Children, Spotify Family, Multiple Google Devices and Family Link Problems

[Mike_B_9999]

Reposting as advised by a mod to this forum. 

So.  Got a hub and a couple of mini nests to support music in multiple rooms simultaneously.  

Have a Spotify family account. 

How it appears, is that I cannot link individual spotify accounts created for the kids under children accounts within google to the various voice matching.  

With the family link app, there isn't an option to link a different account to that children's profile.  So all of devices can only link to one Spotify account.  

The functionality I'm trying to achieve is the my spotify account on the hub, and the kids spotify accounts on their individual nest minis, all playing different music at the same time.  I also want all the parental controls. 

As a result, I have to create individual 'adult' accounts for each child, and assign them as 'adult' family members to work around the issue.  

As such, I lose all of the parental controls for the assistant.  

Did I miss something?

[kiltguy2112]

What accounts did you use for the kids accounts with Spotify? It should have been the same accounts (email addresses) you created with family link. Don't use the Spotify kids account make it a regular account (lie about their age). After they are in your family in Spotify turn on the explicit filter. It should now work with voice match. This works well for my family because my kid at 7yr hated the Spotify "baby music" anyway. If you are determined that they only have Spotify kids, you out of luck. If you set them up with regular Spotify accounts, you can sign into them and "like" appropriate songs. Spotify will keep feeding they same kind of content to those accounts.

[GothamNY]

Fibbing about age is probably not the best solution. Some parents care about how their children's data is collected and marketing that can occur with that fib, opening yet another Pandora's Box. It also potentially (actually it does) violate standards that online services must follow under COPPA. Just sayin'. 😉

[kiltguy2112]

While I agree with you, that is how to "make it work", because most of the Tech companies paint parents into a corner with simply usability and blame COPPA, instead of just not tracking those accounts. I believe it's on purpose so you have no choice but to create trackable accounts for your kids. Again if you want the usability this is what your forced to do.

[GothamNY]

Perhaps, but as a badged user, we should probably focus on supporting the products as intended to be used, limitations and restrictions notwithstanding. Encouraging behavior or providing solutions that violate the terms of use for the forum or content providers is not useful.

[TechRebel82]

Yes and i have gone through 13 emails and almost the same amount of devices and several of my accounts were locked due to policy violations

[GothamNY]

Yes, I'm sure -- it's not pretty and not a lot of fun when that happens. It's usually a random crackdown without notice and one loses everything, even the use licenses purchased. It's best not to tempt fate. 😉  As for workarounds and having your phone rooted, there's always a backdoor somewhere.

[TechRebel82]

They took over my device by rooting my phone remotely and creating a family link account under my default email. Then made themselves the parent of the account

[NC99]

Hi, I have the exact same issue as Mike B 9999. 

There doesn't seem to be a resolution here, rather a debate on kids privacy etc., which, by the way, are fair points, but not an answer to the question.

The question is,  as Mike put it, how can this be achieved? How, using the Google home app and separate Google nest Minis,  can my son play music from his Spotify account while my daughter plays music from her separate Spotify account at the same time?

Regards,

NC.

[kiltguy2112]

No, it cannot be done "legally" with any of the current music services. Not Spotify, not YouTube Music, Apple Music.... None of them want to offer music for your kids without tracking them. COPPA is not the problem, the companies have made a stand that if they cannot track kids they won't offer it. 

[GarrettDS]

Hey folks,
It looks like we haven't heard back from the OP so I'm going to go ahead and lock the thread. If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to create a new thread.

Have a great day,
Garrett DS