What happened to voice commands on Spotify?
Spotify is one of the world’s most popular music streaming services, with over 456 million monthly active users as of 2022. When Spotify first launched in 2008, it revolutionized music listening by allowing users to stream millions of songs on demand. Over the years, Spotify has continued to innovate, integrating with various voice assistants to allow hands-free music control.
Voice commands have become increasingly popular in recent years, with the rise of virtual assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, and Cortana. Music streaming services like Spotify were quick to capitalize on this trend, introducing voice control features as early as 2016. Users could ask their voice assistant to play songs, albums, artists, and playlists simply by speaking.
The Rise of Voice Commands
Voice command features first came to Spotify in 2015 when the company introduced the ability to control music playback through Siri on iOS devices. Users could say commands like “Hey Siri, play Spotify” to start music playback or “Hey Siri, next song” to skip tracks using Spotify as the default music player (source).
This allowed iPhone users to control Spotify playback through Apple’s voice assistant Siri. However, it required having the Spotify app open on the device already. The Siri integration marked Spotify’s first foray into the emerging world of voice technology.
Spotify’s Voice Command Features
When Spotify first launched voice commands in 2019, users were able to control various features through voice interactions (Spotify Support). Key aspects that could be controlled by voice included:
Playback Controls
Users could use commands like “Hey Spotify, play” or “Hey Spotify, pause” to start and stop playback hands-free (GroovyPost). They could also skip tracks, replay songs, shuffle playback, and adjust volume levels through voice.
Searching
Voice commands enabled users to search for artists, albums, tracks, playlists, and podcasts on Spotify. Saying “Hey Spotify, play music by [artist]” or “Hey Spotify, play [song]” allowed hands-free searching and queueing up of content (How to Use Spotify).
Recommendations
Users could access Spotify’s recommendations simply by saying “Hey Spotify, play me something I like” or “Hey Spotify, play the Discover Weekly playlist.” This provided hands-free access to personalized recommendations.
The Removal of Voice Commands
In July 2022, Spotify quietly removed voice commands from its mobile apps on iOS and Android devices without any formal announcement (reference). This feature, called “Hey Spotify,” allowed users to control music playback and navigate the app hands-free using voice commands. With a simple utterance of “Hey Spotify,” users could play, pause, skip tracks, adjust volume, like songs, and more.
According to users on Reddit and Spotify’s own community forums, the “Hey Spotify” wake word stopped functioning in the Spotify app around July 18th, 2022 (reference). Though Spotify did not make an official announcement, they confirmed the removal of voice commands when asked by users. The change impacted both free and Premium Spotify users across iOS and Android devices.
Why Were Voice Commands Removed?
There are a few key reasons why Spotify decided to remove voice commands from their mobile apps. According to a Spotify community forum post (source), one major factor was lack of usage. Voice commands like “Hey Spotify” simply weren’t being leveraged by enough users, so Spotify decided to discontinue the feature and focus their resources on developing other more widely used aspects of the app.
Reddit threads (source) also point to Spotify prioritizing new features over voice. With limited development resources, supporting voice commands likely took a back seat to rolling out options like podcasts, playlists, Canvas, and more immersive artist profiles. Voice just wasn’t a core priority for the company anymore.
While some users were frustrated by the removal, the data seemed to show that voice commands were more novelty than essential feature. By streamlining to focus on the most popular parts of Spotify, the company aimed to deliver a better overall user experience long-term.
Impact on Users
The removal of voice commands on Spotify has caused much frustration among users. Many have expressed anger on forums like Reddit and Spotify’s own community over the abrupt disappearance of a feature they found convenient and helpful.
In particular, the removal of voice controls negatively impacts users with accessibility needs. For those who have difficulty manipulating a phone screen or pressing buttons, voice commands allowed them to easily control music playback hands-free. As one user wrote on the Spotify community forum, “I have cerebral palsy and I rely on voice commands for most things. This is a real kick in the guts for disabled users.”
