Spotify Rolls Out Its Own Smart Assistant in All Silence
Music streaming service Spotify is in the process of rolling out voice recognition for users of its mobile app. Reports from the US report this.
Spotify has been working on its own smart assistant since 2019, which was initially supposed to allow Premium users to start their music and podcasts in the car via the voice command ‘Hey Spotify’, via a separate piece of hardware.
That hardware, with the provisional name ‘Car Thing’, is not yet available, but the function was also partly expanded to the mobile app for Premium users last year. However, it seems to be rolled out more widely, although Spotify itself does not make any significant announcements.
Sites like GSM Arena report that Android users are getting a notification about the new feature. They are asked to give Spotify permission to access the microphone and then say, ‘Hey Spotify, Play my Favorite Song’. That would turn the feature on. The function also appears on iOS in several devices, forming a microphone button next to the search frame. It would show up there for both free and paid users.
Once the function is on and gets permission, you can control Spotify with your voice, the reports say. You can ask to play your favourite artist, pause, stop, skip songs and more. You can, of course, also turn off the permission.
It is not entirely clear at this point whether this is a gradual rollout or some sort of test for particular geographic regions. A brief survey on the editorial staff already shows that the app has not yet been expanded with a voting function.
