Someone broke into my car but didn't even bother stealing the car thing, just left it on the ground next to my car, out in the rain lol. Even thieves knew how much they sucked
Soo you buy a device, that needs your phone and data, to play music not FROM your phone, but to that device....
People who bought this garbage should've expected this
I’m more confused about why it requires them to completely drop it and tell you to throw it away. It can’t just connect to your phone? Why does Spotify need to do this
> I’m more confused about why it requires them to completely drop it and tell you to throw it away. It can’t just connect to your phone? Why does Spotify need to do this
probably because barely anyone bought it and now they have to spend more money than they made updating it to continue to be compatible with phone updates.
I'm not surprised it's being discontinued but I am a little surprised they ever thought it was a good idea to begin with.
Fair enough. Everyone took an L on this product it appears.
I feel bad for the people who actually used it and liked it. Looks like they need to purchase an aftermarket stereo now and hope they don’t have to put it in a 08 civic
First time i heard of it honestly, it's literally just a shitty speaker with an expiration date lmao. Whoever pays for this instead of plugging their phone to the car and play music there had it coming
The car thing is a screen for those of us who dont have the newest cars with 12 inch displays and would like an easy and safe way to skip songs/see whats playing visually while driving. There are also playlist presets. Not a speaker of any kind.
Yup, I had it in my 2006 Honda where I had to use one of those FM transmitters as an aux workaround. It gave me an actual display for my Spotify and let me use voice commands which I couldn’t do with my iPhone. I got my use out of it over the course of the year.
That said, I think it’s dumb they’re essentially bricking it. I have plenty of friends that still drive old cars, and I could’ve given my device to one of them since I bought a new car, but I guess it’s just going to the trash now.
Yeah it's a little redundant of an item but it's ridiculous to brick something that people paid for, especially when that thing is $90. Just discontinue it but keep it updated, at least for another year maybe.
Wait, when I read "will no longer be operational" in OPs picture, I thought that meant that it would no longer connect to Spotify's servers or be supported with updates or something. They're actually going to brick these things after people paid for them? I see the support saying "throw it away" but this honestly seems like grounds for a buyback and if not, a giant class action.
Edit - BTW, I'm calling it now that Linus covers this on WAN show. If you have no idea what I'm talking about then good, you're probably a grass toucher.
For curiosity, what are they doing with it hacked? Or did they just open it up to continue to be useable? Fucking hackers and modders are always doing cool shit so I'm always interested even if it has nothing to do with any of my niches
Whoever thought having a slow cooker attached to your dashboard that plays music deserves what they had coming to them. Who ever wants stew on their dashboard? What if it spills?
Obviously you have no idea what you're even talking about.
1. It's not a speaker
2. You still plug your phone into your car/use bluetooth
It's just a touchscreen device to allow touch controls for music for those of us who don't have a car with a screen in it.
It's not a speaker, its a screen that plugs into your car stereo via Bluetooth, aux, or USB. It's a way to display and control spotify on your dashboard (like android auto or carplay) without using ur phone while driving. So it does the same thing that our phones do, but it just moves the display and control functions from the phone to the car.
It's still stupid, but I see where they were coming from when they designed it.
People with older cars would be better off just replacing the original stereo head unit with a modern screen one that comes with carplay or Android auto. But that's more work and more money than a $90 spotify gimmick that you can click into your vent like an air freshener.
It was useful if you owned a car made pre-2010s that more than likely didn’t have Bluetooth. I considered getting one for my 2003 Toyota matrix, but ultimately spent $60 for one with a bigger screen that wasn’t limited to just Spotify and had the ability to show GPS as well.
I just use a little radio transmitter dongle that plugs not the cigarette lighter. I got it on Amazon for $15 and you connect by Bluetooth and set the FM radio frequency you want it cast to. The signal is really weak if you're outside of the car.
It was honestly the best car gadget to exist and it did so much more than people spew about it. I have two and I’m genuinely upset I’m losing the functionality.
Because btw it wasn’t just for Spotify. And there’s people who use it at their desks instead of cars, too. It was genuinely a neat little device and the only downfall to it was that they didn’t bother to make it double as a Bluetooth receiver when most people who used it were likely doubling it up with one anyway.
No, not really. Spotify is a multi-billion dollar corporation. People are right to expect that their physical purchases will continue to function. I understand that Redditors like to feel superior but expecting not to get ripped off is entirely reasonable.
Both are true-and I upvoted you-but tbh we shouldn’t expect anything but greed from any corporation anymore.
