As an open video platform on the Internet, YouTube is an institution. The audio streaming service YouTube Music gets less attention. Can this be paired with Alexa at all?
YouTube Music can only be paired with Alexa in a roundabout way. (Source: YouTube)
While other tech empires such as Amazon and Apple were able to place their music streaming services very successfully on the market, Google struggled with its concept for a long time. Although the web group owns the video streaming pioneer par excellence with YouTube, the sister service YouTube Music is far from being in direct competition with the industry giant Spotify.
YouTube Music is of course available as an app in the Google Play Store, but also for iOS devices and as a web player for subscription customers. But what about compatibility with Amazon AI Alexa and associated devices such as the Echo speaker series?
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Can I connect YouTube Music to Alexa?
As a developer of its own smart hardware, Amazon is in direct competition with Google, whose Nest Hub devices also look suspiciously like Amazon’s Echo Show. It is therefore not surprising that YouTube Music does not appear under the Alexa-compatible services.
Conversely, Amazon Music is not listed among the music streaming services that can be played via smart Google hardware. So if you insist on YouTube Music, you should tend to equip yourself with smart Google hardware instead of relying on the incompatible devices from direct competitor Amazon.
So you can still play YouTube music on the Echo
Even if Amazon blocks the music streaming service from competitor Google from its Alexa network, you can still listen to YouTube Music on your Echo. While you can’t use the Alexa-linked, WiFi-based multi-room setup, it’s easy to connect to individual Echo devices directly:
Establish a direct Bluetooth connection between your playback device with YouTube Music and the desired Echo speaker. If you don’t know how this works, you can read about it in the linked Netzwelt instructions.
Stream YouTube Music to Fire TV via Third-Party
Although there is no official YouTube Music app for Alexa or Fire TV, on the latter you can install various software from third-party developers that promise to play YouTube Music on Amazon.
Since none of these offers have been tested by Netzwelt, no recommendation can be made for any of the apps for third-party YouTube Music at this point. At first glance, the apps offered do not appear to be fully compatible with most Fire TV devices. However, they can still be downloaded.
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