Spotify search to kill you

[Fernand]

I used to love the voice command Search on the Model 3's sound system. It might not find exactly what you wanted, but it would always find and play a plausible choice. That was in Slacker.

I got Spotify for $10/mo, hoping for better audio quality, and more choices. But ...

Searches are now unusable. I can specify "on Spotify" in the voice command, as in "Play Moby on Spotify". But then I always land on a Spotify page that requires keyboard input. While driving !? The car's Spotify interface is so much more arcane than on a smartphone, or a computer, that it seems designed to distract and kill you.

Am I missing something? Any chance of improvement before I cancel my subscription?
.

 

[sightman]

Agreed the Spotify app on the car is lacking and far inferior to the phone app.

 

[lolder]

The world needs less continuous music and more critical thinking.

 

[glide]

I used to love the voice command Search on the Model 3's sound system. It might not find exactly what you wanted, but it would always find and play a plausible choice. That was in Slacker.

I got Spotify for $10/mo, hoping for better audio quality, and more choices. But ...

Searches are now unusable. I can specify "on Spotify" in the voice command, as in "Play Moby on Spotify". But then I always land on a Spotify page that requires keyboard input. While driving !? The car's Spotify interface is so much more arcane than on a smartphone, or a computer, that it seems designed to distract and kill you.

Am I missing something? Any chance of improvement before I cancel my subscription?
.

Exactly the reason why I installed an Echo Auto in my car. The voice commands are actually reliable and I have access to Spotify, Audible, and SiriusXM

This is a Tesla issue, not a Spotify issue.

 

[Phlier]

I used to love the voice command Search on the Model 3's sound system. It might not find exactly what you wanted, but it would always find and play a plausible choice. That was in Slacker.

I got Spotify for $10/mo, hoping for better audio quality, and more choices. But ...

Searches are now unusable. I can specify "on Spotify" in the voice command, as in "Play Moby on Spotify". But then I always land on a Spotify page that requires keyboard input. While driving !? The car's Spotify interface is so much more arcane than on a smartphone, or a computer, that it seems designed to distract and kill you.

Am I missing something? Any chance of improvement before I cancel my subscription?
.

That has been my exact experience, too. Before I got my Spotify account, I loved how I could just press the right thumb button, say, "Play x by y" and it would do it. I was expecting the same functionality when I "upgraded" to a Spotify premium account. Pretty disappointing.

No workaround that I've found yet, other than third party solutions. Think we might just have to wait for Tesla's programmers to get around to giving the Spotify app some love.

 

[CyberGus]

The world needs less continuous music and more critical thinking.

Is it too much to ask for both?

 

[DDHEverything]

I find the voice functioning commands to be pretty bad all things considered. It isn't great with Spotify, can get it to call people maybe 1 out of 10 times and it doesn't seem to recognize car commands like "turn heat up" or "I am cold," etc... But while we are ragging on Spotify, how hard is it to link Spotify accounts to Tesla profiles?

 

[PoitNarf]

Probably a software bug on a recent version. What version is currently installed on your 3?

Btw I've been reading a few rumors on the Tesla subrebbit of a Spotify interface re-write/update coming in the near future, likely with V11.

 

[karbomusic]

I've not had any issues, seems to work quite well here. I tend to say "Spotify play x by y" and it nails it almost every time even for stuff I thought might be obscure.

 

[android04]

I used to love the voice command Search on the Model 3's sound system. It might not find exactly what you wanted, but it would always find and play a plausible choice. That was in Slacker.

I got Spotify for $10/mo, hoping for better audio quality, and more choices. But ...

Searches are now unusable. I can specify "on Spotify" in the voice command, as in "Play Moby on Spotify". But then I always land on a Spotify page that requires keyboard input. While driving !? The car's Spotify interface is so much more arcane than on a smartphone, or a computer, that it seems designed to distract and kill you.

Am I missing something? Any chance of improvement before I cancel my subscription?
.

Why do you have to specify "on Spotify" with the voice command? I've never had to do that when I had Spotify Premium. I would just tell the car to play "X" and it would on Spotify as long as they had it. Also works for albums or artists.

 

[Fernand]

It doesn't matter if I specify "on Spotify" or not, the search sux either way.

Today I wanted Amadeus' 40th and 41st symphonies. But searches would always land me on pages requiring keyboard entry, or browsing through albums. A couple of times it played the Requiem, so for a moment I thought maybe Falco OD'd before recording 40 and 41. But after pulling over on the side of the Autobahn and futzing with the screen I found lotsa 40 and 41. It's like Spotify is unable to match anything but an exact substring, and failing that, the Search tries to draw you into interaction, to kill you. At best you have to tap on lots of stuff.

Anybody know if there's a Spotify Settings page anywhere? If you could set "Normalize Volume" and environment "Loud", you could get a little compression to deal with the M3's road noise.

Playing from the Spotify app on a phone over Bluetooth sounds a little better. It's noticeable, if the car isn't moving. And that ditches any chance at voice control, and we're back to Spotify's search, which is messy on all platforms, and incompatible with driving. In the end, Slacker doesn't seem to sound a lot worse, and is easier to use.

@glide The Echo Audio duplicates a lot of M3 functionality, and has some really heartfelt "POS" reviews. Can you give more detail? What phone do you use it with, how linked, etc?
@PoitNarf my M3 has 2020.36.11.

