One of the biggest bonuses with the Spotify mobile app has always been the ability to send audio from a ‘free’ account to your Google Assistant speakers and smart screens. A recent, tacit change means that this privilege is now only reserved for Premium account holders.
It’s not clear when this change was made, but if you want to start a podcast or playlist now, then ‘throw’ to any Google Assistant speaker or smart screen in your home, free account holders are greeted with a premium notification under every device in your home.
This may be understandable if you’re an avid music listener, but for podcasting it’s quite a sly move from Spotify, as it only limits where you can listen to certain Spotify – exclusive podcasts. We tried to broadcast different playlists and podcasts from a Spotify Free account with the same roadblocks.
A solution to restricting role-playing is to link your Spotify Free account directly into the Google Home app and then ask them to play a specific playlist or podcast. This is a solution that seems to be working for the time being, but let’s hope that it will not be removed without ceremony in the future as well. There is no mention on Spotify’s own support pages (1) that the cast is still limited to Premium accounts.
If not, you will be forced to upgrade to the $ 9.99 per month premium if you want to switch from your smartphone to a Google Assistant speaker or Smart Display. It’s a frustrating limitation that may eventually work in Spotify’s favor, but it’s a shady move not to warn or at least allow specific content to be streamed to speakers you already own. The $ 14.99 Premium Family option offers a better value option for up to six concurrent users.
We contacted Spotify for comment on the restrictions on the free account details and will update this message if we get an official response.
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