From job listings, it’s looking like Spotify are going to build their own hardware. Probably feeling the push from Apple (whose HomePod doesn’t support Spotify), Amazon & Google (who have hardware that supports Spotify, but who also have their own streaming music platforms).
Is this a good idea, or will they find that hardware is a bit more difficult than it looks?
It’ll be interesting to see, but I don’t think that the hardware side is the most difficult part.
If they go the “smart speaker” route, they’ll need to build their own voice recognition AI, unless they use Alexa, like some other speakers. But that wouldn’t make sense IMO, since they probably want to use the speaker to push their own product, whereas Alexa is a somewhat open ecosystem which also includes Amazon’s music offerings.
Looks like their first bit of hardware has leaked and might be free with a 12 month Premium plan.
It may have built in LTE and Alexa support.
If it’s that sort of device and had Bluetooth support… I’d be totally for it (assuming i could put any 4G sim in it), if it was locked to BT/EE wouldn’t work north of Perth…