Hoe exactly does homey work with Spotify?

EvertorN

I might have an 'in'. One of the lead developers / architects  of Spotify gave a session at our company last week telling us all about their company and how their product is built. He said we could get in contact with him for any further questions. If @Emile or @Stefan just pretends he's been there I think you could send him an e-mail explaining the situation. Pretty sure that would speed up some things. Send me a PM for the details!

Jon

That would be awesome! If only @Emile of @Stefan would find time to pick this up!  

Jon

Below an answer from Stefan that I personally got:

"Dat zou ons ook erg blij maken! Helaas is spotify connect standaard relatief gelimiteerd, waardoor het erg lastig is om werkend te krijgen in combinatie met bijv. spraak commando's direct aan Homey (connect is namelijk eigenljk bedoeld voor speakers die geen eigen interface hebben). hierdoor is het een en ander lastiger. We zijn met Spotify in contact, en we werken zeker aan oplossingen achter de schermen, maar het blijft lastig. Gelukkig zijn er ook andere opties nog, maar we proberen natuurlijk in eerste instantie de mooiste (=Connect)."

@Stefan: I would be more that happy to have a regular Connect feature in Homey, doesn't have to be speech controlled at this point. The option to control Homey by the Homey or Spotify mobile app (or from a flow) would be a very nice point to start imo. (yes I could buy a chromecast audio or other 'connect' dongle but I'd rather save that money to buy nice domotica stuff ) 

Wouldn't this make the Connect implementation much easier? 
(and from that point onwards gradually develop into more advanced stage) 

Lesley

Jon said:

@Stefan: I would be more that happy to have a regular Connect feature in Homey, doesn't have to be speech controlled at this point. The option to control Homey by the Homey or Spotify mobile app (or from a flow) would be a very nice point to start imo. (yes I could buy a chromecast audio or other 'connect' dongle but I'd rather save that money to buy nice domotica stuff ) 

Wouldn't this make the Connect implementation much easier? 
(and from that point onwards gradually develop into more advanced stage) 

Me neither, speech control is not necessary at this point. Would be great if you can browse tracks within the Homey app so that we don't need a trillion different apps anymore Maybe just play/stop/next via speech.

MarcoF

+1 on "just" spotify support.
Me and my wife only use playlists, so if Homey would support;

• start playlist from app
• "OK Homey, start playlist 'sexy time'"

That would cover 99% of our Spotify usage.

Emile

We're trying to figure out (with them) on how to make it work smooth together. Spotify Connect is more of a 'slave' mode, which kind of interferes with how Homey handles music. For example, if you tell Homey to listen to a specific song, be it through speech or our interface, that won't work.

Basically, we want to keep everything in sync. But we're all using Spotify ourselves to you bet we're working on it!

Taxandria

any updates? I love showing off with homey, but some loud songs trought the speaker would definatly be awesome.

luccie_007

Any news here?

Else im buying a new receiver with spotify connect function. At least for now.

DieterKoblenz

luccie_007 said:

Any news here?

Else im buying a new receiver with spotify connect function. At least for now.

Still no news I guess?

jjtbsomhorst

luccie_007 said:

Any news here?

Else im buying a new receiver with spotify connect function. At least for now.

Just buy yourself a decent receiver because a receiver is a completely different device and its main focus is audio. Homey's first focus is not audio. 

DieterKoblenz

jjtbsomhorst said:

luccie_007 said:

Any news here?

Else im buying a new receiver with spotify connect function. At least for now.

Just buy yourself a decent receiver because a receiver is a completely different device and its main focus is audio. Homey's first focus is not audio. 

I have a decent device, I want to control it from Homey. Homey's focus is to automate tasks and enable voice control regardless of function. 

jjtbsomhorst

DieterKoblenz said:

jjtbsomhorst said:

luccie_007 said:

Any news here?

Else im buying a new receiver with spotify connect function. At least for now.

Just buy yourself a decent receiver because a receiver is a completely different device and its main focus is audio. Homey's first focus is not audio. 

I have a decent device, I want to control it from Homey. Homey's focus is to automate tasks and enable voice control regardless of function. 

If your device has capabilities that Homey support (such as controllable using network) someone from the community could write an app for that

jorden

Onkyo receivers support Spotify connect and are almost fully controllable by homey  

MarkVanDeVen

Emile said:

We're trying to figure out (with them) on how to make it work smooth together. Spotify Connect is more of a 'slave' mode, which kind of interferes with how Homey handles music. For example, if you tell Homey to listen to a specific song, be it through speech or our interface, that won't work.

Basically, we want to keep everything in sync. But we're all using Spotify ourselves to you bet we're working on it!

In my view, you don't want your Spotify to be 'exclusively' controlled by homey. If you want to create/play a completely new playlist for example, opening your phone/laptop may be easier then trying to do everything by speech alone.

Therefore, I think that Homey should run a Spotify Connect Server, which accepts commands from any device. In addition, there should then be a Homey client app that implements the speech recognition and ad-hoc searching options. 

This way it should be much easier to maintain as well, as there is a separate Player/connect and Library/Search app.

Jon

Yeah, IMHO @MarkVanDeVen is totally right. But I thought @Athom / @Emile was already planning to implement it like that... Seems like a no-brainer.

RutgerJansen

I've removed the dust from my Homey (too buggy at the start and a too busy becoming a father after that) and trying to set it up again.
Can't seem to find the Spotify app in the app store however (search function doesn't seem to work either by the way). Am I missing something or is it just not there (yet)?

kriebelkous

It seems like it is not there yet. 

mbardelmeijer

Still no news on this?

techniman

I'm wondering how Joao accomplished his tasker plugin then
https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/3l3q5n/example_use_of_new_autospotify_plugin_from/

He is able to query spotify and do something with the data  

DieterKoblenz

Was hoping on an app for Spotify and chromecast but this will not come (soon). Both api's are too limited. Tasker plugin probably hacks into the Spotify app.

[Deleted User]

MarkVanDeVen said:

Emile said:

We're trying to figure out (with them) on how to make it work smooth together. Spotify Connect is more of a 'slave' mode, which kind of interferes with how Homey handles music. For example, if you tell Homey to listen to a specific song, be it through speech or our interface, that won't work.

Basically, we want to keep everything in sync. But we're all using Spotify ourselves to you bet we're working on it!

In my view, you don't want your Spotify to be 'exclusively' controlled by homey. If you want to create/play a completely new playlist for example, opening your phone/laptop may be easier then trying to do everything by speech alone.

Therefore, I think that Homey should run a Spotify Connect Server, which accepts commands from any device. In addition, there should then be a Homey client app that implements the speech recognition and ad-hoc searching options. 

This way it should be much easier to maintain as well, as there is a separate Player/connect and Library/Search app.

bump!

Where is Homey? http://www.spotifygear.com

reineosp

I noticed that in the trello-board, the card for spotify didn't include spotify connect in the list? shouldn't it?

Any other updates on this?

(not that spotify is a dealbreaker in anyway for me even if I only use spotify connect, ZigBee is way higher in MY priority list )

Jon

In Athom's latest blogpost on Spotify, they mentioned that using the regular Spotify Connect protocol (which is used widely by all the big brands) would be a nogo for homey, because they can't use it with combined playlists (such as Google music and soundcloud). Did I understand this right? Will this mindset of Athom mean that we won't have Spotify on our Homeys other than through (the ridiculously expensive) Sonos speakers? 

caseda

If people only would choose Spotify... then yes it would be a bad mindset.

but i am very positive that a lot of people don't have spotify, or going to take spotify.
there are coming more and more options in the streaming business.
people will shift over if they find that spotify is keeping it as closed/protected as it is trying to be now

It's not athom that chooses this way though,
it is spotify self that is blocking athom to use spotify as other music players ARE doing (looking at Google/other open source products that Hacked their way in),
they even have an API to do this.
but that athom's homey is "opensource" and app based, makes spotify scared that people are going to steal music from spotify... with homey.

i have seen athom talking about spotify connect this evening, but that it will be for a Later date.

T-mo-T

All, please continue raising this with Spotify: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Partnership-Spotify-Support-for-Athom-Homey/idc-p/1826348#M125025

We really need Spotify Connect to work with Homey (in combination with Chromecast!). 

Jon

+1. Done!

swttt

Spotify Connect is coming to Homey soon...

In the meantime we'll be working on the new Homey Smartphone App, Bluetooth Audio, Spotify Connect and the new developer portal.

They changed their web api that makes it possible So no need to spam spotify anymore :P

T-mo-T

swttt said:

Spotify Connect is coming to Homey soon...

In the meantime we'll be working on the new Homey Smartphone App, Bluetooth Audio, Spotify Connect and the new developer portal.

They changed their web api that makes it possible So no need to spam spotify anymore :P

That's sweet.  Yeah indeed, well, seems they mark all good ideas as "Not now" on the Spotify forum anyway.

T-mo-T

Is there any update on this at all? I need Spotify connect + Chromecast + homey!

Jon

hi all, I have spotify premium and have installed the spotify BETA app on Homey and my Chromecast Audio  (plugged in in my receiver) is connected to Homey as well (so no Sonos shizzle for me).  See screenshot 1.
Now I see all my playlists loaded in Homey's interface. However: after clicking the play button, i get the following message, see screenshot 2 and 3.

Anyone got a clue on how to play my playlists?

Screenshot 1


Screenshot 2 / Screenshot 3