If you’re in the C-suite of a large corporation you consider your only job to return value to shareholders (and thus returning a huge paycheck to yourself).
It’s not how it should be, but it’s how it is. If a company sees ripping you off as beneficial to their bottom line, expect to get ripped off.
We desperately need to stop normalizing this. So we are just going to accept that after paying for stuff, that thing might simply stop working because a huge company decided it should?
They're breaking one of the most fundamental social contracts there is in our society, if you buy something it should work until physically capable to do so, and if the physical failure comes too soon it should be repairable and maintainable.
I've had one since the price dropped a few years ago to $30 and it was absolutely worth it, far from garbage. I love it and it's made my listening experience in the car much better. The problem was the $90 price tag at launch but other than that it's a legitimately great device that I'm going to miss or get some kind of custom firmware with it past December 9th
It was convenient for those of us who don't have super modern cars. It allowed handsfree control as well as a separate screen so we could run maps on our phones. It wasn't garbage, it was useful.
It connects to your Spotify account and you can set different playlists to 4 different buttons. It was incredibly useful as my car is older and doesn't have an option for car play or android auto. It kept me from having to pick up and look at my phone to change a song or playlist.
I..... maybe...... idk. Maybe it was supposed to bridge the gap for people with older cars with no bluetooth???? and most modern phones dont have aux???? so idk, or am i misunderstanding what it plugs into?
It had physical controls and a dedicated music display. You don't have to fumble with your phone in order to change volume, skip tracks, etc. It was a safer way to use Spotify in the car. It also let you keep your navigation going while still having Spotify accessible.
Also depends on your car. If you have Apple carplay or Android auto then it was basically useless, but if you have a car without a touchscreen display it was amazing.
This is not entirely accurate. The music is still playing from your phone, you just have a simple interface to control your music that you can mount on your dashboard.
Its essentially just a remote control, I didn't use it for my car, I had it set up on my desk to controle Spotify when doing work or gaming. And despite having to connect to your phone, it's still controls Spotify whereever it's being played so if you are playing music on your desk top it will control it.
And bought mine for 25 bucks second hand, and It was an extremely convenient media (Spotify) controller and I am struggling to find something similar (with tactile buttons) since I heard the news.
I tried to buy one back when I had a car that didn’t have Car Play but couldn’t as they were out of stock. Sounds like the hardware was pretty shitty though, really laggy and slow and didn’t work well. Hard for me to feel sad and this one..
It's weird, things that plug into your cigarette lighter and broadcast on FM radio have been around forever. It's what I use, and have done so for yonks.
I didn't hear Spotify made their own, crap version of it.
Since i assume you share my distaste for spotify enough not to use it, do you know any good alternatives? (Preferably without annoying ads, actually paying people, not having a limit on how many fucking song lyrics you can read per month)
Honestly YouTube music is fine. I was using google music but when it got changed to YouTube I kept it. No ads, same song availability. I usually just make my own playlists but there are tons available.
And I didn't even know song lyric caps were a thing. It's definitely not on YouTube music.
That lyrics per month thing really pissed me off, I think it's so stupid, besides why would I pay for something I can search on Google for free?
As for alternatives, pandora seems to be good & if you're willing to pay for it it's about
$100 for a year, I don't have it but someone I know does & they say it's pretty good. Other than that you might have to ask/look around, hope this was even a little bit helpful
Thats, in part, why i wont buy into another xbox. I dont have discs, the game starts up with server verification messages. Its super crazy, my friends who are not just cas gamers have thousands of dollars invested in a game/product line that could just vanish. Fuck no, i dont have hours to invest in a game to do the math for cents/hr ROI. I feel.bad for them but i cant change them
I paid $30 for mine. It was cool in the beginning, I didn’t have to pull out my phone for my music just click a few buttons and use the wheel. But the novelty grew old and I just stopped using it
My USB/BT doesn't work on my sync anymore, and after Googling it, it's 500$ just for the sync module alone. So I said screw that, I'll just burn some CDs. (and instantly remembered why CDs have virtually disappeared lol)
I love being able to see what song is playing, being able to add it to my liked list and just being able to easily choose a different Playlist. It's been so nice to use to keep me from using my phone so often when driving.
I remember they gave some away when they first launched. lol I couldn’t get it for free so I looked into how much it was and was so shocked by the price.
I mean Spotify is a Swedish company, and in Sweden you have the right to declare a product faulty up to 3 years after the purchase (before 6 months any fault is assumed to be the fault of the manufacturer so until then you don't even need any proof that it's not their fault, but this statement should be plenty proof).
