set volume to level [number 1-10]
Stop

How to make Spotify your default music player on Alexa

Using Spotify On Alexa

If you don’t want to say “… from Spotify” every time, you can setup Spotify as default music player.

Go to Settings in the Alexa App, then Music & Media.
Click Choose default music services and select Spotify.

Play multiroom audio on Echo devices

Yes, this is possible! So that’s really a cheap way for playing audio in multiple rooms at the same time. You can bundle several Echo Devices in order to play synchronised audio in different rooms.

Here, we cover hot to get Alexa to play Spotify playlists. You can ask an Amazon smart speaker to play any public playlist on Spotify, as well as playlists that you’ve created in your own Spotify account. Further, you must link that account to your Amazon account via the Alexa app. Once that’s done, you may ask to hear your Spotify playlists in your Spotify account by issuing voice commands to your Echo, Echo Dot, Tap, or Show devices. Or you can do it in the Spotify app itself. We describe both methods below.

Please see our Spotify Setup Instructions on Amazon Echo Alexa Devices post for detailed instructions on how to connect your Amazon smart speakers to your Spotify account. Do this prior to following the procedures below.

How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists

Method One: Asking the Alexa Speaker to Play a Spotify Playlist

With your smart speaker turned on and connected to your Amazon and Spotify accounts, ask Alexa to play a Spotify playlist as follows. We asked for one we created named Tom’s Christmas as follows:

Alexa, play the Tom’s Christmas playlist on Spotify.
Alexa shuffle the Tom’s Christmas playlist on Spotify.

Alexa App Spotify Two Devices Download

Your speaker then says something like “[Playing / shuffling] Tom’s Christmas playlist from Spotify.” The shuffle playlist feature does not work as of this writing, as the playlist still plays in the order that songs were added to it when created, though the shuffle command is accepted. To shuffle play the playlist, use method two, described next.

How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists via the Spotify App

1. Find the Spotify App on your Tablet or Phone

In this demo, we’re running it on an iPad Air, as shown in the next screenshot.

2. Run the Spotify App

Spotify then displays a home screen that looks something like that shown next.

3. Tap the Your Music Link

It’s the one pointed at by the blue arrow in the previous screenshot. Spotify then displays the Your Music screen as shown next.

4. Tap the Playlists Choice to Continue with How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists

Find the Playlists option at the far left edge of the Your Music screen, which the blue arrow points at in the previous screenshot. The system then displays a list of all the playlists currently saved in the current Spotify account. We currently have four playlists saved in ours, as shown in the next screenshot. In this demo, we’ll be playing the Tom’s Christmas playlist.

5. Tap the Playlist you’d Like to Hear on your Alexa Speaker

As mentioned, we’re going to play the Tom’s Christmas playlist in this demo. So, we tapped that one, pointed at by the blue arrow in the previous screenshot. This brings up a sort of playlist editor screen named after the chosen playlist, as shown in the next screenshot, which lists the songs in that playlist.

6. Start your Selected Playlist Playing

You can have Spotify play the list sequentially from beginning to end by tapping the first song in the list as pointed at by the leftmost blue arrow in the previous screenshot, or you can tap the green Shuffle Play button, which plays the listed songs in random order. In either case, the listed songs begin playing on the current speaker (usually the mobile device on which you’re running the Spotify app), and the playlist editor screen changes to show the Devices Available link, as shown in the next screenshot.

7. Tap the Devices Available Link to Continue with How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists

This takes you from the playlist editor screen to the Playing From Playlist screen, as shown next. This is a more graphical representation of the previous playlist editor screen, showing a picture of the album from which the current song is taken. This screen also provides controls for pausing playback, skipping ahead to the next song, and skipping back to the previous song in the current playlist. There’s also a progress slider that shows the current position in the song currently playing, and you can also select the speaker or speaker group that Spotify will play through.

8. Again, tap the Devices Available Link

The Devices Available option is pointed at by the blue arrow in the previous screenshot. This brings up a menu style list of available speaker devices and groups that have been set up in the current Spotify account (ours in this demo). This menu is called Devices.

Alexa App Spotify Two Devices Compatible

9. Tap the Alexa Based Speaker you Wish to Play the Playlist Through

Select this speaker from a list like the one shown above. You may have to scroll the list to find it if you have lots of devices configured in your Spotify account. In our case here, we want the playlist to play on our Office speaker. Thus, we tapped that entry.

The Devices menu then disappears, taking you back to the Playing from Playlist screen as shown next. Play then stops on the currently playing speaker and moves to the speaker or speaker group just picked.

Also, note that the Devices Available link is replaced by the name of the speaker now playing. You should now be hearing your Spotify playlist on the Amazon Alexa speaker you selected in step 8 above. Enjoy!

References for How to Get Alexa to Play Spotify Playlists

Revision History

2020-07-17: Tweaked the targeting.
2019-02-21: Added tags.
2019-01-25: Added key phrase targeting.
2017-12-27: Originally published.

Ninbella