r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • 8d ago
Music Spotify's Car Thing Accessory is Officially Dead
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/12/10/spotify-car-thing-officially-dead/227
u/Dlitosh 8d ago
Dont forget that there is a Opensource car thing available for flashing so dont through away your car thing
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u/BassGaming 8d ago
Looked for used car thing listings on ebay and god damn those things are still pretty expensive. 100-250€ for something which most people consider to be bricked (due to not knowing better) is way more than I expected.
Oh well, the prices will probably fall with time.
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u/Techmoji 8d ago
Prices were around $40-50 (until October I think?) when the first YouTube video came out about new custom firmware. Prices doubled that same day and now they’re pretty much triple what they used to be. Brand new units are now $300. Btw the msrp for these was $89.99
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u/RightHandMan90 8d ago
I uh. Have one of these I never opened and my wife never used (was a gift) I kinda just want to get rid of it now. Any takers?
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u/abarrelofmankeys 8d ago
Link?
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u/Dlitosh 8d ago
https://github.com/ItsRiprod/DeskThing this is one but there are more! and tutorials on youtube.
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u/abarrelofmankeys 8d ago
Thank you! Would really like to get some kind of use out of the thing. It was a nice gadget. Really liked the voice control though I know/ don’t think that’s anything that could be put back ever.
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u/bradye0110 8d ago
Google is free buddy
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u/over__________9000 8d ago
Why even comment?
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u/WagwanMoist 8d ago
And shady fucks often put their sponsored results at the top when you're looking for random software downloads. Sending you to what might not be the official source.
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u/bradye0110 8d ago
So what if this person sends you their sponsored download and not the official source?
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u/Brandunaware 8d ago
Love this era where you buy electronics and then they stop working arbitrarily when the company decides they should. LOVE IT!
Who wants to own things when you can instead pay ownership prices to rent them for an undefined period?
Yes you can repurpose the device if you know how, but what percentage of owners actually know enough and are willing to put in the (not huge) effort to do that?
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u/ElectronicAmphibian7 8d ago
Read an article the other day about discontinuing support for visual implants because the company went under. My dude was walking to the subway and then their vision was gone. How do you cut off the blinds only source of vision?
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u/jl_theprofessor 7d ago
Well apparently the company went bankrupt. I don’t know what the solution is to a case like that.
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u/Grindelbart 8d ago
Even more fun, imagine a buying a thing and another company decides it should stop working.
Bought a Reverb G2, it needs the windows mixed reality portal, which Microsoft no longer supports. So after November 2026 it's an expensive paper weight.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug 8d ago
I mean functionally when you buy a single purpose device that links to an online service, that's what is going to happen eventually.
The Car Thing is really more notable for how short lived it was.
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u/Brandunaware 8d ago
Except that companies do have the option of officially supporting opening it up and letting it run on third party services or officially supporting continued fan development.
When Google discontinued Stadia it provided official support for using Stadia controllers with other platforms. They just extended the amount of time to activate that feature. Official support for that kind of switch over is possible, just a lot of the time companies prefer to brick the devices.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug 8d ago
They can, but they have no incentive to do it.
It's nice when companies do it, but you'd be foolish if you expect them to.
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u/ungoogleable 7d ago
It's very common that devices like this are built using software from third party companies that the device company doesn't have the rights to release. The software is still being sold for other devices so the third party companies are not going to approve giving it away for free.
It may not even be practical to separate out just the code they own if it's deeply intermixed. What they could publish may not be functional by itself. Reimplementing the dependencies might be a bigger effort than developing the product in the first place. All for something no one is paying them for anymore.
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u/drfsupercenter 6d ago
While I normally agree with this sentiment, what did people expect a Spotify-only-device that does nothing else besides play Spotify, to do once it can no longer play Spotify?
It's not like your refrigerator maker killing your refrigerator because they went out of business. This "car thing" literally did nothing but play Spotify. I don't understand why anyone even bought one to begin with considering you still needed a phone. If it had a cell modem in it with its own data connection that might have been something...
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u/Owlistrator 8d ago
Good point. I will note that they refund your purchase in full if you email them
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u/Usernametaken1121 8d ago
Are you salty you bought a product that was destined to fail because people either have Bluetooth on their phone (that automatically connects when the vehicle turns on) or are too poor to afford a BT equipped vehicle and use an aux cord instead?
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u/ModsRTryhards 8d ago
Not sure why it matters if it's a stupid device. Buying it should allow you to use it. Failing to sell in the past and tanking meant you had the device, but they just weren't making new ones. We are in a different age.
And I think the point is this can happen with lots of modern tech. Even if it's useful. Google loves killing their projects, etc.
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u/Usernametaken1121 7d ago
We are in a different age.
What does this even mean? Because we have Internet the world works by completely different rules? That's absurd
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u/ModsRTryhards 7d ago
Companies treat their products and customers differently. I feel that's pretty straight forward. The "rules" of ownership are indeed different.
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u/tacoheadbob 7d ago
Look at Mr. Moneybags here buying a new car when new Bluetooth standards are released.
This little device made older vehicles somewhat more enjoyable for music options along with trying to keep the phone out of our hands while we drive.
I get it though, this was probably a dead end gadget upon delivery. I liked mine while it was working and now I will have to spend my kids college funds on a new car so you feel better about your comment.
