Music service Spotify is to take on the traditional iPod dock by launching its own range of speakers, according to the Daily Telegraph.

In collaboration with major hardware companies including Yamaha, Phillips, Bang and Olufsen and others, the new Spotify Connect brand will see the music service built directly in to the WiFi chip used in modern music players, and mean that a smartphone or tablet is required only as a remote control. For the first time, users of speakers and Spotify’s mobile app will not find that their music cuts out if their phone rings, because the speaker will be able to communicate directly with the service’s internet-based music servers.

The new range will also extend to other brands by the end of the year, and Spotify hopes it will address consumer frustrations with streaming music from the web to speakers via phones and tablets, which can be plagued by loss of connections and buffering. The company claims its speakers will be able to offer more stable connections than mobile phones, and also allow the Swedish-based service to cash in on the growing popularity for high-quality Bluetooth speakers that allow users to play music previously limited to headphones.

"We wanted to return to the experience of when a speaker was a just a speaker. Something that just played your music, without having to worry about lots of other stuff," Spotify said.

Because Spotify authenticates over Wi-Fi, the tech is super easy for home-audio manufacturers to implement, it said. Increasingly speakers, receivers and home-theater systems are becoming equipped with built-in Wi-Fi, which simplifies adding support for Spotify Connect.

Spotify Connect support will start out on iOS. Support for Android and the desktop apps are coming later this year, and the company ultimately hopes to support all Spotify platforms in the future, according to Mashable.

Spotify said consumers had repeatedly complained that simply broadcasting music from their phones resulted in dropouts, below-par audio quality, signal range and phone restrictions and battery drainage.