I’m not proud of this one. But I have to post about it.
I’ve been building playlists on Spotify as a way to expand my musical horizons. That old laptop I mentioned previously? One of its purposes is to act as a music hub of sorts to pipe Spotify playlists to our Echo devices.
Why not just connect Spotify directly? – you may be asking. Good question.
We have a different account connected, and I’d rather not disconnect it because of complications with Amazon’s skills/platform. So, I’m using Bluetooth to connect directly as needed.
This computer is old enough to not have a built-in BT module, so I poached one from a different system. After some finagling with drivers, I got it paired, but the connection continually dropped. I installed the HP software discussed on this forum post and after unpairing and reinstalling, it worked.
But of course, there’s more.
I selected my Echo device via Windows 10’s Sound Settings, but no audio was playing.
Eventually I realized Spotify (both web and apps) let you connect directly to your desired output device.
So I changed it to EVERYWHERE (all Echo devices with a speaker) – but still nothing.
So then I switched the audio back to my laptop’s internal speakers and voilà!
My guess as to why is that to simplify user involvement, Spotify handles the connection directly to the desired Echo speaker group. Therefore, by connecting at a system level it wasn’t ever reaching the Spotify app.
Such a silly thing, but worth documenting in case others run into this weirdness.
UPDATE: I frequently have to forget and repair the devices to get it working again. It should be noted I’m connecting to an Echo Show 8 which serves as the hub to other Shows/Dots around the house functioning as speakers in this context. When initially pairing the devices, I was only able to pair from the Show to my laptop. But now, even after forgetting the Show, I can pair to it without needing confirmation. It’s very strange, and I think this is part of the problem. In any case, I can get it to work, but it’s a bit annoying.