Question for some of you technical guys/gals out there. We use music in our space and currently run the music off Apple TV. We’ve tried Amazon music, Spotify, etc. We are trying to figure out a solution to put music on a timer and then pick up where it left off, i.e. ends at 6pm and starts at 8am. Problem is every tablet I use and app seems to have a mind of it’s own and eventually the music stops and needs someone to manually put it back on. Does anyone have constant music playing and if so what technology do you use, i.e. app, tablets, etc. Thanks in advance!
We have this issue too, though we play all of our music through Sonos which is hands down the best investment I’ve made in playing music at Indy Hall. It hooks into just about every streaming service I’ve wanted to use, and even lets you link multiple accounts from the same service so members can contribute playlists & such. The mobile software to control it is pretty bad, but the desktop software works great.
That said - the issue you’re describing though is often less with the device, and more with the source. Even if you set up timers and alarms, most “streaming” services like Spotify, etc is that they use playlists which eventually end, or they have licensing that is designed to turn off automatically so they don’t pay for plays of the music that a typical consumer-style customer isn’t listening to cuz it kills their margins.
Even if you create custom playlists that last the full stretch from 8am-6pm, there’s a good chance that the service will stop paying at some point if the software thinks the device is idle.
One of the best alternatives I’ve found is using a digital radio stream, like any of the channels at http://somafm.com which are all listener supported so commercial-free. Another similar option is to find a local public radio affiliate that has limited commercials and plays variety mixes throughout the day. Our local favorite is http://www.xpn.org but you likely have something similar - ask around your community to see what people like!
-Alex
···
On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 9:11 PM, Jeran Fraser [email protected] wrote:
Question for some of you technical guys/gals out there. We use music in our space and currently run the music off Apple TV. We’ve tried Amazon music, Spotify, etc. We are trying to figure out a solution to put music on a timer and then pick up where it left off, i.e. ends at 6pm and starts at 8am. Problem is every tablet I use and app seems to have a mind of it’s own and eventually the music stops and needs someone to manually put it back on. Does anyone have constant music playing and if so what technology do you use, i.e. app, tablets, etc. Thanks in advance!
–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Coworking” group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.
Better Coworkers: http://indyhall.org
Weekly Coworking Tips: http://coworkingweekly.com
My Audiobook: https://theindyhallway.com/ten
We’ve done something similar with Sonos at Cowork Frederick. We found that most streaming services get repetitive after a couple hours, so we use Sonos alarms to change the station every 2 hours, plus have music automatically start at 7am and end at 7pm M-F. The iPad app is better than the phone app, in my opinion. For some streaming services like Pandora, they will time out after a few hours if you’re on a free plan, pretty rarely on a paid plan. I find Tune-In stations run into network congestion (theirs, not ours) around 3pm for some reason and start to stutter or timeout. Switching stations every few hours also helps prevent the idle timeout. And going back to my Philly roots, we end our Fridays with the 5-7pm Funky Friday programming on XPN. You might want to check out kxt.org from Dallas/Ft Worth for an interesting mix as well. They’re listener supported like XPN, so send them a few bucks to keep them on the air if you listen.
Sonos timer hack if you want hands-free music on one station all day: the alarm interval has a “no limit” setting, plus people sometimes manually choose stations throughout the day. To make sure it turns off at 7pm, we have an alarm set with a “15 minute” duration (the shortest interval offered) that plays at 6:45pm. The station and volume are different enough that it works like a pre-closing heads-up to let people know it’s getting late. We thought about creating a playlist of closing-time themed songs just for fun, but haven’t followed through with it yet.
Glen Ferguson
Phone: 301-732-5165
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://www.coworkfrederick.com
Address: 122 E Patrick St, Frederick, MD 21701
···
On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 10:30 AM, Alex Hillman [email protected] wrote:
We have this issue too, though we play all of our music through Sonos which is hands down the best investment I’ve made in playing music at Indy Hall. It hooks into just about every streaming service I’ve wanted to use, and even lets you link multiple accounts from the same service so members can contribute playlists & such. The mobile software to control it is pretty bad, but the desktop software works great.
That said - the issue you’re describing though is often less with the device, and more with the source. Even if you set up timers and alarms, most “streaming” services like Spotify, etc is that they use playlists which eventually end, or they have licensing that is designed to turn off automatically so they don’t pay for plays of the music that a typical consumer-style customer isn’t listening to cuz it kills their margins.
Even if you create custom playlists that last the full stretch from 8am-6pm, there’s a good chance that the service will stop paying at some point if the software thinks the device is idle.
One of the best alternatives I’ve found is using a digital radio stream, like any of the channels at http://somafm.com which are all listener supported so commercial-free. Another similar option is to find a local public radio affiliate that has limited commercials and plays variety mixes throughout the day. Our local favorite is http://www.xpn.org but you likely have something similar - ask around your community to see what people like!
-Alex
–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Coworking” group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.
Better Coworkers: http://indyhall.org
Weekly Coworking Tips: http://coworkingweekly.com
My Audiobook: https://theindyhallway.com/ten
On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 9:11 PM, Jeran Fraser [email protected] wrote:
Question for some of you technical guys/gals out there. We use music in our space and currently run the music off Apple TV. We’ve tried Amazon music, Spotify, etc. We are trying to figure out a solution to put music on a timer and then pick up where it left off, i.e. ends at 6pm and starts at 8am. Problem is every tablet I use and app seems to have a mind of it’s own and eventually the music stops and needs someone to manually put it back on. Does anyone have constant music playing and if so what technology do you use, i.e. app, tablets, etc. Thanks in advance!
–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Coworking” group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Alex/Glen
Thanks for the feedback. We have a couple of full stack engineers in our space, so I am often trying to solve my own problems :).
This is a tough as we have Apple TV set up with surround sound in our space, but running an iPad or other device will eventually go idle and shut down the music. The radio station makes sense. Maybe I can find an app that keeps my app from going to sleep.
We have about 50-60 in our space and almost all like the music playing, so when it shuts off it’s a huge bummer. Thanks again for the help and I am going to pay close attention to Sonos and learn a bit more about what their technology.
Jeran
···
On Wednesday, August 23, 2017 at 8:39:21 AM UTC-7, Glen Ferguson wrote:
We’ve done something similar with Sonos at Cowork Frederick. We found that most streaming services get repetitive after a couple hours, so we use Sonos alarms to change the station every 2 hours, plus have music automatically start at 7am and end at 7pm M-F. The iPad app is better than the phone app, in my opinion. For some streaming services like Pandora, they will time out after a few hours if you’re on a free plan, pretty rarely on a paid plan. I find Tune-In stations run into network congestion (theirs, not ours) around 3pm for some reason and start to stutter or timeout. Switching stations every few hours also helps prevent the idle timeout. And going back to my Philly roots, we end our Fridays with the 5-7pm Funky Friday programming on XPN. You might want to check out kxt.org from Dallas/Ft Worth for an interesting mix as well. They’re listener supported like XPN, so send them a few bucks to keep them on the air if you listen.
Sonos timer hack if you want hands-free music on one station all day: the alarm interval has a “no limit” setting, plus people sometimes manually choose stations throughout the day. To make sure it turns off at 7pm, we have an alarm set with a “15 minute” duration (the shortest interval offered) that plays at 6:45pm. The station and volume are different enough that it works like a pre-closing heads-up to let people know it’s getting late. We thought about creating a playlist of closing-time themed songs just for fun, but haven’t followed through with it yet.
Glen Ferguson
Phone: 301-732-5165
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://www.coworkfrederick.com
Address: 122 E Patrick St, Frederick, MD 21701
On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 10:30 AM, Alex Hillman [email protected] wrote:
We have this issue too, though we play all of our music through Sonos which is hands down the best investment I’ve made in playing music at Indy Hall. It hooks into just about every streaming service I’ve wanted to use, and even lets you link multiple accounts from the same service so members can contribute playlists & such. The mobile software to control it is pretty bad, but the desktop software works great.
That said - the issue you’re describing though is often less with the device, and more with the source. Even if you set up timers and alarms, most “streaming” services like Spotify, etc is that they use playlists which eventually end, or they have licensing that is designed to turn off automatically so they don’t pay for plays of the music that a typical consumer-style customer isn’t listening to cuz it kills their margins.
Even if you create custom playlists that last the full stretch from 8am-6pm, there’s a good chance that the service will stop paying at some point if the software thinks the device is idle.
One of the best alternatives I’ve found is using a digital radio stream, like any of the channels at http://somafm.com which are all listener supported so commercial-free. Another similar option is to find a local public radio affiliate that has limited commercials and plays variety mixes throughout the day. Our local favorite is http://www.xpn.org but you likely have something similar - ask around your community to see what people like!
-Alex
The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.
Better Coworkers: http://indyhall.org
Weekly Coworking Tips: http://coworkingweekly.com
My Audiobook: https://theindyhallway.com/ten
On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 9:11 PM, Jeran Fraser [email protected] wrote:
Question for some of you technical guys/gals out there. We use music in our space and currently run the music off Apple TV. We’ve tried Amazon music, Spotify, etc. We are trying to figure out a solution to put music on a timer and then pick up where it left off, i.e. ends at 6pm and starts at 8am. Problem is every tablet I use and app seems to have a mind of it’s own and eventually the music stops and needs someone to manually put it back on. Does anyone have constant music playing and if so what technology do you use, i.e. app, tablets, etc. Thanks in advance!
–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Coworking” group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Coworking” group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Hi everyone,
We don’t currently play music in our space. However, I have been approached by this French startup call Tracktl which offers designed to play interactive playlists in offices, bars, parties etc… It looks like they can tailor their offers to the needs of coworking spaces.
I haven’t explored further but perhaps you’ll find it helpful:
Cheers,
Marion
Marion Majou
Fondatrice, Entrelac
- 33 (0)9 72 31 22 71 | +33 (0)6 15 98 06 56 | [email protected] | www.entrelac.fr | Skype: marionseg | 15 avenue Emile Zola, 74100 Annemasse
email signature···
Le mercredi 23 août 2017 03:11:54 UTC+2, Jeran Fraser a écrit :
Question for some of you technical guys/gals out there. We use music in our space and currently run the music off Apple TV. We’ve tried Amazon music, Spotify, etc. We are trying to figure out a solution to put music on a timer and then pick up where it left off, i.e. ends at 6pm and starts at 8am. Problem is every tablet I use and app seems to have a mind of it’s own and eventually the music stops and needs someone to manually put it back on. Does anyone have constant music playing and if so what technology do you use, i.e. app, tablets, etc. Thanks in advance!
Hi Jeran,
If you feel like doing some coding, Spotify exposes a simple HTTP service which lets you control the player, load playlists and run pretty much any function.
The node script below will start playing at 8am a playlist by its address and stop a 6pm. It will also loop the playlist once it ends or if the music is paused.
To find the address of a playlist, right click on that list in the player > share > copy link to clipboard.
const SpotifyWebHelper = require(‘spotify-web-helper’);
var schedule = require(‘node-schedule’);
const helper = SpotifyWebHelper();
const playListUrl = ‘Discover Weekly - playlist by Spotify | Spotify’;
helper.player.on(‘error’, err => {
if (error.message.match(/No user logged in/)) {
console.log(‘User is not logged in’)
} else {
console.log(err)
}
});
helper.player.on(‘ready’, () => {
helper.player.on(‘end’, () => {
console.log(“Repeating list…”)
helper.player.play(playListUrl);
});
helper.player.on(‘pause’, () => {
console.log(“Resuming playback…”)
helper.player.play(playListUrl);
});
helper.player.play(playListUrl);
});
schedule.scheduleJob(‘0 8 * * *’, function(){ //8am
helper.player.play(playListUrl);
});
schedule.scheduleJob(‘0 18 * * *’, function(){ //6pm
helper.player.pause();
});
···
On Wednesday, August 23, 2017 at 11:11:54 AM UTC+10, Jeran Fraser wrote:
Question for some of you technical guys/gals out there. We use music in our space and currently run the music off Apple TV. We’ve tried Amazon music, Spotify, etc. We are trying to figure out a solution to put music on a timer and then pick up where it left off, i.e. ends at 6pm and starts at 8am. Problem is every tablet I use and app seems to have a mind of it’s own and eventually the music stops and needs someone to manually put it back on. Does anyone have constant music playing and if so what technology do you use, i.e. app, tablets, etc. Thanks in advance!
Hi Jeran, Just wanted to kindly remind you, or maybe even inform, that the T&Cs of Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora, and others all mention black on white that - because they do not pay the required licenses to artists and labels - their music platform cannot be used in a commercial location like a coworking space. Spotify and others do pays BMI+ASCAP licenses to compensate artists, but very very little as we all know, and only when the listener (you or me) is listening in private (e.g. home, car, jog). to play music on a public space like a store, a restaurant or an office is another deal. The fees to pay to BMI&ASCAP are then proportional to the number of guest/customers you play content to. So for Spotify, it may be lots of money if their content is streamed to 100 guests in a restaurant, many hours a day. Spotify does not want that. They are a B2C platform, not a B2B one. And they do not wan to to have to deal with these kinds of costs. Not mentioning the requirements of B2B customers, i.e. reliability, explicit content, multi-zoning, wake&sleep automation, etc.
Take a look at their terms & conditions, easy to find 
Or go on Quora and type “can i play Spotify in my business or school?”.
Hop it helps