Spotify to roll out a ‘Hey Spotify’ feature for some users

If you’re used to saying “Hey Siri” or “Hey Google” to launch features, Spotify is cooking up a wake phrase you might like.

The phrase itself isn’t particularly surprising: it’s “Hey Spotify.” According to GSMArena, it started rolling out to some users on Android, showing up via a notification.

If you tap on it, you’ll be prompted to give Spotify permission to record audio on your device. After you do that, you’ll be able to invoke Spotify with phrases such as “Hey Spotify, play The Beatles.”

The feature can be turned off and on in the app’s Settings, where you can also choose the voice Spotify will use to speak back to you.

Spotify started testing this feature a year ago, but it was only available to a small subset of users. I wasn’t able to access it on any of my devices, so it doesn’t seem to be globally available yet.

Spotify already has a voice search option in the U.S., which allows users to issue voice commands. The “Hey Spotify” prompt essentially invokes the voice search while the Spotify app is open, and when the screen is on.

As for how useful it really the new feature really is, that remains to be seen. Spotify is integrated with AI assistants such as Google Assistant and Siri and can be invoked through them, so invoking it directly doesn’t add any new functionality. It’s possible, however, that Spotify will add new features later.

Spotify’s voice search feature first launched back in 2019 for users on Spotify Premium and evidence of the Hey Spotify wake phrase was spotted as early as March 2020.