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Tangent, but I'm honestly interested in understanding how you use Spotify Connect and why you prefer it over bog standard Bluetooth or even a wired connection.

by beAbU 2y ago

Tangent, but I'm honestly interested in understanding how you use Spotify Connect and why you prefer it over bog standard Bluetooth or even a wired connection. I'm reading up on this M5 Audiocast product and I'm failing to see how it's anything other than allowing you to stream music to a device via WiFi in stead of Bluetooth. Extra dongle, cables, connections and yet another app for no benefit that I can see. Maybe I'm out of touch, but when I'm with friends or family, there's usually a speaker somewhere connected to a phone, and that phone is playing tunes. Someone is in charge of the phone and what is playing. Rarely do we care what is playing though because that's not why we are together. If someone wants to share a specific song they like with the group, they can either play it from the "DJ" phone, or just connect their own device to the speaker and play. Possibly I'm just a 34 year old boomer and I don't understand how the kids like to party these days.

pharos92 2y ago
No, honestly it's a great question. And I'm well past the age of big parties, I'm 18 months younger than you. With Bluetooth, the relationship is Phone streaming directly to the speaker. This places a full dependency on the phone and results in some major issues (IMO). - With bluetooth you're severely limited by range (between phone and speaker). If you wander off to the bathroom or other end of the house you'll most likely experience degradation, stuttering or disconnects. So your phone must be near the speaker at all times. - Bluetooth is taxing on phones, sacrificing battery life. - Bluetooth is painful to share with. Even on the Hyperboom Speaker that has 2x Bluetooth channels. You can't just hand over connectivity to someone else easily. Spotify Connect changes the relationship drastically and therefore experience. Your phone instructs the Audio Player (M5) to connect to Spotify directly, removing the dependency from your phone. Since the Audio Player will connect directly, this reduces load on your phone and you're free to wander off. It also allows anyone else with a Spotify account to take control of the connection without messy bluetooth disconnect/connect events. It's just better in all regards IMO.

by beAbU 2y ago

pharos92 2y ago

No, honestly it's a great question. And I'm well past the age of big parties, I'm 18 months younger than you. With Bluetooth, the relationship is Phone streaming directly to the speaker. This places a full dependency on the phone and results in some major issues (IMO). - With bluetooth you're severely limited by range (between phone and speaker). If you wander off to the bathroom or other end of the house you'll most likely experience degradation, stuttering or disconnects. So your phone must be near the speaker at all times. - Bluetooth is taxing on phones, sacrificing battery life. - Bluetooth is painful to share with. Even on the Hyperboom Speaker that has 2x Bluetooth channels. You can't just hand over connectivity to someone else easily. Spotify Connect changes the relationship drastically and therefore experience. Your phone instructs the Audio Player (M5) to connect to Spotify directly, removing the dependency from your phone. Since the Audio Player will connect directly, this reduces load on your phone and you're free to wander off. It also allows anyone else with a Spotify account to take control of the connection without messy bluetooth disconnect/connect events. It's just better in all regards IMO.