Streaming Spotify directly to a radio?

mcgriffo · 31 Jul 2015 at 10:24

Does anyone know of a radio or radio-like device which will stream Spotify directly and cut out the smartphone / tablet middle man?
I have a WIRED router and use powerline adapters and ethernet to provide network connections around the house. So, without wifi, the smartphone linking to a radio with a "connect" feature to play Spotify is not an option. So I guess I need a radio with a Spotify app on it?

Has this been invented yet?

snips86x · 31 Jul 2015 at 10:29

Bluetooth?

mcgriffo · 31 Jul 2015 at 11:22

Yeah, but you'd still be streaming the music via your phone, right?

Bluetooth would just be a means of sending it to the radio/player.

GinG · 31 Jul 2015 at 11:35

I have a Bose Soundtouch. You use a laptop/phone/tablet to choose the songs you want to listen to.

Alternatively there are 6 preset buttons of which you can program to playlists on spotify and then use the remote supplied to skip through tracks.

At the minute we have the wifes playlist, my playlist, an Acostic playlist created by Spotify & House Music playlist created by spotify.

El_Watcher · 31 Jul 2015 at 13:15

You need something that supports Spotify Connect like the SoundTouch that GinG mentioned. You would need a phone or tablet to actually control what is playing, but the streaming is done directly to the device, so even if you turn off the phone, the music keeps playing.

Connect does require Spotify Premium, so if you only have a free account, you can't.

tom_nieto · 31 Jul 2015 at 14:53

Sonos, squeezebox, spotify connect AV amp/stereo? Apple TV?

wizzard · 5 Aug 2015 at 11:46

I have a Roberts stream93i. Awesome little radio with spotify connect, internet radio, DLNA, USB, and DAB. the only thing it doesn't have is Bluetooth but with all the listening options it does have I have never missed it once.
I realise you don't have wifi in your home so quite handily it has a LAN socket on the back. At around £150 its not a cheap solution but I highly recommend it.

mcgriffo · 16 Aug 2015 at 13:59

I spoke to Roberts about that one. They said you can't STREAM Spotify directly to the radio via LAN or wifi - you have to stream it to iPhone, iPad etc (over wifi ) and Spotify Connect then links to your device and this plays it through the radio. So the radio is almost just acting as a speaker.

wizzard · 20 Aug 2015 at 23:51

it doesn't stream to the phone etc. you just control it with the phone/pc. say for example I wanted to listen to an album, I find it with the spotify app press play select spotify connect option and it streams to the radio. once its playing I can turn the phone off and it will continue to play on the radio. even when I'm at work if the radio is on standby I can still use spotify connect to play stuff on the radio at home.

what you cant do with the radio is browse the spotify library it has to be told what to play using the spotify app or spotify player on a pc. I may not have explained it very well but I hope I have helped

wjfcomputers · 21 Aug 2015 at 13:00

wizzard said:
it doesn't stream to the phone etc. you just control it with the phone/pc. say for example I wanted to listen to an album, I find it with the spotify app press play select spotify connect option and it streams to the radio. once its playing I can turn the phone off and it will continue to play on the radio. even when I'm at work if the radio is on standby I can still use spotify connect to play stuff on the radio at home.

what you cant do with the radio is browse the spotify library it has to be told what to play using the spotify app or spotify player on a pc. I may not have explained it very well but I hope I have helped

How do you control it with your phone if he doesn't want wifi? Do you have an Ethernet port on your phone?

Jim99 · 21 Aug 2015 at 13:18

Don't know if there's a Spotify app for squeezebox, but if so a Radio / Touch would do the job.

FerretBoy · 21 Aug 2015 at 13:32

wjfcomputers said:
How do you control it with your phone if he doesn't want wifi? Do you have an Ethernet port on your phone?

3/4g ofc

Spotify connect is the simplest solution.

mcgriffo · 8 Sep 2015 at 14:50

Aggghhh... back to square one. Roberts Radio have just tested the "Smart phone 3G/4G" connection with Spotify Connect on one of their radios and it did not work. The Spotify Connect icon actually disappears. Then they directed me to a paragraph on the Spotify help page which says "for Spotify Connect to work, ALL devices must be on the same WI-FI network".
All I want to do it stick the ethernet cable into a small, kitchen friendly, device and stream/control Spotify!!!! Is it too much to ask with no WI-FI??????

FerretBoy · 8 Sep 2015 at 18:49

I use spotify connect and I do not have to have to be on wifi. Can do it from any location on any network. For example on 4g. Can see and control both my pc and amp.

wizzard · 8 Sep 2015 at 19:10

FerretBoy said:
I use spotify connect and I do not have to have to be on wifi. Can do it from any location on any network. For example on 4g. Can see and control both my pc and amp.

yeah I used to regularly put prince on really loudly at random times for the mrs (she hates him) whilst out of the house using spotify connect on cellular data.

mcgriffo · 8 Sep 2015 at 20:54

Yeah, I've since read something else on a Spotify FAQ which does promote this method. So do Roberts just not know what they are doing/talking about or is it a case of it not working on THEIR devices? I'm thinking of getting one and just trying it - can always take it back to the shop.

FerretBoy · 9 Sep 2015 at 07:38

I'd try it. Each device with spotify connect appears to register itself with spotify. Thus there is no local network lookup, it is all done via the central registry.

mcgriffo · 10 Sep 2015 at 13:51

Ok... I LANed up the radio and ran the Spotify app on the radio itself - it sticks at "waiting for user". Then, I put an ethernet in the iPhone so they were both on the same network - radio app FINDS me. I'm playing Spotify via the radio, turned the phone off, Spotify still works via radio. I disconnected Ethernet (on the phone) and controlled the PHONE app via 4G, the LAN supplied radio obeyed my 4G driven phone commands - without any apparent use of the cellular data (to stream the music).
My final test will be, when the radio is completely powered down and then back up, do I have to go through the whole phone/ethernet process again so they are all linked to the same network (to begin with).

mcgriffo · 10 Sep 2015 at 14:27

I think we have success!! It appears just as FerretBoy says... once you have done the one-time link (using the ethernet cables etc), the RADIO is then centrally registered with your Spotify ACCOUNT. So, you just select that as the player when you run your cellular data driven app on the phone and the music starts streaming through the radio (obviously the radio is still on the LAN).
And Roberts said it can't be done.... they almost talked themselves out of a sale there.

wizzard · 10 Sep 2015 at 19:52

you could have used spotify connect on the pc player to link the radio to your account too.

I'm glad you finally gave it a shot as I knew it was the kind of thing you were after. don't forget the internet radio side of things on it, loads of podcasts and all sorts in there.