Amazon has launched Amazon Cast to bring its Amazon Music application up to speed with the likes of Spotify.

Amazon Cast effectively enables the Music app on iOS and Android to cast tracks to an Echo device in the home. You can therefore start to play a track on your phone, then send it to an Amazon Echo to carry on listening.

It's a similar technology to Spotify Connect, which has included Echo support for some time. However, prior to Amazon Cast, Amazon's own Music app was only compatible with AirPlay or - in a more convoluted fashion for Android phone owners - Bluetooth for sending audio to external speakers.

Now, instead of the AirPlay button at the bottom of the playback screen on an iPhone, there is a new Cast button. Hit that and it will bring up a list of all the newly compatible devices you have in the home. You still get an AirPlay option on this next screen too.

We also found that you can now Cast Amazon Music to Sonos speakers if you have them linked up with the Alexa app. Other Alexa-enabled devices should work too.

The new Cast feature will also play music on a predefined group of devices simultaneously.

The new Amazon Cast feature works whether you have an Amazon Music Unlimited account or even if you just use the base Amazon Music experience.