Can Spotify Connect be supported?

[alesch]

My guess is that Spotify has not added this feature to the library you are using.
I do not know whether its protocol has been reversed already.
Any thoughts on this?

[kingosticks]

Correct, it's not exposed in libspotify (the official library). But doesn't
the mpd architecture already give you this functionality? Or am I missing
something?
On 18 Mar 2014 00:13, "Alex Schenkman" notifications@github.com wrote:

My guess is that Spotify has not added this feature to the library you are
using.
I do not know whether its protocol has been reversed already.
Any thoughts on this?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/14
.

[kingosticks]

So I looked at this a bit more since I'd forgotten about Spotify Connect, was curious, and thought I'd share...

Spotify Connect is a whole bunch of stuff which essentially just separates the playback and control of spotify music. It enables "smart" playback devices (certain wireless speakers and amps) to stream directly from the internet rather than being fed audio from a (usually docked/wired) local source e.g. mobile device or computer. This makes it easy for Joe Bloggs to avoid using his cruddy phone/tablet speakers, draining his battery and interrupting his music with phone notifications. So there are a few parts to it:

• Internet streaming direct to the playback devices
• "Cloud based" session for seamless playback between devices
• Control of all these playback devices with the traditional spotify client

I'm assuming they are doing the control through UPnP/DLNA with the speakers/amp as a renderer and the spotify client as a controller. Looking at the two currently supported wireless audio chipsets (Venice 6.5 & JukeBlox 3), the only fancy stuff is the "direct to device" streaming capability.

All in all, it doesn't sound too dissimilar to what you can do with an MPD setup now - providing you can get the audio to the playback device. It also doesn't sound a world away from what you could do with some extra UPnP magic.

Saying all that ... what exactly do you mean when you say Spotify Connect support? Do you mean:

• Cloud-based sessions so you can seamlessly switch between playback through official spotify clients and through mopidy?
• Having "Connect enabled" speakers and amps automatically discovered and usable as "MPD outputs" in mopidy?
• Controlling mopidy through a spotify client as if it were just another "smart" speaker/amp.
• Something else entirely?

[ajcurated]

From my perspective I would much prefer to use the native Spotify interface and send tracks/playlists/albums to my Mopidy server to play then use any of the MPD clients / Web interfaces available.

So I would vote for point 3 being where I would like to see it implemented.

[u1735067]

I'd love to have this too :)
Use Spotify from my smartphone to control my Pi+speakers (through Pi MusicBox & Mopidy) as if it was an expensive smart speaker.

[jodal]

I recently asked a couple of Spotify engineers about Spotify Connect, with especial focus on part three: Controlling mopidy through a spotify client as if it were just another "smart" speaker/amp.

This is what I learned:

• The playing device (e.g. Mopidy) streams music directly from Spotify's servers. The controlling device (Spotify app on your phone) may be removed and the music will continue playing.
• Spotify Connect is entirely custom. It has nothing to do with UPnP/DLNA, Qualcomm Allplay, Chromecast's DIAL, or similar.
• Control is done through Spotify's servers, not directly over your local network.
• There is no special hardware required.
• Eventually there will be a public SDK for Connect functionality. Currently this SDK is only being distributed to Spotify Partners.
• Reverse engineering the protocol is supposedly quite hard, so we're recommended to sit tight waiting for the SDK.

Personally, I'm very interested in creating a Mopidy frontend for Spotify Connect when the SDK arrives.

[kingosticks]

I can totally confirm the last point. I spent a good while with wireshark
and got nowhere other than the broadcast done to advertise the service.
Good news they plan to release it.
On 10 May 2014 18:25, "Stein Magnus Jodal" notifications@github.com wrote:

I recently asked a couple of Spotify engineers about Spotify Connect, with
especial focus on part three: Controlling mopidy through a spotify client
as if it were just another "smart" speaker/amp.

This is what I learned:

• The playing device (e.g. Mopidy) streams music directly from
  Spotify's servers. The controlling device (Spotify app on your phone) may
  be removed and the music will continue playing.
• Spotify Connect is entirely custom. It has nothing to do with
  UPnP/DLNA, Qualcomm Allplay, Chromecast's DIAL, or similar.
• Control is done through Spotify's servers, not directly over your
  local network.
• There no special hardware required.
• Eventually there will be a public SDK for Connect functionality.
  Currently this SDK is only being distributed to Spotify Partners.
• Reverse engineering the protocol is supposedly quite hard, so we're
  recommended to sit tight waiting for the SDK.

Personally, I'm very interested in creating a Mopidy frontend for
Spotify Connect when the SDK arrives.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/14#issuecomment-42748374
.

[vizzah]

If you'd like to know more about Spotify Connect, check this out:
http://divideoverflow.com/2014/08/reversing-spotify-connect/

[LandonSchropp]

👍

[geekbleek]

I would love to see this functionality in mopidy!!