Western Digital WD TV Live set-top box launches with Spotify support

With the Apple TV and Roku getting both better and cheaper, streaming set-top box hardware has been somewhat commoditized — now it's an app contest. The WD TV Live Streaming Media Player, announced and available today for $99, differentiates itself a bit by being the first box to have Spotify support. The app (also rolled out as an update to the older WD TV Live Hub, but not to other WD set-top models) lets you create and manage Spotify playlists, share songs, and stream your music through your home theater system — useful because that tends to be the best sound system in your home anyway. The Live connects through a wired or 802.11n Wi-Fi (single-band, 2.4GHz only) connection, streams local content (or plays it from a connected USB drive), and connects to web services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, and YouTube. Western Digital's certainly won't be the last boxes that get Spotify and other similar services, but they score now for having something the market's other Netflix-streamers don't.