Can multiple Echo Dots do this?

July 7, 2023 12:20 PM

I'm considering getting an Echo Dot but would get two if it can do what I'm imagining, which is playing audio consecutively between devices, not simultaneously.

Every morning I listen to something while in the shower and then in my room while finishing getting ready for the day, on different floors in the house. It used to be the NPR app but I'm really trying to only listen to podcasts now (I use Spotify), better for my mental health, but it may occasionally still be the NPR app. Right now I just carry my phone from room to room which is fine, but I wonder if I could improve this not just for convenience but also sound quality.

I'm imagining one Echo dot (gen 5) in each room and in this futuristic scenario I could tap one to start and pause, then move to the other room to tap to start the same audio source where it left off. Since we don't have Black Mirror style personal digital clone copy house management assistants yet I'll have to be actively part of the process I think.

I can't figure this out from searches, all I'm seeing is instructions for how to use multiple at the same time. I definitely want the shower one to turn off when I move to the other room for general household courtesy.

Any ideas as to whether this would be possible?

Also I've never had anything Alexa-enabled and am not sure how it works with Spotify. Can you just use the Spotify app on the phone to select what you're going to listen to?

Thanks in advance!

posted by mireille to Technology (6 answers total)

Best answer: I do this often with the Google nest, like:

ok google - play podcast A on bathroom speaker.
Ok google, stop
Ok google, play podcast B on living room speaker

Will play the latest ep of a podcast, stop it, then resume where I left off in the other room.

I’d be very surprised if the Echo doesn’t have equivalents!
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:33 PM on July 7, 2023

Best answer: I've just tested, and the command that seems to work is 'move the audio here'. That brought a Spotify playlist from the device I started it on to another one somewhere else, mid-song. (Don't know if it's Spotify specific, but I don't think it would be.)
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 12:36 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Generally you can say “Alexa, pause” to one device and then “Alexa, resume [Spotify/my podcast/my audiobook/whatever]” to another and it will pick up where you left off. And yes, you can control it from the Spotify app.
posted by staggernation at 12:40 PM on July 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Excellent, thanks all!
posted by mireille at 3:20 PM on July 7, 2023

Best answer: Oh, and Spotify - yes. Spotify the app will treat your echo devices as speaker outputs and you can select which one to play to. The app lets you select what to play and queue things up and will send it where you tell it to.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 4:58 PM on July 7, 2023

It also does the simultaneously thing interchangeably in apps that support its version of multi-room audio, including Spotify. Which I use for listening to podcasts, mostly. You can associate Echo devices with rooms, and then create different sets of rooms; e.g. "whole house" or "inside" or "upstairs" etc. instead of just a particular room — not necessarily everywhere.

It doesn't work as well as Sonos, to the extent I've played with Sonos at other people's places; but it's usable. If you want to pipe arbitrary audio into it from a physical device (rather than an app that supports it) you need an Echo Link.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:45 PM on July 11, 2023