Amazon Echo Club

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

The individual plan says it is for all your devices. Can you stream to multiple devices at the same time? If I have music playing in the bedroom and forget to turn it off, will I be able to listen in a different room?

Edit: every other plan has a link to learn more.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

The individual plan says it is for all your devices. Can you stream to multiple devices at the same time? If I have music playing in the bedroom and forget to turn it off, will I be able to listen in a different room?

Only one device may play music at any one time. In order to play on multiple devices at the same time, you need to get the family plan.

If you have music playing in one room and move to another room to play, you'll be asked if you want it disconnected it in order to listen in the new room.

[tubemonkey]

Uh-oh, this doesn't look good. It's one of the conditions for getting Amazon's family plan. I don't like the requirement of sharing the billing credit/debit card with everyone in the plan.

Amazon Music Unlimited FAQ

Are Family Plan accounts shared?

Accounts are not shared and there is no common family profile. Each family member has an Amazon account with personalized recommendations.

Who pays for the Family Plan?

The person who signs up for the Family Plan is the subscriber and pays $14.99/month or $149/year (available to Prime members only) using a payment method like a credit or debit card. This payment method is then shared across the family members who join.

What is a "shared payment method"?

A shared payment method is a credit or debit card that one family member agrees to share with each family member on the Family Plan. This payment method can be used to purchase items on Amazon. The first time a physical purchase is made on the shared payment method, family members are asked to enter the full card number for verification. Digital purchases do not require this step. After a family member makes a purchase, the subscriber of the Family Plan will receive an email listing the items that were purchased on the shared payment method.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Only one device may play music at any one time. In order to play on multiple devices at the same time, you need to get the family plan.

If you have music playing in one room and move to another room to play, you'll be asked if you want it disconnected it in order to listen in the new room.

Well that sucks.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Uh-oh, this doesn't look good. It's one of the conditions for getting Amazon's family plan. I don't like the requirement of sharing the billing credit/debit card with everyone in the plan.

Amazon Music Unlimited FAQ

In some ways, this makes sense since it is a family plan. I guess Amazon thinks one can trust family.
Though as long as you have one click turned off, you can add a different credit card.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Only one device may play music at any one time. In order to play on multiple devices at the same time, you need to get the family plan.

If you have music playing in one room and move to another room to play, you'll be asked if you want it disconnected it in order to listen in the new room.

If the device has storage (computer or tablet) then you can play that downloaded music any time. Streaming is restricted to one device at a time. One can imagine that their costs are largely proportional to the number of simultaneous streaming sessions, so this makes some sense.

With Spotify, the Windows Phone app is not cloud-aware so you can stream that and another device. But it stopped working for me a couple of weeks ago (endless 'Loading....' messages), I think following the latest Windows Insider update (my Lumia 640, which cost all of $35, is just for playing around with, so if things don't always work, okay, they don't work).

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Uh-oh, this doesn't look good. It's one of the conditions for getting Amazon's family plan. I don't like the requirement of sharing the billing credit/debit card with everyone in the plan.

Amazon Music Unlimited FAQ

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Well that sucks.

That is bad on so many levels. I'm not surprised Amazon screwed the pooch again, though. They seem to do that a lot.

Not really related, but I tried to go through Prime Video and select a bunch of holiday movies and shows to watch on my FireTV. I selected several and placed them in my Watchlist. I was using my computer as it is easier to search and select things to watch using it. Later I went to my TV and FireTV and verified the movies made it to my Watchlist. They did, that is good. But most of them had a label stating that Amazon does not currently have the rights to stream this movie. WTF! Why list the @#$%ing movie and allow it to be selected if you cannot actually watch it. Another pooch got screwed. And good grief, there are a lot of old black and white holiday movies that they want to charge several dollars to rent or $15 to buy! I could go to Walmart and pick those up on DVD for a couple of bucks.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jswinden

That is bad on so many levels. I'm not surprised Amazon screwed the pooch again, though. They seem to do that a lot.

Not really related, but I tried to go through Prime Video and select a bunch of holiday movies and shows to watch on my FireTV. I selected several and placed them in my Watchlist. I was using my computer as it is easier to search and select things to watch using it. Later I went to my TV and FireTV and verified the movies made it to my Watchlist. They did, that is good. But most of them had a label stating that Amazon does not currently have the rights to stream this movie. WTF! Why list the @#$%ing movie and allow it to be selected if you cannot actually watch it. Another pooch got screwed. And good grief, there are a lot of old black and white holiday movies that they want to charge several dollars to rent or $15 to buy! I could go to Walmart and pick those up on DVD for a couple of bucks.

WT...!? That's asinine! Unreal!

I was going to get the Echo plan but changed to the Family plan when other family members expressed interest in a music plan.

There are only two plans to consider when getting a paid subscription for the Echo - Music Unlimited and Spotify. They're the only ones compatible with the Echo. On a monthly basis, they both cost the same, but on a yearly basis, Amazon gives you two months free. The problem is that pesky credit card thing that I'm not too thrilled with.

Time to get a banana daiquiri and do some serious thinkin'

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

WT...!? That's asinine! Unreal!

I was going to get the Echo plan but changed to the Family plan when other family members expressed interest in a music plan.

There are only two plans to consider when getting a paid subscription for the Echo - Music Unlimited and Spotify. They're the only ones compatible with the Echo. On a monthly basis, they both cost the same, but on a yearly basis, Amazon gives you two months free. The problem is that pesky credit card thing that I'm not too thrilled with.

Time to get a banana daiquiri and do some serious thinkin'

Can you use a Visa gift card as the shared payment method?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Can you use a Visa gift card as the shared payment method?

You might be able to, but you'd have to keep reloading it if you get the monthly plan because it's the billing card. Then you'd have to deal with the fees these cards carry.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

You might be able to, but you'd have to keep reloading it if you get the monthly plan because it's the billing card. Then you'd have to deal with the fees these cards carry.

I didn't think gift cards had fees. I know pre-paid cards have a lot of fees.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I didn't think gift cards had fees. I know pre-paid cards have a lot of fees.

Visa gift cards have fees and they can't be reloaded.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

There are only two plans to consider when getting a paid subscription for the Echo - Music Unlimited and Spotify. They're the only ones compatible with the Echo. On a monthly basis, they both cost the same, but on a yearly basis, Amazon gives you two months free. The problem is that pesky credit card thing that I'm not too thrilled with.

I agree, being able to stream to the Echo is an excellent feature. The other thing I like is using the computer browser to control playback. So, even though Amazon Music looks nice, I went with Spotify. The other deciding factor was getting student pricing, but even without that, I would get Spotify, for my husband's sake. I like the interface, too, but he won't use a phone or tablet, so this works better.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Such as?

Threaded conversations. And Google is just smarter than Alexa; many times when Alexa doesn't know an answer my phone does.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by wodin

Threaded conversations. And Google is just smarter than Alexa; many times when Alexa doesn't know an answer my phone does.

I don't know why Amazon won't beef up Alexa's knowledge base. It's not like it can't be done.