Based on your feature request, we are happy to announce an important update to the AudioPlayer interface to help you enhance the visuals for your audio skills for Echo Show and Echo Spot. Now you can send additional metadata about the playing track with the Play directive. This metadata enhances your audio skill with visuals and other information, increasing the visual elements of your audio skill on Echo Show and Echo Spot. Your audio skill can now include album artwork, audio title, subtitle, and a background image. You provide these assets in the Play directive’s new metadata object.

You can update your existing audio skill immediately by adding the additional audio metadata in your code. After making these updates, you don’t have to submit your skill for recertification. On Echo Show and Echo Spot, audio skills that use additional metadata with the Play directive will now appear as shown below:

Here is a sample code showing the Play directive with the new metadata object:

{
  "type": "AudioPlayer.Play",
  "playBehavior": "valid playBehavior value such as ENQUEUE",
  "audioItem": {
    "stream": {
      "url": "https://url-of-the-stream-to-play",
      "token": "opaque token representing this stream",
      "expectedPreviousToken": "opaque token representing the previous stream",
      "offsetInMilliseconds": 0
    },
    "metadata": {
      "title": "title of the track to display",
      "subtitle": "subtitle of the track to display",
      "art": {
        "sources": [
          {
            "url": "https://url-of-the-album-art-image.png"
          }
        ]
      },
      "backgroundImage": {
        "sources": [
          {
            "url": "https://url-of-the-background-image.png"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Learn more about the AudioPlayer interface and how to add a title, subtitle, artwork, and background image to your audio skill for Echo Show and Echo Spot.

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