No more Spotify on Zumo

[CruJones]

I just ran into this and wanted to see if anyone had any luck finding a workaround for this issue. Like one of the other posters I'm able to get the Zumo to properly load Spotify when I connect my iPad, but not my iPhone, which is odd given both are running ios 18.x. What's annoying to me is that even when I can get it to sorta work via changing the source to 'Bluetooth Media' half the time the artist and song will not appear properly in the media (Spotify and regular 'Media') apps. The whole reason I got a 595LM and sold my old 396 was to get access to the Spotify app and now I'm annoyed that's broken. Oddly, Pandora seems to have fixed their issue that was similar to Spotify and that works.

[biz]

> if anyone had any luck finding a workaround for this issue.

I haven't, despite my best efforts.

[CruJones]

Last night I spent way too much time on troubleshooting this. I found some interesting things, which I'll explain below.

------------------
Device - iPhone
OS - iOS18.0.1
SmartLink Version - 2.9.8
Spotify Version - 8.9.86
Behavior - Spotify App will not work on the 595LM in the expected way - connection fails.
Workaround A) - Launch Media Player app and use input (iPhone/iPod). Album art shows and artist/song title show. Unable to browse Spotify playlists.
Workaround B) - Launch Media Player app and use input (Bluetooth). Album art/artist/song title do not show. Unable to browse Spotify playlists.
------------------
Device - iPhone (old iPhone 6s)
OS - iOS12.x
SmartLink Version - 2.9.8
Spotify Version - Old (can't remember)
Behavior - Spotify App will work on the 595LM in the expected way.
------------------

Observances/theory - The crux of the issue is not the SmartLink app or the Garmin 595LM firmware, but with Spotify. On my newer iPhone within the Spotify app I noticed that when connected to the 595LM it went into 'Car Mode'. On my older phone that did not happen. I suspect that's the crux of the issue. Sometime in the first half of 2022 Spotify made a change to their iOS app (and likely Android) that messed up Car Mode - I think it's to do with their CarThing, which I have oddly enough. I'm hoping that when they fully unsupport the CarThing that the iOS/Android app update will as a side-effect fix this issue. That's not until I think Dec 9, 2024, so have a little way to go before we'll know if that works. For now, I'll just work-around it via changing the input to iPhone/iPod in the Media Player app.

[NoahWaverly]

It seems Spotify support for Zumo has effectively disappeared in 2025, so using voice commands via a headset like Sena or routing playback through phone media is the only reliable workaround for now. Hopefully Garmin revisits this, but don’t hold your breath.

[jfheath]

You can start Spotify playing a playlist, and then use skip fwd, skip bkwd, pause and play to have some control the playlist. That works well with voice commands to the headset, which relays them to the Zumo.

That is with the Zumo at the centre of operations. But it seems that for full Spotify access, you need an old version of the Spotify app on your phone.
But for me, that is far too much messing around when the focus when riding is on being safe.