Spotify announced today that it is launching a new way to streaming music to connected speakers around the house with its new “Spotify Connect” feature that is coming to a line-up of Spotify-supported speakers.
The new AirPlay-like feature allows you to walk into your house and seamlessly switch from listening to your playlist on your iPhone to playing music on your living room speakers. You current listening session is synced up to the cloud so you can switch faster without stopping the flow of music.
Unlike AirPlay though, Spotify Connect will cost you some money as the feature will only be available soon to Premium subscribers. Third-party OEMs are expect to roll out Connect supported speakers later this year.
Here’s a promo video on how Connect works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWT4o9AwuT0
Source: Spotify
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
5 responses to “Spotify Takes On AirPlay With New ‘Spotify Connect’ Music Streaming Feature”
This seems like a lot of work for both Spotify to develop and for consumers to buy off on and set up for very little upside.
What, AirPlay isn’t good enough for them? I guess I don’t see the motivation, unless they plan on removing AirPlay functionality.
It looks like they’re making Spotify Connect for users of other platforms. Windows Phone, BlackBerry (should they go down that road) and Android don’t have a unified audio platform like AirPlay.
Does this work with airplay speakers, or only their own? I already have airplay speakers and I’m not buying anything else.
Also, I hate where they put the button for airplay in the app.
Ah, that makes sense.
Another streaming protocol? Between AirPlay, Bluetooth, and DLNA Media Renderers, why do we need anything else? (…and why can’t Apple officially open AirPlay already? The keys have been leaked for years, it’s not like it is really all that proprietary anymore.)