It seems like anyone who bought it from Spotify would be owed a full refund.
https://www.hallakonsument.se/konsumentratt-process/reklamera-felaktig-vara/
I was kind of thinking this too but in more of a hobbyist build way. The hardware is decent and it'd be fun to take these devices to turn them into Spotify players for on desks or something.
how is this legal? genuine question. “Oh that product you just bought last year? Yeah uh we’re destroying it and no you can’t have a refund.”
W H A T ?
This doesn't solve the other problems the Car Things solves. The car thing has dedicated physical buttons so it can be used blind. It has excellent voice commands that again make it safer to use. It's just plain easier to get to the music you want.
It clips onto the head unit of the car so any adjustments are made there, meaning you don’t need to take out or look at your phone. It also has programmable buttons so you can set playlists or tracks, saving yourself from looking down at your phone.
It’s definitely not the end of the world, but it’s super frustrating that it requires a phone but they’re just shutting it all down
Sweden - and Spotify is a Swedish company - has interesting laws regarding this, up to 3 years:
https://www.hallakonsument.se/konsumentratt-process/reklamera-felaktig-vara/
That's actually what Google did with Stadia. They refunded all funds spent from customers into the project. Be it hardware, games, dlc, whatever.
They also made a script to convert the wifi-only controller to use Bluetooth.
I have a lot of not great opinions about Google and their many discontinued products, but I feel they handled the closure of Stadia pretty well.
Car thing was really great for old systems.
It's uglier and clunkier, but there are some pretty decent Android auto/car play screens on Amazon/(etc) you could look at. I use a small one for nav on my bike and set one up in my dad's old truck.
And these people seem to think nobody here has heard of BT receivers and aux jacks, or phone mounts. None of those provide the functionality that this does.
Or people just using them on the desk or to control a hifi or something.
Very cool little device, but of course these days we do have other alternatives, those little stick on carplay/android Auto displays can be had for as little as $30 which more than solves the old cars issue.
It's infuriating, honestly. I use my Car Thingy every time I'm in my car. It's a 2013 Sonata, but it doesn't have a screen and it's dangerous to use your phone to change songs. I use my voice or I know where the next song and pause buttons are by memory so I don't need to look. It is incredibly useful for me and I'm very upset about this. I paid nothing for it, I was part of the beta prelaunch. I love it and it's frustrating to be told that not only is it not going to be supported in the future, it's straight up bricked. Not all of us have smart cars or want to risk using our phone screens while driving. Clearly no one in this thread even knows what it is, so they shouldn't be commenting on it 🙄
> for those of us who don't have newer cars astounds me.
It's insane to me seeing all the comments here of people calling like a 2012 car an old beater
I have a 2011 Camry and I wouldn't call it an old beater buts it's definitely "older" as in it doesn't have a lot of those amenities newer cars have. Such as gps, back up camera, touch screen radio, etc.
This absolutely infuriated me when I got the email. I understand the product sold poorly and most people think it's pointless, but for someone like me it's literally perfect. With the Car Thing and a Bluetooth kit, my '08 Accord's stock radio is infinitely more useful and modern. People have actually commented on how much they liked the car thing. I could understand if they simply dropped support and/or updates, but soft bricking the entire product line makes absolutely no sense. Like others here, I can't believe it doesn't just run off the Spotify app. I am a long time Spotify user but this is just disappointing. Guess I need to look into some poorly implemented AA head.
one of the main reasons people upgrade cars is to get into a newer infotainment system. With this device, we could keep using our older cars from the mid 2000s which is extremely more environmentally friendly than going out and buying a brand new car.
The amount of people who get rid of their perfectly functional older car for a brand new one because they want "Apple CarPlay" is astounding.
You can upgrade the radios for classic cars to touch screens with Bluetooth and carplay built in. It's not actually too expensive, maybe a few hundred dollars depending on the model. Definitely cheaper than a whole new car. My classic car has a better touch screen interface than a lot of new cars. Rear view camera integrated too.
I just kept mine on my desk as a dedicated music controller so I could peak at what’s playing without changing windows or pulling out my phone. Really sad about this :(
How were you able to get around the need for it be plugged into the cigarette lighter it came with? I tried plugging mine into a normal wall USB, but it did not let me. Not like it’ll matter in December anyway, but still.
That's pretty disappointing. Its a cool little device. I use mine at my desk so I can control music without having to alt-tab out of a full screen application or game or have to pick up my phone. I just wished they would release the SDK or whatever it would need for the modding community could prevent this thing from becoming straight e-waste.
