Spotify’s free tier now works with Alexa and Bose speakers

By Simon Cohen November 21, 2019

Spotify is expanding the number of products that are compatible with its free, ad-supported tier of service. 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. You can also use Spotify free on any Bose smart speaker via Spotify Connect, using the Spotify app as the remote for the Bose speaker.

At the moment, the Alexa integration only works for subscribers in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, however, the Bose compatibility is not restricted geographically.

Recommended Videos

The news comes just a short time after Spotify announced that its free tier of service would work with Sonos products. Now that Spotify Free works with Alexa, any Sonos customers who have chosen to use Alexa as their voice assistant — either on a Sonos smart speaker like the Sonos One or Beam, or via an Echo product — will be able to use Alexa to play music from a Spotify Free account.

For now, Google Assistant is not compatible with Spotify Free.

These moves significantly expand Spotify’s potential audience as it seeks to grow its service in the face of increasing competition. Until recently, a premium Spotify account was required if you wanted to use the streaming music service on anything other than a smartphone or computer.

Earlier this year, Amazon launched a free, ad-supported version of its Amazon Music service on its own Alexa devices, giving Echo speaker owners their first opportunity to listen to music without a paid subscription. On November 19 — one day before Spotify’s announcement — Amazon made its free version of Amazon Music available outside of Amazon’s Echo ecosystem, on smartphones, Fire TV, and web browsers.

Spotify’s free tier gives users access to the company’s full library of music, but with conditions. You can’t access tracks directly, albums only play in random order, some curated playlists are unavailable, you’re forced to listen to ads, and the stream quality isn’t as high as with a paid premium account.

November has been a busy month for Spotify news. The company began experimenting with real-time lyrics, it introduced a new personalized playlist for podcast discovery, and it launched a tool that helps people automatically create playlists for road trips.

Updated November 21: Added info about using Spotify Free in conjunction with Alexa and Sonos

Topics

Contributing Editor, A/V

Simon Cohen is a contributing editor to Digital Trends' Audio/Video section, where he obsesses over the latest wireless…

Audio / Video

Spotify’s HiFi tier was MIA in 2021. Will 2022 be any different?

Spotify app icon on iPhone.

Spotify announced almost a year ago that it would launch a new subscription tier for its Premium members called Spotify HiFi before the end of 2021. As the name suggests, Spotify said the new, more expensive tier would distinguish itself by offering "lossless CD-quality" audio -- a significant step up in quality over the company's current maximum streaming quality, which is still based on a lossy compression system. But 2021 is now in our collective rearview mirror and, so far, there's still no sign of Spotify HiFi.

And concerns are growing that even Spotify can't say for sure when or if it will actually launch the new tier. Now, 9to5Mac has spotted a message from the company on its community support site that doesn't exactly fill us with confidence:
Hey folks,

Audio / Video

Chill with Spotify for free on Delta Airlines this holiday season

Spotify app icon on iPhone.

There's some good news for Spotify listeners who are planning to take a trip this holiday season on Delta Airlines -- you'll be able to stream as much music as you like without paying the airline's customary fees for Wi-Fi data. Delta won't be playing Santa for long, as the free data period only lasts from December 8, 2021, to January 19, 2022.

To take advantage of the free data, all you need to do is connect your phone or tablet to the in-flight Wi-Fi system and then fire up your Spotify app. There's only one caveat: Your aircraft needs to be equipped with Viasat for its data connectivity, and not every Delta flight has this gear.

Smart Home

Alexa can now tell you if you left the water on or the fridge door open

Echo Show 5 in the kitchen

Amazon's Alexa has become a ubiquitous part of the smart home, capable of handling everything from our day-to-day routines to keeping up with our shopping lists. Now, the smart assistant has a new feature: The ability to tell you if your latest load of laundry is finished or if there is running water somewhere in the home.

These new features are called Sound Detectors. Alexa already had several of these, like the ability to listen for a baby crying or the sound of barking dogs. Through Alexa Guard, the assistant can also listen for the sound of breaking glass.