How to play music from your phone on your Alexa speaker
Alexa Cast lets you send Amazon Music from their phones to speakers.
In the never-ending game of cat and mouse, Amazon released a new feature for Alexa to compete with the likes of Google Cast and Apple AirPlay. The feature, aptly named Alexa Cast, lets users pick music on their phone and send it to a connected Alexa speaker of their choice.
There is a catch, of course. Alexa Cast only works from within the Amazon Music app. Here's how to set it up.
How to set up and use Alexa Cast
Setting up and using Alexa Cast is a breeze. First, you will need to download the Amazon Music app from the App Store or Google Play, then:
- Log in to your Amazon account.
- Find a song or playlist you want to listen to and select it to begin playing.
- Swipe up from the music preview (a circular icon showing the album art) to reveal all of the music controls.
- Tap the button in the lower right of the play controls window (it looks very similar to the Google Cast icon).
- In that menu, select an Alexa speaker or a Multi-Room Music group.
The music should begin playing through the selected speaker or group, which also means you will also be able to control playback using your voice with commands like "Alexa, next song," or "Alexa, volume down."
If you want to stop playing through the selected speaker or play music through your phone again, open Amazon Music once more, open music controls, tap the Alexa Cast icon, and select Disconnect next to the currently selected speaker.
How to use Spotify Connect
Spotify has had a similar feature, called Spotify Connect, that works with connected Alexa speakers for quite some time now. Best of all, if you've already connected your Spotify account with your Amazon account, Spotify Connect is already set up and ready to be used.
Like with Alexa Cast, open the Spotify app and choose some music to play. Open the music controls and tap Devices Available at the very bottom of the app. In the menu that appears, select one of your speakers or speaker groups.