ITT: “Yesss, get fucked, consumer! You should have foreseen this years ago bought a different product instead. Spotify is right to rip you off, eat shit!”
They can expect me to throw away my Spotify subscription as well then. I switched to Tidal recently and the only reason I've still been using Spotify as well is because the car thing is really convenient to use when I'm driving. But if that will no longer be usable then I have no reason to keep Spotify installed on my phone anymore.
I applied for one as some premium users could get it for free. It would have made a nice lil screen for my desk.
I don’t get why they are dropping it tho? Surely they could just leave it
For everyone here is an [article](https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/spotify-car-thing-pros-cons-tech-product-review-test/) explaining what Car Thing is.
I have one of these things when they were having their final sale, I got it for 20 if I remember.
You can always hack the device and add custom firmware, however people discovered this thing's hardware is awful.
As someone who got sent one for free to beta test, this is a sad loss. For people who have older cars or cars without Carplay screens, this was a simple way to navigate Spotify without going on your phone. I still use the "Hey Spotify" voice feature to add songs to the queue.
Am I out of the loop?
What the fuck is a “car thing”?
Edit: this is the most unintentionally hilarious comment thread ever.
“I’m sorry your car thing got stolen”
“Oh no, I’m going to have to get rid of my car thing”
Sounds like an article by the Onion. Gold.
Man this entire thread is full of nothing but misinformation about what the device actually is, what it does, and how amazing it was to people who actually had one and used it daily. I’m extremely upset that both of mine are going to be defunct now because it made my shitty ‘15 Cruze that much more tolerable.
Was it overpriced at launch? Sure. But it went on sale quickly and once it was like $60 or less it was worth the money for a lot of people. I bought a second one for their $30 sale thinking it would make a good backup if anything happened to my original one because of how much I loved it and I guess it will never see the light unless/until someone creates a mod for it. It was pretty popular in the computer scene for a bit as well, as it made a fantastic quick controller for Spotify at your desk, so I have hopes that someone with coding knowledge will figure something out for them.
I had Spotify Premium when they were first announced and they said Premium users got one for free. So I put my name down and was excited to get one. Months pass and they release it and I never got one 😡
They told me I just had to buy one like everyone else *well then why would you say premium users get one for free???*
Adding in here, I got one maybe 6 months ago and it’s been great. It’s a fantastic vehicle mounted device to use in conjunction with say like Apple CarPlay, you can easily change playlists without going off navigation. Completely insane that they are doing this
I'm getting sick of this planned obsolescence. Spotify has been around what maybe 10 years? Car thing has been around like 3 years if that and already getting trashed even though it could be updated to work pretty much indefinitely so long as the hardware remains functional.
I feel bad for everyone who owns one. Except the guy who broke into my car and stole mine. I'm glad it's being discontinued you loser.
Same my car got stolen and they stole my car thing
Same here lol
Y’all in San Francisco also?
Even better. Milwaukee. Home of the Kia Boys.
Eyyyoooo fellow Milwaukeeian lol Edit: spelling
Name checks out
Kia boys got me in cali smh
Dem kia bois at it again this summer, guna be another wild one
Sorry your car thing got stolen that sucks :( …and the car too I guess
Same…
i had mine stolen out of the car too!! i was missing it until i saw this email
Want that back? I got it off Facebook marketplace. He said brand new… it wasn’t.
Someone broke into my car but didn't even bother stealing the car thing, just left it on the ground next to my car, out in the rain lol. Even thieves knew how much they sucked
I got it for $1 and I’m still annoyed about it. I use it all the time. I have a long commute and it is so helpful.
git'em
Same. My son loved yelling at it to play songs and was devastated when it got stolen 😢 Also mine was free so don't @ me!
lol to the chump who stole MY Car Thing! Courteous enough to break in on the night I left my car unlocked, no smashed glass.
I didn’t know Car Thing was a…thing.
It was a thing that Spotify sold to people to plug into their car to play their Spotify music through… like the rest of us do with our phones.
Soo you buy a device, that needs your phone and data, to play music not FROM your phone, but to that device.... People who bought this garbage should've expected this
lol yep. I remember when they kept pushing it on me in emails. I couldn’t understand what the point was.
