Spotify Gives Away Free Google Home Mini Speakers to Family Plan Subscribers

Spotify is giving some of its members an early holiday gift: The company is gifting subscribers to its $14.99 family plan a free Google Home Mini speaker, it announced Wednesday morning.The music service is using the offer to tout its close integration with Google’s voice assistant, which allows Google Home owners to request songs, albums and playlists as well as issue playback controls with voice commands.Google Home speakers can also be personalized to individually recognize the voice of up to six household members, which can be used to access individual Spotify family plan profiles.The Google Home Mini offer is available for new as well as existing Spotify family plan subscribers, and has to be redeemed between November 1 and December 31. It’s also limited to subscribers in the U.S., and there is another caveat: Subscribers have to pay Spotify directly, and not via a third party like an app store or a telco.The latter also explains why the offer may be a good deal for Spotify: Moving family plan subscribers who signed up through third-party payment providers over to direct billing relationships can save the company up to $4.50 per month. Over the life of a paid subscription, this more than makes up for the one-time expense of a relatively inexpensive piece of hardware.