Playback for Spotify

Control Spotify from your Pebble smartwatch. Browse playlists, artists, albums and liked songs, skip tracks, adjust volume, and see album art — all from your wrist. Repebble AppStore link

Features

• Now Playing — track title, artist, album art, and progress bar
• Playback controls — play/pause, next/previous track
• Volume control — hold UP/DOWN to adjust volume (currently only while playing on external speakers)
• Browse library — playlists, artists, albums, liked songs
• Queue control — long-press a song to add it to your queue; preview the queue anytime
• Shuffle & repeat — toggle shuffle and cycle repeat mode with long press select on 'Now Playing' (off / context / track)
• Album art — full-color on color watches, Floyd-Steinberg dithered on B&W
• First-launch tutorial — quick guide to controls

Supported Platforms

Platform	Watch
Basalt	Pebble Time / Time Steel
Chalk	Pebble Time Round
Diorite	Pebble 2
Emery	Pebble Time 2
Aplite	Original Pebble (no album art)

Setup

1. Deploy the Config Page

The config page handles Spotify OAuth login. You need to host it yourself:

1. Fork the playback_config repo
2. Enable GitHub Pages in repo settings (deploy from main branch)
3. Update the Redirect URL in your Spotify app and playback_config index.html Redirect URL to match your GitHub Pages URL

2. Create a Spotify App

1. Go to Spotify Developer Dashboard
2. Create a new app
3. Set Redirect URL to your config page URL (e.g. https://yourusername.github.io/playback_config/)
4. Copy your Client ID

3. Install the App

1. Clone this repo
2. Run pebble build && pebble install
3. Open Settings on your phone for the Playback app
4. Enter your Client ID and log in with Spotify

Controls

Action	Button
Next track	UP
Previous track	DOWN
Play / Pause	SELECT
Volume up	Hold UP
Volume down	Hold DOWN

Building

Requires Pebble SDK.

pebble build
pebble install --emulator basalt   # emulator
pebble install --phone IP_ADDRESS  # real watch

Testing on Emulator

The emulator can't reach the phone's config page, so OAuth has to be completed manually in a browser and the resulting token URL saved to a .env file.

1. Open your deployed config page in a regular browser (the GitHub Pages URL from setup).
2. Enter your Client ID and log in with Spotify as you normally would.
3. On the success page, right-click the Return to Pebble button and copy its link — it looks like pebblejs://close#%7B%22token%22...%7D.
4. Create a .env file at the repo root (it's gitignored):

   DEBUG_RESPONSE=pebblejs://close#%7B%22token%22...%7D
   

5. Rebuild and reinstall: pebble build && pebble install --emulator basalt.
6. The token is valid for 1 hour — update .env with a fresh link when it expires.

The build step reads .env and generates src/pkjs/debug_env.js (also gitignored) which injects the token. Without a .env file, DEBUG_RESPONSE is null and production/store builds are unaffected.

License

MIT