Spotify Connect: disable “over the air” access

[Rudi Rocket]

Hi,


I discovered a - at least for us - unwanted behavior of Spotify connect with the WiiM Amp.

Spotify Connect works even OUTSIDE the local WiFi network.

How we found out? Friends of us were playing music remotely from their home via Spotify Connect to our living room. That was kind of fun to find out, but definitely something we want to turn off.

I could repeat the same behavior when switching off all local connections on my phone. I could not access the WiiM Amp - as expected - but I was able to use Spotify Connect to stream music to the WiiM Amp. While it was possible with the WiiM device, it was not with our Sonos device - as expected. Tidal Connect did not work without a local WiFi connection as well.


If this is a special Spotify Connect X WiiM Amp Feature - how can I turn it off? If its a bug, please solve! Thanks!

We are incredibly happy with the WiiM Amp in all other aspects great device!!

Cheers!

WiiM Amp with FW 5.0.709965 (latest)

 

[hgo58]

Hi,


I discovered a - at least for us - unwanted behavior of Spotify connect with the WiiM Amp.

Spotify Connect works even OUTSIDE the local WiFi network.

How we found out? Friends of us were playing music remotely from their home via Spotify Connect to our living room. That was kind of fun to find out, but definitely something we want to turn off.

I could repeat the same behavior when switching off all local connections on my phone. I could not access the WiiM Amp - as expected - but I was able to use Spotify Connect to stream music to the WiiM Amp. While it was possible with the WiiM device, it was not with our Sonos device - as expected. Tidal Connect did not work without a local WiFi connection as well.


If this is a special Spotify Connect X WiiM Amp Feature - how can I turn it off? If its a bug, please solve! Thanks!

We are incredibly happy with the WiiM Amp in all other aspects great device!!

Cheers!

WiiM Amp with FW 5.0.709965 (latest)

As discussed in several other threads, this is a Spotify issue. Nothing special for WiiM.

See e.g. thread 'Disable internet/remote access?' https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/disable-internet-remote-access.6583/

 

[Burnside]

As discussed in several other threads, this is a Spotify issue. Nothing special for WiiM.

See e.g. thread 'Disable internet/remote access?' https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/disable-internet-remote-access.6583/

Yip - it's a Spotify issue, nothing to do with WiiM. Google "spotify randomly plays" and see the results

 

[Rudi Rocket]

… thanks for the hint. But I still don’t see why our Sonos device is not affected and WiiM is?

I would agree that , I.e., Tidal as a streaming provider figured it out better than Spotify. But Sonos apparently compensated the issue on the device side. In my opinion the right way if Spotify is known for the issue.

I would even argue that the device should be the one protecting you from outside interactions. But that’s just my opinion among many.. How do you see that?

 

[jfbuk]

How we found out? Friends of us were playing music remotely from their home via Spotify Connect to our living room. That was kind of fun to find out, but definitely something we want to turn off.

You are misunderstanding the issue a bit. The reason they can send audio to your Wiim is because at some point they were on the same network as your Wiim and sent audio from their own Spotify account.
I believe you would have the same issue with your Sonos if they had sent it audio whilst on your network.
Its a "feature" of Spotify accounts and how they manage their spotify connect targets.

 

[Rudi Rocket]

You are misunderstanding the issue a bit. The reason they can send audio to your Wiim is because at some point they were on the same network as your Wiim and sent audio from their own Spotify account.
I believe you would have the same issue with your Sonos if they had sent it audio whilst on your network.
Its a "feature" of Spotify accounts and how they manage their spotify connect targets.

I can confirm that the “remote” control behavior is only replicable for the WiiM. The Sonos device seems protected from “remote” access.

I tried to remote access both devices - turning off WiFi and Bluetooth and connecting to the mobile network only. Only the WiiM is accessible through Spotify Connect.

FYI: we use the Sonos now for several years and never experienced a similar issue. The WiiM is new.

 

[Burnside]

You are misunderstanding the issue a bit. The reason they can send audio to your Wiim is because at some point they were on the same network as your Wiim and sent audio from their own Spotify account.
I believe you would have the same issue with your Sonos if they had sent it audio whilst on your network.
It’s a "feature" of Spotify accounts and how they manage their spotify connect targets.

I recall our last conversation on this, but also have a niggling memory of a mention/screenshot of a Spotify Connect idle timeout setting in some other kit (maybe Bluesound or Sonos) that the Spotify Connect API supported, but that not all third parties implemented.

