When Music Ally sat down with a series of Deezer executives at the company’s media day last December, smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo were high on their priority lists, with the realisation that rivals were ahead of Deezer on this score.
Now the company has announced its first integration, but it’s not with Echo. Instead, Deezer now works with Google Home and that device’s Google Assistant voice tech.
The streaming service’s subscribers will now be able to set up their accounts on Google Home to control music with their voices, although for now the integration is only available in Germany and France, with the US, UK, Canada and Australia to follow later this year.
The news highlights one of the current limitations in this area though: once people set up their Deezer accounts, Google Home will automatically recognise their voice and play their personal ‘Flow’ mix of music when they speak.
But for now, the voice-recognition only works in the four English-speaking markets, rather than in France and Germany where the integration is making its debut.
To some extent Deezer is governed by the features of the device and its software here: a point CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht made in his Midem keynote, about having to work with device and platform gatekeepers like Amazon, Google and Apple in the world of smart speakers.
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