For those wondering what’s keeping me busy: I noticed that I’m not always able to connect to the speakers. I get that for my laptop, but the soundbar speaker seems to go offline after a period of inactivity. My spotify app does have the ability to turn it on but I believe that is due to it’s ability to see the speaker within my home network.
So… I’m trying to figure out when the device goes offline and whether or not I’m still able to see the device via the users available devices (Web API Reference | Spotify for Developers) or if I can force turning it on by transfering the playback to that device (Web API Reference | Spotify for Developers).
I’m having mixed feelings about if this will work or not. Last tuesday I’ve been playing around with the official app and had set up a few flows to start playlists on my soundbar. This worked all day, even hours after my initial test when I showed some friends that came over. However,… that wasn’t working anymore when I tried to do the same yesterday.
If anyone has any idea’s on how to tackle this, feel free to speak 
Besides looking into the API options I’m also going to check out the speakers settings. Maybe there are options to prevent it from turning of the wi-fi connection.
// edit [a few hours later]
Test results
- Device, if used by another Spotify account, is not available in the users available devices (Web API Reference | Spotify for Developers)
- If device is absent in the users available devices it’s not possible to play on that device nor is it possible to transfer anything to it
- After claiming back the device (using my iphone) it appears in my active device list and is controlable
- After turning off the device using the power button, the device stays available in my current devices and I am able to resume playing or to start a song / playlist.
Ladies and gentleman, let me introduce the issue: speaker takeover
I believe to have found what causes the issues on my end. Whenever somebody else at home uses Spotify and activates the speaker using the Spotify app, the speaker gets connected to their account and disappears from my list of active devices. Unless I use the app on either my phone, tablet or computer I cannot force Spotify to connect the speaker back to my account.
Is this a problem?
Well… yes. At least in my situation where multiple Spotify users connect to the device. If that’s the case in your home… expect this to be a problem from time to time.
Solution (now)
Use the app (phone, tablet, computer) to start playing via the same account that is connected to the Homey app. The devices gets active again and we’re back in business.
The native Spotify app on my iphone/macbook supports a “party” mode (jam or listening party I blieve) in which multiple accounts can control the player. This perhaps might be something that can be used to workaround this issue in the future. But that would still involve all people in your home, that can use the speaker, to select joining a party instead of taking over.
