Help Fixing Echos and Spotify Under Multiple Accounts

Configuration
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Problem: I cannot allocate Spotify profiles between my family members and unique Echo devices.

Here’s an overview of what I have done:

  • have a Spotify premium account
  • created a Spotify developer account and shared the app with each member in family
  • successfully linked Spotify and HA along with each of the Spotify members
  • enabled the HA skill in Alexa
  • paired my echos to HA through the HASC Alexa music integration
  • correctly configured 2FA with Amazon
  • have nabu casa trial setup / linked

Here’s what happens:

  • I can successfully create an “integration” within HA that plays Spotify from any echo I select. When I do so, HA successfully plays Spotify from the selected account - great. However, echo devices only show for the member I linked within Alexa app - they disappear for everyone else.

Why this matters/what I want:

  • I want a series of integrations that I can configure that each member in my house gets to listen on their own Spotify account on their own echo
  • Example: three people wake up at 5:30am, person A’s echo plays their playlist on their echo, person B’s echo plays their own playlist on another echo, and person C’s echo plays their playlist on a third echo

Why I think this is broke:

  • I can only pair echo devices to one amazon account in the Alexa app. If I link the skill to another Amazon account, they disappear from the previous account I just linked (note: devices stay “registered” in Amazon to the original member)
  • Alexa app does not work for teenagers (I have two); even if I could solve the echo’s disappearing when relinking accounts, I have no way to link echo’s to people within the Alexa app - therefore no echo’s show for my teenagers when trying to play a Spotify playlist within an “integration”
  • I have tried creating the same “integration” by creating another HA account (e.g., for spouse), but the same issues arise. I really do think it’s on Amazon’s side when attempt to link the HA skill in Alexa - that’s when everything goes wrong. Again… I need to do this for teenagers and teenagers don’t have access to the Alexa app…

Note: I may be using the term “integration” wrong; read as routine executed by a trigger

Disclaimer: I am COMPLETELY new to HA but I have done a substantial amount of research, am decently tech savvy, and cannot figure out how to solve this - please help before I give up on HA before I even start with it. I was so hopeful this was going to be better than Alexa… If I cannot play multiple playlists for different users on different echo’s HA won’t work for me and all the other benefits are irrelevant. I appreciate your help

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I’m working through what you wrote… Do you have an Amazon / Alexa Family set up?

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Thanks for the help! Yes, I have an amazon household

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Define what you mean by ‘dissappear’ where?

Exactly how. Did you set each member up with their own integration between ha and Spotify?

(yes use of the term integration was incorrect earlier but you’re also correct on the actual term automation, so im reading that in my head)

I think im tracking the question, let me try to reproduce

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By disappear I mean they no longer show on the spouses Alexa app. To clarify, in the Spotify desktop app, once I link the echo’s to my spouses account, I am no longer able to chose to “move” that music from the app - stop playing on my desktop and move to living room Echo. The only option that shows is my desktop instance. If I log into Spotify under my spouses account, they allow show and operate correctly. This is essentially an Alexa app issue by being able to pair echo’s to a single person.

The result in HA is that I can chose any one of my Spotify accounts as one of the fields, as well as the Echo (paired under my spouse’s account), but HA gives me an error saying that it cannot find that Echo device.

Regarding the linking - yes, each person has permission to the developer app in Spotify. I then went through HA to connect that email address to HA (linking Spotify profile and HA)

Thank you for your patience with my inaccurate terms. I apologize this is a complex scenario to describe - especially as a newbie to HA.

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Update: I have been able to solve the issue where mine and my spouses Spotify accounts are separated. Now it comes down to the ability to link my teenagers accounts when Amazon does not allow them to have access to their own Alexa app. Appreciate any thoughts for work arounds.

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How did you get that part going so I can stay in sync.