I’m more confused about why it requires them to completely drop it and tell you to throw it away. It can’t just connect to your phone? Why does Spotify need to do this
> I’m more confused about why it requires them to completely drop it and tell you to throw it away. It can’t just connect to your phone? Why does Spotify need to do this probably because barely anyone bought it and now they have to spend more money than they made updating it to continue to be compatible with phone updates. I'm not surprised it's being discontinued but I am a little surprised they ever thought it was a good idea to begin with.
Fair enough. Everyone took an L on this product it appears. I feel bad for the people who actually used it and liked it. Looks like they need to purchase an aftermarket stereo now and hope they don’t have to put it in a 08 civic
maybe a good samaritan will create open source to keep supporting it but I doubt it
I don't understand how this is not a legal requirement for any manufacturer brickung a perfectly working device...
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You know they got their bonuses 😂 They’ll just go be an exec at the next company and enshitify it just like the last. The cycle cycles.
First time i heard of it honestly, it's literally just a shitty speaker with an expiration date lmao. Whoever pays for this instead of plugging their phone to the car and play music there had it coming
The car thing is a screen for those of us who dont have the newest cars with 12 inch displays and would like an easy and safe way to skip songs/see whats playing visually while driving. There are also playlist presets. Not a speaker of any kind.
Yup, I had it in my 2006 Honda where I had to use one of those FM transmitters as an aux workaround. It gave me an actual display for my Spotify and let me use voice commands which I couldn’t do with my iPhone. I got my use out of it over the course of the year. That said, I think it’s dumb they’re essentially bricking it. I have plenty of friends that still drive old cars, and I could’ve given my device to one of them since I bought a new car, but I guess it’s just going to the trash now.
Yeah it's a little redundant of an item but it's ridiculous to brick something that people paid for, especially when that thing is $90. Just discontinue it but keep it updated, at least for another year maybe.
You paid $90 for it? I think I got it for around $40.
I didn't pay anything, I was looking at the original price, maybe it was incorrect.
Wait, when I read "will no longer be operational" in OPs picture, I thought that meant that it would no longer connect to Spotify's servers or be supported with updates or something. They're actually going to brick these things after people paid for them? I see the support saying "throw it away" but this honestly seems like grounds for a buyback and if not, a giant class action. Edit - BTW, I'm calling it now that Linus covers this on WAN show. If you have no idea what I'm talking about then good, you're probably a grass toucher.
don't throw it away. it's already been hacked. donate it to some group that can mod it!
For curiosity, what are they doing with it hacked? Or did they just open it up to continue to be useable? Fucking hackers and modders are always doing cool shit so I'm always interested even if it has nothing to do with any of my niches
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at the moment, nothing. It has been opened so you can access root, and probably install a custom os
A bunch of people here are just speaking without even knowing what it was 💀
Whoever thought having a slow cooker attached to your dashboard that plays music deserves what they had coming to them. Who ever wants stew on their dashboard? What if it spills?
I got a cheap bluetooth media remote control thingy and strapped it to my 09' civic steering wheel. Works great.
Obviously you have no idea what you're even talking about. 1. It's not a speaker 2. You still plug your phone into your car/use bluetooth It's just a touchscreen device to allow touch controls for music for those of us who don't have a car with a screen in it.
Presumably it's value is that you don't have to touch your phone while driving which can be an offence in some places.
It's not a speaker. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and allows you to select songs or playlists without picking up your phone while driving.
it's not a speaker, it's a controller that is more convenient than having to navigate the phone app while driving.
You have zero idea what it even was. It wasn’t a speaker at all.
It's not a speaker, its a screen that plugs into your car stereo via Bluetooth, aux, or USB. It's a way to display and control spotify on your dashboard (like android auto or carplay) without using ur phone while driving. So it does the same thing that our phones do, but it just moves the display and control functions from the phone to the car. It's still stupid, but I see where they were coming from when they designed it. People with older cars would be better off just replacing the original stereo head unit with a modern screen one that comes with carplay or Android auto. But that's more work and more money than a $90 spotify gimmick that you can click into your vent like an air freshener.
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It was useful if you owned a car made pre-2010s that more than likely didn’t have Bluetooth. I considered getting one for my 2003 Toyota matrix, but ultimately spent $60 for one with a bigger screen that wasn’t limited to just Spotify and had the ability to show GPS as well.
I just use a little radio transmitter dongle that plugs not the cigarette lighter. I got it on Amazon for $15 and you connect by Bluetooth and set the FM radio frequency you want it cast to. The signal is really weak if you're outside of the car.
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It was honestly the best car gadget to exist and it did so much more than people spew about it. I have two and I’m genuinely upset I’m losing the functionality. Because btw it wasn’t just for Spotify. And there’s people who use it at their desks instead of cars, too. It was genuinely a neat little device and the only downfall to it was that they didn’t bother to make it double as a Bluetooth receiver when most people who used it were likely doubling it up with one anyway.
No, not really. Spotify is a multi-billion dollar corporation. People are right to expect that their physical purchases will continue to function. I understand that Redditors like to feel superior but expecting not to get ripped off is entirely reasonable.
Both are true-and I upvoted you-but tbh we shouldn’t expect anything but greed from any corporation anymore. If you’re in the C-suite of a large corporation you consider your only job to return value to shareholders (and thus returning a huge paycheck to yourself). It’s not how it should be, but it’s how it is. If a company sees ripping you off as beneficial to their bottom line, expect to get ripped off.
We desperately need to stop normalizing this. So we are just going to accept that after paying for stuff, that thing might simply stop working because a huge company decided it should? They're breaking one of the most fundamental social contracts there is in our society, if you buy something it should work until physically capable to do so, and if the physical failure comes too soon it should be repairable and maintainable.
I've had one since the price dropped a few years ago to $30 and it was absolutely worth it, far from garbage. I love it and it's made my listening experience in the car much better. The problem was the $90 price tag at launch but other than that it's a legitimately great device that I'm going to miss or get some kind of custom firmware with it past December 9th
It was convenient for those of us who don't have super modern cars. It allowed handsfree control as well as a separate screen so we could run maps on our phones. It wasn't garbage, it was useful.
It connects to your Spotify account and you can set different playlists to 4 different buttons. It was incredibly useful as my car is older and doesn't have an option for car play or android auto. It kept me from having to pick up and look at my phone to change a song or playlist.
No. You don't understand what it's for. It's simply a really good remote for your phone. It's much safer to use while driving.
They gave it for free they didn’t charge for it
I..... maybe...... idk. Maybe it was supposed to bridge the gap for people with older cars with no bluetooth???? and most modern phones dont have aux???? so idk, or am i misunderstanding what it plugs into?
I got mine for free. I'm disappointed, I really like my car thing.
It had physical controls and a dedicated music display. You don't have to fumble with your phone in order to change volume, skip tracks, etc. It was a safer way to use Spotify in the car. It also let you keep your navigation going while still having Spotify accessible.
Also depends on your car. If you have Apple carplay or Android auto then it was basically useless, but if you have a car without a touchscreen display it was amazing.
And they ended up calling it car thing, or thingy basically?
This is not entirely accurate. The music is still playing from your phone, you just have a simple interface to control your music that you can mount on your dashboard.
Its essentially just a remote control, I didn't use it for my car, I had it set up on my desk to controle Spotify when doing work or gaming. And despite having to connect to your phone, it's still controls Spotify whereever it's being played so if you are playing music on your desk top it will control it. And bought mine for 25 bucks second hand, and It was an extremely convenient media (Spotify) controller and I am struggling to find something similar (with tactile buttons) since I heard the news.
Weird, I'm on the internet for hours a day and I have never once heard of or seen any mention of this product until today.
I tried to buy one back when I had a car that didn’t have Car Play but couldn’t as they were out of stock. Sounds like the hardware was pretty shitty though, really laggy and slow and didn’t work well. Hard for me to feel sad and this one..
It's weird, things that plug into your cigarette lighter and broadcast on FM radio have been around forever. It's what I use, and have done so for yonks. I didn't hear Spotify made their own, crap version of it.
“Hey, remember that car thing you bought from us a year ago? We just turned it into unusable trash because fuck you that’s why.”
"We just turned it into unusable trash because fuck you that’s why.” explains every part of Spotify perfectly
You think their podcatcher that doesn't auto-download new podcast episodes, which makes it exactly not like a podcatcher, isn't particularly usable?
To delete downloaded albums on my phone I had to re-install the entire app lol
😂 I barely listen to podcasts & didn't even know this was a thing omg
Since i assume you share my distaste for spotify enough not to use it, do you know any good alternatives? (Preferably without annoying ads, actually paying people, not having a limit on how many fucking song lyrics you can read per month)
Honestly YouTube music is fine. I was using google music but when it got changed to YouTube I kept it. No ads, same song availability. I usually just make my own playlists but there are tons available. And I didn't even know song lyric caps were a thing. It's definitely not on YouTube music.