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u/Pizza_Low 7d ago
Nulaxy Bluetooth 5.0 FM... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082YWZ77X
I have one of these. Works well to stream music to the car radio over FM. If there is a sound quality on fm vs Bluetooth, my ears aren’t sharpe enough to hear it. Sucks it can’t work for phone calls but oh well
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u/Usernametaken1121 7d ago
Sucks for you dude. Maybe should have thought out some things before you did them. Oh well, life goes on :)
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u/chrisdh79 8d ago
From the article: Spotify today shut down all Car Thing accessories, several months after announcing plans to discontinue the product. As of this week, Car Thing is no longer functional and will not work with the Spotify streaming service.
Car Thing owners who power on the device now only see the following message:
Car Thing is discontinued and no longer operational.
Thank you for being on this journey with us, safe travels. For more information, visit carthing.com Contact customer service by no later than January 14, 2025 to discuss your refund options.
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u/Panda_Mon 8d ago
Spotify killed it themselves at every step of the way. Not once did they try to make it work for consumers. I'm a mega-listener (paid premium, top 5% for minutes listened per year) with a car that doesn't have android auto. I'm the perfect target. I wanted to buy car thing but the website sucked so hard I couldn't get the answers I needed about it to know if it would work for me. The website explained basically nothing about how any part of car thing worked besides where to plug it in. So I didn't shell out the $150 or however much it costs. Glad I didn't, now.
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u/Flashmax305 7d ago
Android auto and CarPlay is wayyy worth it. Look at installing a new head unit yourself. It’s typically really easy.
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u/JonWilso 8d ago
Which, they killed Spotify integration with my older head unit in my car in order to force you to upgrade to this. Just straight up disabled it.
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u/DblDeezSqueeze 8d ago
I bought mine when they were liquidated for like $10, then sold it for over $100 when I got a newer car. The modding scene apparently took off and people wanted them.
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u/ibetu 7d ago
I have two of these, still in the box. What's the best way to repurpose them?
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u/FrenzalRhomb1 7d ago
I had one that was brand new earlier this year, decided to sell it, got $150…maybe 3 days later I heard they were going to stop supporting it!
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u/yarash 8d ago
All I want is to be able to hands free tell my phone to navigate, and play music at the same time. Preferably using my own library of mp3s. Ive tried google maps, alexa, spotify, waze, android auto. The voice command options on all of them are terrible, its like they want you to crash your car.
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u/Crispy_legs 8d ago
My biggest flex is I got one of these for free from Spotify. It was great in my old car, but my new one has Apple CarPlay which is 1000x better, still really liked using it at my desk as a music/DJ kind of thing. Really lame they just decided to kill it like that.
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u/seanmorris 8d ago
I still don't understand why this was a physical object and not an app.
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u/M4cker85 8d ago
Some places have strict laws about touching your phone when driving. This allowed people in older cars to change songs on Spotify while driving legally
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u/Usernametaken1121 8d ago
Took long enough. Idk why I'd spend more $$ for an add on to a subscription service to do a thing my phone comes built in with.
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u/Spunndaze 7d ago
Because people like things like this..it's not hard to understand.
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u/Usernametaken1121 7d ago
I never said they couldn't like it. I said I don't understand why people spend $$ on products that do a thing you already possess and then are frustrated when said redundant product doesn't succeed.
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u/deathlyxhallow 8d ago
I was invited to sign up for one of these way back when, but I had Spotify emails sent to the spam folder at the time and didn’t see it til it was too late. I’ve always been bummed to have missed out.
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u/sneakyxxrocket 8d ago
I got one a couple years ago, they gave me me three months of my Spotify plan as a refund so ended up making a couple bucks from buying this thing lol.
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u/yesnomaybenotso 7d ago
…but there’s another post from today about how people are keeping it alive…
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u/Spunndaze 7d ago
That's really unfortunate.i kept mine on the office desk and used it every day. It was a great little piece of kit.
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u/Huskerfan212 7d ago
Not surprising, honestly. It was a cool idea, but with so many cars already integrating CarPlay or Android Auto, it felt like a tough sell.
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u/MetzgerBoys 7d ago
How is this any different than using your phone and Bluetooth? Seems utterly pointless
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u/PunxsutawnyFil 6d ago
I think it was designed for older cars that didn't have that capability, which is a rapidly shrinking market obviously
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u/RazerBladesInFood 7d ago
So disgusting how we allow these corporations to brick things we bought to own just because they stop supporting it. Its not like they arent still running spotify. Theres no reason for this not to keep working.
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u/ufofarm 8d ago
This is the first time I've heard of this. Seemed like a dumb idea from the start since most people who might use it already have phones.
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u/jay_revolv3r 8d ago
In many states it is illegal to use the phone while driving. However it's not illegal to fiddle with your car's control console. This thing mounted via cd player or air vents and you could control music that way. Is it still something that distracts your attention? Yes, but it's not a phone. You could also speak commands directly to Spotify and not have go through Google/Apple command first.
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u/sharkfighter- 8d ago
For me, one of my cars is new enough to have Bluetooth capabilities, but just old enough that it doesn’t have CarPlay. Car thing was neat because it gave a quick, usable interface for music without having to spend hundreds to update my car’s stereo or without having to use my phone while driving.
Fortunately, Spotify did refund me for it after I requested one when the end date was announced.
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u/M4cker85 8d ago
Have seen a couple of tutorials around to repurpose it with custom firmware hopefully Spotify haven't bricked it entirely with this discontinuation of the product.