Feature Request: Sonos Voice Play Different Spotify Streams in Different Rooms

@311Hokie,

It sounds like you perhaps need to use the Spotify Premium Family Plan… and add the multiple accounts to the Sonos App as mentioned in this support link:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/use-multiple-accounts-for-the-same-music-service

Unfortunately tried that and it doesn’t seem to help as you can only dedicate 1 Spotify account for voice to utilize. Perhaps if there was a way to link a Spotify account to the Sonos Voice  on each device that would do the trick but I see no way to do that.

Frustrating. 

So it doesn’t work if you specify the name of the music service? Examples…

• "Hey Sonos, play some music from John’s Spotify"
• “Hey Sonos, play some music from Jane’s Spotify"
• “Hey Sonos, play Genesis top tracks from Bob’s Spotify"

…or whatever names are given to each installed service?

SVC does not work through the Sonos or Spotify app.  It works directly on the speakers themselves.  Your phone can be turned off and SVC will still work.

I don’t use Spotify, so I am not familiar with the specific account types, but any restriction on how many many concurrent streams you can have is based on the service account, not a Sonos restriction.  I am guessing your family account allows 1 stream per family member (subaccount).  Perhaps SVC only works with the ‘main’ account setup with Sonos?  This sounds like the issue you’re having.  But I would check out specifically mentioning the subaccount you want to play on in the voice command as Ken suggested. 

I don’t see the voice command to specify account listed in support, but I don’t think support documents are fully updated yet.  If it’s not possible, that this absolutely makes sense as a feature request.

So the beauty of Sonos going back to the early days (and as I’m sure many of us know) is that through the app you can play different music from the same source in different rooms. 

I have a Spotify family account and one of the accounts is dedicated to my Sonos system. This allows me to use the app and play different music in different rooms and not have to worry about someone using that same account in their car/phone/etc.

Unfortunately, while you can assign multiple Spotify accounts to the app, this is really only helpful so individual users can access their playlists, liked songs, etc. when playing songs through the Sonos app through their Sonos speaker.

SVC allows you to assign a default music service however it defaults to a specific Spotify account, not just Spotify so no help there.

I also tried the suggestion to add multiple Spotify accounts (and not specify a default music source for SVC) and then asked my Sonos speakers to “Play x music from y Spotify account” but that didn’t work.

Thanks all for your great ideas. The saga continues...I guess this is a somewhat niche request however with young kids who only know how to play/control music by asking Alexa or Google, I think this would still be a wonderful feature to have.

So you have a Spotify account assigned to Sonos, and you are allowed to have multiple streams from this single account? (not using a Spotify app to create a stream with a different account)  If this is true, then I don’t understand how an SVC command would prevent multiple streams.  If you cannot play multiple streams with the same Spotify account, then an SVC command would not change that.

Yes - that’s the great thing about the Sonos app. If you use the Sonos app, you can play different music in different rooms from a single Spotify account. 

That doesn’t work if you play to a Sonos speaker via the Spotify app (Spotify connect I believe) and Sonos has documented to expect that. 

I was really hoping that SVC would work through the Sonos app allowing streaming of different music from the same source but alas no luck.

I don’t subscribe to Spotify, but instead use an individual Amazon Music Account (set as SVC default) and also have an Apple Music subscription. I can ask SVC to play music from either service by adding the name of the music service account at the end of the instruction - I would have thought that could also be done with the Spotify family accounts too - just add each Spotify account to Sonos from the users mobile device and include the name given to the account in the instruction - it should allow for up-to five different streams - 2 adults/3 children (I think🤔?) - I appreciate the one main Spotify account will be set as the default, but you should be able to play at the same time from the other accounts in the same way I can play simultaneously from Apple Music.

Got it. Yes unfortunately it doesn’t allow you to specify the Spotify stream to play from via voice, only the app (that I can make work at least).

It just delineates between service (iHeartradio or Spotify) but doesn’t appear to get down to the level of granularity to specify which Spotify account.

I don’t want to harp on semantics, but it’s important to realize that using the Sonos app does not mean playing audio through the Sonos app. The app is just a controller, nothing more. (The same way your TV remote is just a controller).  Likewise, SVC is just a method of control.  Whether you’re using SVC or the Sonos app, the speaker are doing the work of getting the audio, etc.  The speakers do not need the Sonos app up and running to play music.

So, your Sonos speakers can play different music from the same source (Spotify account).  The Sonos app has the ability to tell the speakers to do this.  SVC apparently does not have the ability to tell the speakers which Spotify account to use..