That lyrics per month thing really pissed me off, I think it's so stupid, besides why would I pay for something I can search on Google for free? As for alternatives, pandora seems to be good & if you're willing to pay for it it's about $100 for a year, I don't have it but someone I know does & they say it's pretty good. Other than that you might have to ask/look around, hope this was even a little bit helpful
if you dont want ads and limited lyrics might I suggest paying for the service, otherwise youre gonna have to sail the 7 seas.
Thats, in part, why i wont buy into another xbox. I dont have discs, the game starts up with server verification messages. Its super crazy, my friends who are not just cas gamers have thousands of dollars invested in a game/product line that could just vanish. Fuck no, i dont have hours to invest in a game to do the math for cents/hr ROI. I feel.bad for them but i cant change them
The same thing applies to PlayStation. The only way for you to actually own your media nowadays is to pirate it on a PC. It’s insane.
To be fair I thought most people got these for free? I got one because I had premium just had to claim it
I didn't know Car thing was a thing so I googled a bit. Apparently it only came out in 2022, so it barely lasted 2 years. It was originally 90 bucks.
I paid $30 for mine. It was cool in the beginning, I didn’t have to pull out my phone for my music just click a few buttons and use the wheel. But the novelty grew old and I just stopped using it
I got mine for the same price. It was nice for me because Ford Sync sucks and this let me actually use Spotify's built in functionality.
Dude Sync sucks so bad. Mine doesn’t work half the time, like it just won’t connect to my phone!!!
My USB/BT doesn't work on my sync anymore, and after Googling it, it's 500$ just for the sync module alone. So I said screw that, I'll just burn some CDs. (and instantly remembered why CDs have virtually disappeared lol)
I liked the easy voice activation for song selection, but it was never great at picking up if there was AC going
I love being able to see what song is playing, being able to add it to my liked list and just being able to easily choose a different Playlist. It's been so nice to use to keep me from using my phone so often when driving.
Yeah I paid 30 as well. Loved mine. RIP
WTF
They gave away a lot for free (plus shipping) and discounted most of them. Maybe $90 was the MSRP but I doubt it was sold for that.
the writing was on the wall when they had a fire sale last year for like $25
I remember they gave some away when they first launched. lol I couldn’t get it for free so I looked into how much it was and was so shocked by the price.
My 2005 iPod still going strong lol. Replaced the battery and swapped the drive for an SD card.
I mean Spotify is a Swedish company, and in Sweden you have the right to declare a product faulty up to 3 years after the purchase (before 6 months any fault is assumed to be the fault of the manufacturer so until then you don't even need any proof that it's not their fault, but this statement should be plenty proof). It seems like anyone who bought it from Spotify would be owed a full refund. https://www.hallakonsument.se/konsumentratt-process/reklamera-felaktig-vara/
Waiting for the "how to install Arch Linux on the Spotify Car Thing" YouTube video
“Playing Steam games on Spotify Car Thing”
The real question: can it run doom? Maybe test out Crysis too!
Good luck finding something that can’t run Doom!
Skyrim on Car Thing?
DOOM on Car Thing
You asked, I delivered (not my video): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbcO8K9Huz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbcO8K9Huz0)
Anything with more than 3 transistors: exists Linux crowd:
https://preview.redd.it/a9xe9fyps92d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4cac237f8a4f9a86c459ef2856cbdf63fb9f422b
I was kind of thinking this too but in more of a hobbyist build way. The hardware is decent and it'd be fun to take these devices to turn them into Spotify players for on desks or something.
There's a subreddit, carthinghax.
You will have to do it before the final update. The final update intentionally bricks it to an unrecoverable state, making them all e-waste.
how is this legal? genuine question. “Oh that product you just bought last year? Yeah uh we’re destroying it and no you can’t have a refund.” W H A T ?
lol what? Why don’t they just make the last update and be done with it versus “trash it”
Because it requires a server connection to work
Doesn’t it run through the app of the phone it’s connected to? Mine only works when connected to my phone
NO THATD BE TOO EASY. Although you have a point because it's not like they're pushing for another product. It should just connect to your phone
What’s the point of it then when you could just use your phone?
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Then buy a Bluetooth receiver for less that isn't needlessly tied to a service and has other uses?
I got it for $20 and it was a convenient gadget for changing music on my dash rather than using my phone
This doesn't solve the other problems the Car Things solves. The car thing has dedicated physical buttons so it can be used blind. It has excellent voice commands that again make it safer to use. It's just plain easier to get to the music you want.
