Is Spotify getting ready to challenge Apple with its own speaker?

Spotify is working on a line of "category defining" hardware products and is ready to start setting up the manufacturing process. The streaming music company intends to create a hardware category "akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles", according to job adverts posted over the past year. One ad for a senior product manager, posted last April, called for an expert to "define the product requirements for internet connected hardware [and] the software that powers it". Today, a trio of job adverts (spotted by industry site MusicAlly) have been posted, seeking an "operations manager", "senior project manager: hardware production", and "project manager: hardware production and engineering" for the hardware. The first of those adverts states that "Spotify is on its way [to] creating its first physical products and set-up an operational organisation for manufacturing, supply chain, sales and marketing." The new hire would manage the supply chain for the new product, suggesting the company is ready to begin the manufacturing process shortly.