As to the M3's voice recognition in general, it's been fine for me. All of my search pleas are correctly rendered into English text. And dictating text messages works pretty well too. It's true that trying to phone people is a form of anger management roulette, but it's not the voice recognition itself that's failing, it's the abysmal Tesla phone app.
.

 

[hydro 481]

Do you have an accent?

 

[glide]

It doesn't matter if I specify "on Spotify" or not, the search sux either way.

Today I wanted Amadeus' 40th and 41st symphonies. But searches would always land me on pages requiring keyboard entry, or browsing through albums. A couple of times it played the Requiem, so for a moment I thought maybe Falco OD'd before recording 40 and 41. But after pulling over on the side of the Autobahn and futzing with the screen I found lotsa 40 and 41. It's like Spotify is unable to match anything but an exact substring, and failing that, the Search tries to draw you into interaction, to kill you. At best you have to tap on lots of stuff.

Anybody know if there's a Spotify Settings page anywhere? If you could set "Normalize Volume" and environment "Loud", you could get a little compression to deal with the M3's road noise.

Playing from the Spotify app on a phone over Bluetooth sounds a little better. It's noticeable, if the car isn't moving. And that ditches any chance at voice control, and we're back to Spotify's search, which is messy on all platforms, and incompatible with driving. In the end, Slacker doesn't seem to sound a lot worse, and is easier to use.

@glide The Echo Audio duplicates a lot of M3 functionality, and has some really heartfelt "POS" reviews. Can you give more detail? What phone do you use it with, how linked, etc?
@PoitNarf my M3 has 2020.36.11.

As to the M3's voice recognition in general, it's been fine for me. All of my search pleas are correctly rendered into English text. And dictating text messages works pretty well too. It's true that trying to phone people is a form of anger management roulette, but it's not the voice recognition itself that's failing, it's the abysmal Tesla phone app.
.

I have an iPhone. It’s linked through BT. The only caveat is you must set the Tesla to the phone input as if you were streaming from your existing phone. Never had any problems with it working.

If you are comfortable with the Alexa interface then it should suit your needs.

I think I paid $25 when they released it. Not a huge gamble IMO and you can return anything from amazon if you don’t like it.

 

[Mattopotamus]

Why do you have to specify "on Spotify" with the voice command? I've never had to do that when I had Spotify Premium. I would just tell the car to play "X" and it would on Spotify as long as they had it. Also works for albums or artists.

Likewise, and I guess I am lucky because the voice search works 99/100 times for me. The app definitely could be improved though, and podcast need to be baked in. I know you can create a playlist and put your podcast in there as a work around, but I have been using tune-in so I can listen at 1.5x the speed.

 

[Fernand]

Do you have an accent?

What kind of "accent"? Southern US? No. New Yawk? No.

No, the problem is not at all with the voice recognition. It's
Spotify's search. Same as on a computer, it can only directly
find something on an exact match on part of the search string to
a "song". Otherwise it demands interaction. So if you search for
a pop song exactly you will get a hit, but if anything doesn't match
exactly, it gives you choices or says not found, and you get the
keyboard.

To be useful while driving Spotify Search needs a smarter way to
always start with a trial hit and then easily let you refine it using
voice or steering wheel buttons. It seems that Slacker has a way
to do it by approximation. And because the road noise makes high
quality audio irrelevant - in fact you can hear compressed volume
better - and you can't even set the quality level on Tesla Spotify, I'm
losing faith in the $10/mo usefulness. The $10/mo on Tesla Premium
Connectivity is a great deal, and you get Spotify over cellular included.

.

 

[Mattopotamus]

What kind of "accent"? Southern US? No. New Yawk? No.

No, the problem is not at all with the voice recognition. It's
Spotify's search. Same as on a computer, it can only directly
find something on an exact match on part of the search string to
a "song". Otherwise it demands interaction. So if you search for
a pop song exactly you will get a hit, but if anything doesn't match
exactly, it gives you choices or says not found, and you get the
keyboard.

To be useful while driving Spotify Search needs a smarter way to
always start with a trial hit and then easily let you refine it using
voice or steering wheel buttons. It seems that Slacker has a way
to do it by approximation. And because the road noise makes high
quality audio irrelevant - in fact you can hear compressed volume
better - and you can't even set the quality level on Tesla Spotify, I'm
losing faith in the $10/mo usefulness. The $10/mo on Tesla Premium
Connectivity is a great deal, and you get Spotify over cellular included.

.

Wait, can you use your Tesla login for the Spotify app on the car? I specifically pay for Spotify just to use it in my car.

 

[Occar]

Wait, can you use your Tesla login for the Spotify app on the car? I specifically pay for Spotify just to use it in my car.

No. The free option is Slacker or whatever they rebranded it to. You have to supply your own Spotify account. That said, I’ve never had any of the problems this person is reporting so it certainly isn’t a universal issue.

 

[Mattopotamus]

No. The free option is Slacker or whatever they rebranded it to. You have to supply your own Spotify account. That said, I’ve never had any of the problems this person is reporting so it certainly isn’t a universal issue.

Thanks that is what I thought. His comment about premium connectivity and getting Spotify included confused me.

 

[JBT66]

Mine voice command “play x” never plays anything either always pops up the option to click on a bunch of items I’ve got to read through. It always did great before Spotify, now it’s a hazard and it’s easier and safer to pick up my phone and use that.

 

[pianomankd]

The world needs less continuous music and more critical thinking.

Don't listen to Progressive Rock music then!