Spotify reportedly working on in-app voice controls

Notable app researcher Jane Manchun Wong has discovered that an internal build of the Spotify app features ‘Hey Spotify’ voice commands.

So far, the controls only work when the app is open, but the presence of this toggle suggests that the company might be working on a robust set of commands.

Spotify is working on “Hey Spotify” voice activation pic.twitter.com/PqZI01WZre

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) March 4, 2020

For example, being able to say things like, “Hey Spotify, pause,” to pause your music might be pretty handy if you’re listening to a song or a podcast on your phone and your hands are dirty.

There have been rumours in the past that Spotify is working on some kind of voice-activated device for cars, so this feature could be a way to teach people how to use the company’s voice controls before that features launches, if it ever does.

While this is exciting functionality for Spotify to be building in-house, it’s unclear how useful it will be since Amazon Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant can all already play music on Spotify through voice controls.

Source: Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane)