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If you realize in the middle of a Waymo ride that your robotaxi run won’t be complete without the right soundtrack, you can now cue that up from Spotify and play it through the speakers in your self-driving Jaguar i-Pace.
Waymo announced this new app integration in posts Tuesday on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube (plus a TikTok post a day later) and has since been emailing customers about the addition to its in-vehicle experience.
“Fully autonomous rides with your favorite playlists just a tap away!” hyped a “Vibe with Spotify on your next ride” message received Friday. “Spotify is now integrated with the Waymo app - update to the latest version.”
A Waymo note about a passenger’s music options beyond the default set of iHeartRadio streaming stations notes that after linking Spotify via the Waymo One app, you’ll need to select Spotify from one of the car’s two touch screens and scan a QR code from your phone. You don’t need to pay for Spotify Premium.
(That linking process requires tapping an “Agree” button to grant Waymo access to a wide range of Spotify data that includes your email address, whom you follow on Spotify, and who follows you on that streaming service.)
From then on, the note says you can cue up songs and playlists via the Spotify app, the Waymo app or the car’s touch screens. You should not have to repeat the setup experience on future rides, which Waymo customers have approvingly confirmed in posts on Reddit’s r/waymo.
The support note no longer mentions an older, clumsier set of options for playing your own music in a Waymo: linking your Google account and using the “Cast” feature in an app.
That experience was sufficiently kludgy to become a regular subject of complaints on that Reddit forum. I could not get it to work myself when I tried Waymo in Los Angeles last summer, thwarting my ambition to roll around LA to the tune of Soul Coughing’s “Screenwriter’s Blues.”
But my copy of the Android Waymo One still listed that as an option Friday afternoon. Streaming music via Bluetooth audio, an option you should have even in the cheapest rental cars, remains unsupported. This new Spotify setup also leaves out listeners of such other music streaming services as Apple Music and YouTube Music, even though Waymo’s corporate parent Alphabet owns YouTube.
An email query sent Friday afternoon to Waymo’s press office asking about the possible addition of other streaming-music options went unanswered.
In its favor, Spotify does offer a notable menu of exclusives. Joe Rogan’s multi-hours podcast may be far too long for a typical Waymo ride, but Spotify has also earned attention lately for a different sort of exclusive that could be more on-brand for a ride in a software-driven car: songs from an AI-generated band.