Spotify Free users can now listen with smart speakers

Spotify is now allowing users with free accounts to connect to their favorite wireless speakers. Those in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S., are being granted the ability to stream their favorite tunes on Amazon’s family of smart devices, Sonos speakers, SYMFONISK IKEA WiFi Speaker and Bose smart speakers.

Users can also request Alexa to play their favorite tracks with voice commands. Spotify Connect is responsible for the seamless connection between smart speakers and your entire music collection. Getting this to work is easy. Open the Spotify app on your phone, laptop or tablet, play any song, then select the “devices” icon. Next, select your speaker from the list.

Update your smart speaker’s firmware to avoid compatibility issues. For a more detailed list of supported devices, click here. Spotify’s goal, is to offer a seamless user experience and allow users to transition music playback from device to device, with relative ease. But to get rid of those pesky ads, you will still need a Spotify Premium account.

Photo by Jessica Lewis from Pexels

Speaking of Premium, those on Premium Family now have access to the Spotify Kids app. The objective here, is to create a unique experience for the next generation of listeners. The music is ad-free and is hand-picked by a team of editors. Simplified but helpful visual aids help kits navigate their way through the app and its scaled-back text. They can change the color scheme and avatar too.

Spotify Kids is a standalone app available exclusively to Premium Family subscribers with kids aged 3 or older. The playlist editors have extensive experience in the field and come from some well known companies such as Nickelodeon, Disney, Discovery Kids, Universal Pictures, as well as Public Service in Sweden and BookBeat.

To learn more about the new app and when it will be made available in your region, click here.