As I suggested then, it might be prudent to raise a ticket asking if they could implement such a timeout, or a means of a WiiM device dropping all active Connect connections.

 

[jfbuk]

This was a known issue with Sonos too

Remote control of my SONOS from Spotify from user 4 miles away | Sonos Community

My daughter was round our house for Xmas and used her Spotify, on an iPhone 6S, to create a playlist over my SONOS Play:1. The next day, when she was at her own house, 4 miles away, she was trying to use her Spotify to play over her own Bluetooth speaker, unfortunately my Play:1 started up on...

en.community.sonos.com

but I can't test (nor do I want to) whether the issue persists.

Did you actually read around the issue on the net ?

 

[Burnside]

I can confirm that the “remote” control behavior is only replicable for the WiiM. The Sonos device seems protected from “remote” access.

I tried to remote access both devices - turning off WiFi and Bluetooth and connecting to the mobile network only. Only the WiiM is accessible through Spotify Connect.

FYI: we use the Sonos now for several years and never experienced a similar issue. The WiiM is new.

Has anyone else previously used Spotify Connect to your Sonos, or just before you did that test?

It also has been suggested that if you were to use Spotify Connect to that device after they initially had while at yours and before they tried remotely that that might break the remote connection. So that might explain why you didn’t experience it previously on Sonos.

As I suggested above, if there is indeed a Spotify Connect Idle Timeout setting in the Spotify API, then raise a ticket to WiiM and ask them to investigate implementing that. It could well be the case that Sonos have implemented that as I vaguely recall seeing an image of some piece of kit having a setting like that, but can’t find it again.

 

[jfbuk]

The Sonos implementation for Spotify is also different to Wiim. It does not fire up the full Spotify Android/IOS client as the Wiim does. You can control playback within the Sonos app

 

[Burnside]

The Sonos implementation for Spoify is also different to Wiim. It does not fire up the full Spotify Android/IOS client as the Wiim does. You can control playback within the Sonos app

Yeah, and doesn’t its implementation somehow get round the one stream per account limitation that other devices have? Sounds like a third party implementation of the Spotify API rather than a pure Spotify Connect implementation

 

[Rudi Rocket]

Hi all,

Thanks for the fruitful discussion - I am now really intrigued by the secret workings of the remote access.

I tried a bunch of stuff and I can definitely tell you that - no matter what I tried - I …

… NEVER succeeded to access the Sonos remotely by Spotify Connect
… I ALWAYS managed to access the WiiM remotely by Spotify Connect, as long as there has been at least one local connection before

My Workaround: I will set up a private and a guest network in my router to solve that issue. (And not share the access outside the family)

My Opinion: I highly recommend WiiM to fix the issue on their side, since this behavior will be most likely linked to the device experience not the provider experience by the average customer. Especially if a strong competitor like Sonos manages this kind of access control.

That said, I am still very happy with the overall performance of the WiiM! Beautiful piece, incredible audio and smooth Software.

Happy Monday!

 

[jfbuk]

I'm still intrigued by your Sonos experience which is at odds with my own

I tried the following: to try and emulate a similar situation

Android phone
Wifi enabled and connected to my home network
Opened the Spotify Android client and selected a Sonos speaker as a Spotify Connect speaker
Audio played as expected on the Sonos speaker

I then disabled wifi on my phone

5 mins later I can still select Sonos and playback
45 mins later I can still select Sonos and playback
3 hours later I can still select Sonos and playback

 

[Burnside]

I'm still intrigued by your Sonos experience which is at odds with my own

I tried the following: to try and emulate a similar situation

Android phone
Wifi enabled and connected to my home network
Opened the Spotify Android client and selected a Sonos speaker as a Spotify Connect speaker
Audio played as expected on the Sonos speaker

I then disabled wifi on my phone

5 mins later I can still select Sonos and playback
45 mins later I can still select Sonos and playback
3 hours later I can still select Sonos and playback

Doesn’t appear to have a timeout, not under three hours anyway.

I just created a second, free Spotify account on my phone and Connected to my WiiM Mini using WiFi, then Connected again over the internet after turning my WiFi off. I then Connected using my original Spotify account using WiFi from my iPad and it also Connected to my Mini. I then killed the Spotify app on my phone and re-opened it while its WiFi was off, and it could no longer see any devices on my home network.

I’ll maybe re-run that test later without killing the phone app as I’m not sure what cleared the remote access - me using my iPad or me killing the phone app…