Amazon Echo Auto Not Playing Spotify – How to Fix

Echo Auto is the latest Amazon Echo release and it is intended for your vehicle. For a while now, we’ve all enjoyed Alexa at home, in our living rooms, in our kitchens, even in our front door cameras. With Alexa, checking the temperature, setting the alarm, or even playing music, is incredibly easy.

With Echo Auto, you can finally take Alexa on the road with you. You can get traffic and weather reports in real time, and play your favorite tunes. But what if Echo Auto refuses to play your customized Spotify playlist? Also, find out more about this great device.

Echo Auto and Spotify

Many Echo Auto users are experiencing problems with playing music and podcasts through Spotify. While not a critical malfunction, it sure can be annoying if your smart assistant refuses to play your favorite tune when you’re in the middle of a traffic jam.

Even if Spotify works on every single Echo device that you own, it may happen that it won’t work on Echo Auto. The worst part – a known solution doesn’t exist, although Amazon claims that their developers are working hard with Spotify on solving this issue. Maybe Amazon is not the only one to be blamed here.

Of course, you can try all the troubleshooting strategies you know, but if your Echo Auto refuses to work with Spotify, it might all be for naught. You can try to unpair and then pair your Echo Auto to your smart device. You can even try disabling and re-enabling Bluetooth on both devices.

Chances are that even if you reboot both devices and reset their networks, you won’t be able to enjoy Spotify. The best course of action is to move to another streaming platform until Amazon and Spotify sort this one out.

More Than a Commodity

With Alexa devices, such as Echo Dot and Echo Show, Amazon aims to make everyday things easier and less time consuming. You could check your email on your smartphone, change that TV channel using the remote, play that song on YouTube, and get up to take a peek through the peephole.

Instead, we’ve slowly gotten used to telling Alexa to check these things for us, resorting to devices to make our already super-comfortable lives even comfier.

Echo Auto, however, isn’t merely about convenience and commodity. Sure, it definitely makes certain things easier, but everyone knows that when you’re behind the wheel, your eyes are best kept on the road and hands on the wheel.

What’s the Difference?

If you can, theoretically, connect any Amazon Echo device to a power source inside a car (and you most certainly can), then why all the big fuss about Echo Auto? Well, first of all, some Echo devices are simply too robust and inconvenient for a vehicle. Even the more compact devices don’t make a perfect fit for most cars.

Secondly, and even more importantly, road noise and the howling wind when you’ve got your windows rolled down actually impede on Alexa’s ability to hear you.

Echo Auto is tiny (no larger than a few matchboxes stacked together) and can easily fit your vehicle’s interior, wherever you put it. It features an array of eight microphones, enabling Alexa to hear you even if you’re doing 100mph on the freeway with the windows rolled all the way down.

The Features

In addition to having an eight-mic array and being extremely compact, Echo Auto can also connect to an AUX jack in your vehicle, meaning that it can also serve as a Bluetooth adapter and a speakerphone. This enables you to safely stream music and make and receive calls without taking your hands off the wheel.

It also has a 3.0A charging port if you want to charge your phone while driving and a powerful 12V adapter. The sticky dash mount that ensures your Echo Auto device doesn’t move or fall off is washable, which is truly a convenient feature. At the promo price of $25, the device is more than worth it, based on the Bluetooth adapter feature alone.

Whether you use Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, TuneIn, or any other streaming service, Echo Auto can play whatever you desire in a matter of seconds.

When Not to Go with It

Echo Auto is a great addition for most mid-range vehicles. However, the smarter your car is the less you’ll actually need Echo Auto. Why? Well, if you already have a smart car with a voice assistant that you’re used to, you might not want Echo Auto messing with it.

Additionally, Echo Auto depends on your phone’s connection, so you have to think about possible connectivity issues when pulling out of your driveway, when you hit a dead zone or, even worse, when you drive by a free Wi-Fi network.

If your car already has top-notch smart navigation, it might do a better job than Echo Auto. While pretty solid, it can forget a saved location from time to time, even when the connection is solid.

When to Get It

The best way to describe Echo Auto is “a tool that helps your car be smarter.” This means that, if your car isn’t already smart, Echo Auto will give you a brilliantly close experience to it. It does have certain issues and it may feel a bit clunky here and there but, overall, it is a fantastic device for a non-smart vehicle.

Despite the occasional location issues, Alexa will plot the ideal course for you most of the time and things will work seamlessly. If it fails, well, you can always find your route manually. If you already have a high-end smart driving assistant in your vehicle, it might outperform your Echo Auto.

Echo Auto

If you don’t own a high-end car that already comes with all the smart technology that you need, Echo Auto will likely be a great addition to your four-wheeler. It does have its quirks and issues, but these will likely be ironed out as time goes by.

Have you tried the Echo Auto? How do you like it so far? Do you have problems with streaming music from Spotify? Hit the comments section and join the discussion.