Spotify Gets Serious About Hardware, Registers With FCC

By Janko Roettgers

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Spotify really does want to make its own hardware: The company registered with the FCC Tuesday, a key prerequisite to getting devices approved for use in the U.S. Previous reports pointed to plans for an in-car device, capable of bringing streams to older vehicles.

A Spotify spokesperson declined to comment.

Tuesday’s FCC registration gives the company a so-called grantee code, which in Spotify’s case is 2AP3D. As a grantee, Spotify can file to have devices that use wireless networking approved by the FCC, something it needs to do before it can sell any hardware to U.S. consumers.

Spotify has for some time been hiring staff for an internal hardware team, with job listings from 2017 describing the company’s hardware project as “a category defining product akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles.” Earlier this year, Spotify was looking to fill additional positions , with one job offer describing its progress this way: “Spotify is on its way to creating its first physical products and setting up an operational organisation for manufacturing, supply chain, sales & marketing.”

Spotify showed some users a hardware offer earlier this year.

Some Spotify users reported earlier this year that they were shown offers for a device that would allow them to easily access their music in the car. A screenshot taken by one user showed a device with a minimalistic round display and some physical buttons, as well as a quote, suggesting that it may have some voice control component.

Such a device could be an attempt to bring music streaming and voice control to older vehicles that don’t have Spotify integrated into their in-car entertainment systems. The offer could also have been part of a trial to test the appetite for different propositions and form factors. With Spotify now getting ready to have hardware approved by the FCC, we might find out more soon.