Premium for Family: Amazon FreeTime limited to one device at a time

[azlan01]

Plan

Family

Country

 USA

Device

Echo dots, Android phones

My Question or Issue

I just upgraded to Family Premium (from Premium), and created spotify accounts for two kids.  I also added my kids to an Amazon Household and setup FreeTime.  The kids are trying to use spotify within their Amazon profiles and only one will play at a time (if the second device starts, the first one stops).  Alexa says: "Playing <song> in <child1's> spotify account", but I think it's really using the same spotify account through FreeTime sharing (i.e., my account).  How can I setup Alexa to use the kids' spotify accounts (so we can all listen to music at the same time)?

[Maxim]

Hey @azlan01,

Thanks for reaching out.

The only reason this could be happening is that both devices are using the same account.

I'd recommend making sure that the devices are logged into different accounts.

Let me know how it goes.

[azlan01]

Thanks for the reply.  I'm really at a loss here.  There are two adults and two children in my Amazon Household.  I've set up Amazon FreeTime, and I think what's happening is that I'm able to share MY spotify acocunt through FreeTime with my kids.  So when they play music on their dots, they're both using my spotify account (even though Alexa says "Now playing <song> on <child1's> spotify acocunt").  I can't find any way to configure Alexa to use the kids' spotify acocunts, rather than mine. 

How the heck do I set this up??

[Maxim]

Thanks for letting me know.

Is this issue happening with other apps which stream music/play radio as well? Or is it just Spotify where your account is being used instead of the accounts of your children?

I'll look into this issue further once you get back to me with the requested info 🙂

[azlan01]

Hi Maxim,

Thanks for getting back to me (again).  Spotify is the only non-Amazon family subscription that we have, so I don't other comparison points.  The fact that FreeTime lets me share *my* spotify account, and never provides me an opportunity to link my kids' Amazon accounts with their Spotify accounts, suggests that it may be working as intended (i.e., perhaps Spotify Family isn't supported by Amazon FreeTime).  I spent an hour on the phone with Amazon Customer Service and they weren't able to find a work-around.  I'm going to keep looking... and this continues to be hugely frustrating.  I'd appreciate any and all thoughts/help!

[Maxim]

Hey @azlan01,

Thanks for your patience!

Can you double check if it's possible to link each kid's Spotify account on each kid's Echo Dot through your Amazon app?

You'll also need to make sure that you've associated each Echo Dot with a profile and that you've linked your kids' Spotify accounts to each profile.

It could also be helpful if you post some screenshots of what you see. Make sure that no sensitive info is shown.

Let me know how it goes!

[azlan01]

Hi Maxim - thanks for trying to help.  Yes, each echo dot was associated with a profile.  WRT "you've linked your kids' Spotify accounts to each profile" - I think that's the crux of the issue - kid profiles within an Amazon Household aren't full-fledged Amazon accounts, and I never found a place where it was possible to link these kid profiles with their associated spotify account; all I could do was share my spotify account.

I've given up on this approach because I don't think at this time that Amazon FreeTime supports the Spotify Premium for Family Plan (I spent an hour on the phone with Amazon Customer Service and they didn't think it worked either).  

Instead, I've gone back to creating standalone (i.e., non Amazon Household) Amazon accounts for my kids and linked their Amazon accounts to their Spotify accounts.  This works for music and info use cases, but doesn't allow us to enjoy FreeTime, which is a bummer (I'm a huge Audible fan).  Note that I ended up using https://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html to link the accounts because the new-ish Alexa app kept throwing errors.  

Feedback for Amazon: please fully support Spotify Family within FreeTime, and the Android Alexa app needs some polish (laggy interface, unclear errors).

[Maxim]

It's possible that this feature is currently not available. I'd recommend adding your support to this idea and leave your feedback in a comment.

[Gsindberg]

I'm having this exact problem. This is a huge deficiency right now. My daughter's music playing on my Spotify is getting annoying. Why pay for family account then? Please work with Amazon to figure this out.

[Xenia]

Hey @Gsindberg,

Welcome to the Community!

If your daughter's Spotify account isn't linked to Alexa she won't be able to listen to her own music and it's your account that gets connected instead. You can read more about this in the Good to know section of this article. 

If you're interested in using voice commands for Alexa devices with different Spotify accounts, we'd recommend checking out this post and follow the steps as well as visiting Amazon's help page here.

We'd also suggest you add your +VOTE to the idea linked by @Maxim - it's the best way to provide your feedback for new features such as this one.

Hope you'll find this info useful. Give us a shout if you need help with anything else.