Spotify multiple streams with family plan? I want to come back...

[Shyatic]

Plan

Family Plan

Country

USA

Device

iPhones and Amazon Echos

My Question or Issue

So I have gone over to Amazon Music HD, primarily because my family can listen to multiple streams with a family plan. If my son has an echo in his room, or I have one in the kitchen, or master bathroom, I can ask to play some music and it won't stop playing on another device. 

I know in the past you can log into a Spotify account per device, but that challenge makes multi room audio impossible. I would like to come back to Spotify, but if I can't have multiple streams playing from a single account (under the family plan!), then I will stay with Amazon Music. Appreciate if anybody has any answers on this one. It's a big feature for me.

[PrettyMuchSwiss]

Hey there,

I don't have an Amazon Echo or anything similar, so I don't know how this works exactly, but what I can tell you, is that with the Spotify Family plan, each member of your family has its own account. 

I'm not sure if I understood your question correctly, but it won't all run under one account, but under up to six different accounts that can each log in and play the music they want. You should be able to find the information you need on this support page.

I hope my answer was helpful to you and wish you a great day.

[Brunelicia]

Hey @Shyatic ,

Welcome to the Community!

Each family member needs to log into their own account on their chosen device to listen.

I believe that you want to stream your music on multiple devices, correct? If so, unfortunately, it's not possible. Spotify only allows users to stream online to one device at a time which means that you'll not be able to connect simultaneously to devices on different rooms in your house if you're listening online.

If you have premium you can sync playlists offline and then force them into offline mode. That will allow you to play music on more than one device at a time, but you can only ever have one active streaming device.

You can find more information about the Family Plan on the link that @PrettyMuchSwiss shared. 

[mitoids]

The one stream per account limitation is a showstopper for me. I just upgraded from Premium to Family Premium and will downgrade after reading this and similar threads--thinking seriously about switching to a competitor. There are four members in my family we have some personal devices but mostly we share the same music over our Sonos and Alexa devices in the house. I don't want to create separate accounts for each device, and I want to be able to play the same playlists on both personal and shared devices.

[rstrazz]

I'm in the same boat... we have streams getting interrupted because of different music playing in different zones, etc.  I have a family plan but don't want to create different accounts with different playlists for various zones and devices.  I'd like to basically have the same account being able to stream multiple different music in different zones and I'm willing to pay extra for this.

[reddighamburg]

Same here. I'm on the family plan currently but I think it will be my last month with Spotify now. Have been trying Amazon Music during their 3 months Corona trial and it works like a charm.

Also during all the time there wasn't a single song that I couldn't find. Will miss features like playing song radio as well as shared playlists but all of that is nothing compared to the ability to have multiple streams on my echos (without connecting to own smartphone, which is our workaround so far).

I also don't get why they are not implementing such a simple yet heavily wanted thing. And if it was only via an Alexa skill holding multiple Spotify accounts in some Metal-Account and using profiles / voice recognition to switch or even worst case switch by commands.

That's no rocket science...

[lopperma2]

Unfortunately I have to switch to Amazon as well because of this limitation. I love Spotify but the one stream per account limitation with family plan just doesn’t work with a scenario where devices are shared in the household.

[JTotify]

What a shame. Came here to see if spotify finally fixed this so I could return as it is my preferred service. Amazon, Apple, even Tidal all work fine to have a "FAMILY" account rather than a bundle of individual accounts.

Hey Spotify, look me up when you fix this and I'll come back.

- Dissapointed

[devbadger]

Even if you are paying for a FAMILY plan, fighting over one stream based on the account tied to Amazon Alexa means I had to switch over to Amazon Unlimited. PLEASE Spotify, give us smart home users a good way to use your service! We are willing to PAY!

[Shyatic]

I should note, I gave up waiting. Apple Music does all the things I ask for, it has amazing music curation and rivals spotify in many, many ways. I gave Spotify the opportunity to keep my business but it never resulted in fruition and thus I've moved on, and will never come back. Apple Music is just as good if not better in some cases. Amazon Music HD is pretty terrible, and I tried that for a long while until I gave up on that too. Apple music makes me miss nothing about spotify.

[GimpBoy]

The only reason I went to a family plan was so my stream would stop being interrupted by my son casting his music. I plan on canceling my subscription and going with a competitor.

[lamers_michael]

I’m in the same boat.

It really is a shame that this still doesn’t work. Most competitors are able to do this. It’s 2021!

I had to switch to Apple Music because of this. I’m no fan of having all the services from one company so I would really like to use Spotify but the Alexa in the living room use case is destroying it.

One could think that this product is designed for singles where each device has exactly one owner and user 🙂

Given the number of comments regarding this I’m sure Spotify is very aware of this issue. For some reason they don’t want to or can’t implement that.

sad

[Ljgwheeler]

Same. The mind boggles that Spotify don't seem to have this as a massive priority. And that more people (families) don't seem to be flagging this as an issue...?

[nospam123123]

Same here, cancelling.  If Spotify wants to keep family customers with multi-room music setups they will need to change this policy.

[donerico]

Longtime user, but will definitely be switching because of this limitation. We have several Sonos devices as well as Spotify in our car, it's ridiculous to have to sign into different accounts on each device.

[ryanbeymer]

I had a premium duo account and an echo dot. My kids would want to listen to music and would stop my stream while I was working from home. We removed spotify from the echo dot and used pandora to work around but got tired of the ads and didn't want to pay for 2 services. 

Switched to amazon and used tune my music for seamless transfer of playlist and songs. 

[Flow]

Same here. That's the reason I canceled our Spotify account a while ago. What a shame. I prefer Spotify in every other regard over the competition but this "one stream per account" limiation is an absolute dealdreaker when you are into smart homes and smart speakers. 

[JJ177]

Yep I think I am hanging up the family account.  The whole point of the family account was that we would not change each others stream in the middle of listening, but with whole house audio and the inability to share a single account on the family plan, I think I am done here.  Sounds like amazon music works just fine in this regard.  Spotify the limitation should not be there for premium family accounts... we are not trying to steal service just have it work in our life the way we want it.

[hypnosiss]

I bought spotify family plan and disappointed. Does someone from spotify staff could replay on customer demands?

[Gtilux]

I have spotify premium and a 15 years old yamaha amp receiver (R-N301). It's spotify ready so it's network connected and stream music directly from Spotify, Currently I only use my phone as a remote control.

I would like to also play the same music on my phone in another corner of the same room (my phone would then be connected to a Bluetooth speaker but that is irrelevant). So I d like both devices (the yamaha amp and my phone) to be connected to Spotify at the same time and play the same music (without time lag between the two).
Is it possible?
I'm ready to take duo subscription if necessary.
Thanks