While Spotify has said the change is temporary as they develop a new voice strategy, they have offered no timeline for when voice controls might return. In the meantime, users who relied on the feature for accessibility feel abandoned and ignored by the company.
Alternative Voice Assistants
With the removal of Spotify’s own voice command features, users have turned to third-party voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri to control Spotify hands-free.
To use Spotify with Amazon Alexa, users need to enable the Spotify skill in the Alexa app and link their Spotify account. Once connected, Alexa can be used to play, pause, skip tracks, adjust volume, and more using just voice commands (Source). Alexa support provides Spotify access to Alexa-enabled devices like Amazon Echo speakers.
Google Assistant also allows control of Spotify playback through voice commands after linking accounts in the Google Home app. Users can ask Google Assistant to play music, playlists, podcasts and more from Spotify. Google Assistant is available across Google’s own smart speakers and displays as well as many third-party devices.
Apple devices running iOS 13 or later can use Siri to control Spotify as well. Commands like “Hey Siri, play my Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify” will work without any special account linking required. However, Siri’s Spotify integration is more limited compared to Alexa and Google Assistant.
While these voice assistants provide hands-free control, they lack the full capabilities that Spotify’s own voice features once offered. Still, for basic playback commands, they provide an alternative option alongside the touch controls in the Spotify apps.
Spotify’s Current Voice Strategy
While Spotify no longer offers voice commands for music playback and navigation, voice technology remains an important part of the platform’s strategy. In recent years, Spotify has focused its voice efforts into two key areas:
The first is voice-enabled advertising. In October 2022, Spotify launched voice ads on its platform, allowing brands to target listeners using interactive audio advertisements. These ads enable listeners to verbally respond to prompts and questions, making for a more engaging ad experience. Voice ads represent a new advertising format for Spotify as it continues to find ways to monetize its platform.
The second focus area is voice previews for podcasts. In February 2023, Spotify introduced AI-generated voice previews for podcast episodes on its platform. These short audio previews use AI to summarize the content of a podcast episode, allowing listeners to get a sense of what it’s about before diving in. The voice previews aim to improve podcast discoverability and engagement on Spotify.
While direct voice control of playback may be gone for now, voice technology remains a key pillar of Spotify’s product strategy through voice ads and podcast discovery features.
The Future of Voice on Spotify
While Spotify has scaled back its voice capabilities recently, there is potential for enhanced voice features in the future. The company likely removed broad voice controls to focus on improving accuracy and capabilities within restricted domains like Spotify Car Thing. With advancements in natural language processing, Spotify may eventually relaunch voice commands that provide robust functionality across services.
As technology improves, Spotify could enable voice commands for music discovery and playlist creation. Users may be able to ask for personalized recommendations or create playlists tailored to specific moods, activities or preferences through voice alone. More conversational voice capabilities would provide added convenience and accessibility.
However, Spotify is likely proceeding cautiously given previous challenges with wide-domain voice control accuracy. While the potential remains, Spotify seems focused on enhancing voice features for restricted use cases rather than broad commands. The company will need to see substantial improvements in natural language processing before launching flexible voice features across its platform.
Conclusion
Although Spotify removed its own native voice control features in 2019, voice capabilities may return to the platform in the future. Spotify likely removed voice commands to streamline its app and focus on more widely-used features. However, voice control remains popular for music apps and assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa allow some voice control of Spotify.
Spotify appears committed to voice interactions, given partnerships with voice assistants and automotive integrations. While native voice commands are currently unavailable in the Spotify app, the company may bring back more robust voice capabilities once underlying technology improves. With advances in speech recognition and AI, Spotify voice features could return to provide users with intuitive hands-free music control. Voice is a natural interface for music that aligns with activities like driving, exercising, or multi-tasking. As such, Spotify will likely prioritize voice innovations as the technology matures over time.