Week 3: Web Consultation with Matthijs

Today I was able to talk to Matthijs and ask him a few questions about the web technology. First of all, he said that I have to do more research, which he is right about. Based on the research, I can make a choice regarding the input technology for the colour picker on the screen.

For the Spotify API, he did not know much more than I did but he tried to help me by doing some research on the web. We also came to the conclusion that it's supposedly very hard to embed a fully functioning Spotify playlist on a website, since this website could then be used to stream the songs to hundreds of users who have not paid for the service. As much as we browsed through the documentation of the Spotify API, we did not find any explanation on how to integrate music on a website, which made us doubt that it is actually possible. Matthijs said that for getting the data from Spotify to the website, I will probably have to use the format base64. He also explained to me what base64 means.

The information on this site for the Spotify API looks promising: https://www.nomisoft.co.uk/articles/spotify-api-playlist-retrieval, I will definitely test the code.

Last but not least, Matthijs reminded me to set priorities. I am really focused on the Spotify playlist when it is even more important to think about the interaction between the phone and the Neopixel LED strip.

I also asked Matthijs about the screen that we are going to get for our installation and the necessity of using a database (which I don't fully understand). He did not know more about it either, since he is just a consulting teacher and not the product owner. I am going to ask Boris about it then.

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A few hours later, I have tested the Spotify example and realised that the code does not work without an access token. To get an access token, you have to be a Spotify Premium user.

https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-playback-sdk/quick-start/

I am going to ask my teammates if anyone has Spotify Premium, else we might also think of a different way to integrate music, e.g. from YouTube or from a second screen where we simply have Spotify open. Another possibility is to use a Bluetooth queue so that users can connect with their phones one after another.