Amazon’s Echo speakers have a ton of smart capabilities, but until recently, playing music from any service other than Prime Music required telling the device which service to use each time. Now, users may have noticed an option to set Pandora or Spotify as its default music player. If you have one of the Alexa-connected devices, then you can go into its control app on the web or a mobile device and look under settings to switch the default away from Amazon. Once it’s set, just talk normally to the speaker, “Amazon/Alexa play (artists/song/etc.)” and it will play from the proper service.
The option has apparently been available for a few weeks, with some users noticing its appearance as early as May. There’s a full list of supported commands for Spotify available on its website, while Pandora has more limited instructions here. It shouldn’t take long to get used to either way, and can provide a few tunes to play in between Prime Day shopping binges.
Amazon Echo Voice Commands
Spotify on Amazon Echo lets you control your tunes using your voice!
Just say, “Alexa!” and then…
Start Playing
- “Play [song name]”
- “Play [song name] by [artist]”
- “Play songs by [artist name]”
- “Play music composed by [composer]”
- “Play from Spotify”
- “Play [Discover Weekly] playlist”
- “Play [genre]”
Controls
- “Pause” pauses the currently playing track.
- “Stop” stops the currently playing track.
- “Resume” continues playback.
- “Mute” mutes the speaker.
- “Play Spotify” plays Spotify from where you left off.
- “Next song/track” or “Skip this song/track” skips the current track.
- “Previous” returns to the last track played.
- “Shuffle” enables Shuffle mode.
- “Unshuffle” or “Shuffle off” disables Shuffle mode.
- “Volume [1-10]” sets the volume from 10 to 100%.
- “Volume up/down” turns volume up or down.
Queries
- “What song is playing?” Alexa will tell you the song/artist that’s playing.
- “Who is the artist?” Alexa will tell you the artist for the current track.
- Spotify Connect
- “Spotify Connect” or “Connect Spotify” enables Spotify Connect.