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In the Alexa app, you are supposed to create profiles for each family member. However, this was the issue that prevented additional members from being able to link the Spotify app. Once I logged on with my personal Amazon email into the Alexa app, I was finally given the option to link Spotify - note, members must be assigned to an Amazon household. This was a big step forward.

I feel stuck now though because teenagers cannot have access to Alexa app (Amazon policy). So there is no way I can “continue” this solution for my kids to link their spotify accounts. This means I only have 2 out of 4 accounts linked. Any ideas for work arounds?

Thanks again for the help!

1 Like
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Negative. The teens are where I hang up as well. But I don’t have any in my household so I don’t have that issue.

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@Griz12, you did a fantastic job articulating this problem. I have had the same problem for several years and haven’t found a good solution either.

Things I have tried:

  • Setting up each teen’s Echo with their own account that isn’t identified as a teen account. This let me attach their Spotify account to their Amazon account and then see their device as a Spotify destination in their account. However, I then lost the ability to drop in and make whole house announcements to everyone. This was a showstopper because we use that functionality more than me wanting to automate a playlist or song to the kids’ rooms.
  • Using Spotify Connect. For example, I go into my son’s room and tell his Echo, which is tied to my Amazon account again, to “Alexa Spotify Connect”. This then makes his Echo visible to the Spotify app on his phone. He can play music from the app AND it allows the Spotify integration to specify a source parameter that matches the name of that Echo. This works great…until it doesn’t. For whatever reason Spotify loses that source name after some amount of time. Usually within a day. I’m guessing there is some sort of time out. I really would like this solution because it preserves all the Echo’s being on my account and the whole house drop in and announcement functionality but then would present certain Spotify Connect source names to everyone’s specific Spotify accounts. Alas, I haven’t figured out how to make the Spotify Connect sources persistent.

Hoping someone sees this thread that has some additional ideas. Ultimately I’m very encouraged by the work on the Year of the Voice as I can see a future where I can just get rid of the Echos and replace them with ESP or Pi based alternatives that will be able to be persistent destinations for the Spotify feed…or maybe that is wishful thinking because maybe the core problem is on the Spotify side. The documentation does state that:

The Spotify API cannot initiate playback to a device not already known to the Spotify API

So if Spotify can no longer see it, Home Assistant isn’t going to see it either. Makes me wish there was a way to push an update to the Spotify API that keeps those sources refreshed.

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I ended up doing a little more digging this evening. There is a Spotify API call to query for the list of devices but there doesn’t appear to be a way to add a device to that list. Seems like there are several threads in their community site complaining about this lack of functionality.

The documentation on querying for devices is here: Get a users available devices - Web API Reference | Spotify for Developers

I tried it with my account and got this in response:

{
  "devices": [
    {
      "id": "bb2f0c3c824426590d5650c791edf33fdde5ba59",
      "is_active": false,
      "is_private_session": false,
      "is_restricted": false,
      "name": "NSISLP2505",
      "type": "Computer",
      "volume_percent": 74,
      "supports_volume": true
    },
    {
      "id": "b4250b36-faa0-4cc3-b711-4fe090ce3fd4_amzn_2",
      "is_active": false,
      "is_private_session": false,
      "is_restricted": false,
      "name": "Everywhere",
      "type": "Speaker",
      "volume_percent": 32,
      "supports_volume": false
    },
    {
      "id": "b4250b36-faa0-4cc3-b711-4fe090ce3fd4_amzn_1",
      "is_active": false,
      "is_private_session": false,
      "is_restricted": false,
      "name": "Kitchen",
      "type": "Speaker",
      "volume_percent": 32,
      "supports_volume": false
    }
  ]
}

The Kitchen device is there now because I used it yesterday, but I expect it to disappear at some point.

What is interesting to me is the Everywhere device, which from the ID name seems to be pushed in from Alexa. I checked Alexa and can modify this Everywhere device. That made me think that maybe I could create additional “groups” that only had one Echo in them so that I could get these to show up. No dice. The Alexa app won’t allow you to create a group with only one Echo in it.