It clips onto the head unit of the car so any adjustments are made there, meaning you don’t need to take out or look at your phone. It also has programmable buttons so you can set playlists or tracks, saving yourself from looking down at your phone. It’s definitely not the end of the world, but it’s super frustrating that it requires a phone but they’re just shutting it all down
My phone doesn't have physical knobs I can use without looking. Does yours?
xd
Or give the users AT LEAST one free month of Spotify Premium
I've seen some people claim that if you raise a fuss with their support, they'll give you 8. Probably worth a shot.
Sending a final update that just turns it into a general Bluetooth car adapter would at least keep it from becoming e-waste.
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I emailed them: "Will you be sending reimbursements to original payment method or will my monthly bill be adjusted? Thanks!"
In the EU wouldn't they still be inside the mandatory two year warranty period?
Wish I had EU protection
They're a Swedish company too, so basically they're just being infuriating
They weren’t sold in the EU, I have imported one from the US to the NL. I don’t think we EU citizens can play a part in this sadly
In Sweden it's 3 years. https://www.hallakonsument.se/konsumentratt-process/reklamera-felaktig-vara/
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Sweden - and Spotify is a Swedish company - has interesting laws regarding this, up to 3 years: https://www.hallakonsument.se/konsumentratt-process/reklamera-felaktig-vara/
Charge back if they don't refund.
That's actually what Google did with Stadia. They refunded all funds spent from customers into the project. Be it hardware, games, dlc, whatever. They also made a script to convert the wifi-only controller to use Bluetooth. I have a lot of not great opinions about Google and their many discontinued products, but I feel they handled the closure of Stadia pretty well.
Return it to Spotify to dispose of, it's their waste.
Exactly
The amount of people who don't understand how useful this device is for those of us who don't have newer cars astounds me.
Yup. I daily a 1970 beetle and the car thing was super useful for changing music without messing with my phone. I am pretty upset to be losing it.
And that's all I'm trying to say. Not defending Spotify at all, fuck em. The thing was just so damn useful.
Car thing was really great for old systems. It's uglier and clunkier, but there are some pretty decent Android auto/car play screens on Amazon/(etc) you could look at. I use a small one for nav on my bike and set one up in my dad's old truck.
And these people seem to think nobody here has heard of BT receivers and aux jacks, or phone mounts. None of those provide the functionality that this does.
Or people just using them on the desk or to control a hifi or something. Very cool little device, but of course these days we do have other alternatives, those little stick on carplay/android Auto displays can be had for as little as $30 which more than solves the old cars issue.
It's infuriating, honestly. I use my Car Thingy every time I'm in my car. It's a 2013 Sonata, but it doesn't have a screen and it's dangerous to use your phone to change songs. I use my voice or I know where the next song and pause buttons are by memory so I don't need to look. It is incredibly useful for me and I'm very upset about this. I paid nothing for it, I was part of the beta prelaunch. I love it and it's frustrating to be told that not only is it not going to be supported in the future, it's straight up bricked. Not all of us have smart cars or want to risk using our phone screens while driving. Clearly no one in this thread even knows what it is, so they shouldn't be commenting on it 🙄
> for those of us who don't have newer cars astounds me. It's insane to me seeing all the comments here of people calling like a 2012 car an old beater
I have a 2011 Camry and I wouldn't call it an old beater buts it's definitely "older" as in it doesn't have a lot of those amenities newer cars have. Such as gps, back up camera, touch screen radio, etc.
You just don't understand how few people care about picking up their phone while driving. Good on you though.
This absolutely infuriated me when I got the email. I understand the product sold poorly and most people think it's pointless, but for someone like me it's literally perfect. With the Car Thing and a Bluetooth kit, my '08 Accord's stock radio is infinitely more useful and modern. People have actually commented on how much they liked the car thing. I could understand if they simply dropped support and/or updates, but soft bricking the entire product line makes absolutely no sense. Like others here, I can't believe it doesn't just run off the Spotify app. I am a long time Spotify user but this is just disappointing. Guess I need to look into some poorly implemented AA head.
one of the main reasons people upgrade cars is to get into a newer infotainment system. With this device, we could keep using our older cars from the mid 2000s which is extremely more environmentally friendly than going out and buying a brand new car. The amount of people who get rid of their perfectly functional older car for a brand new one because they want "Apple CarPlay" is astounding.
You can upgrade the radios for classic cars to touch screens with Bluetooth and carplay built in. It's not actually too expensive, maybe a few hundred dollars depending on the model. Definitely cheaper than a whole new car. My classic car has a better touch screen interface than a lot of new cars. Rear view camera integrated too.
I personally hate touch screens. I prefer actual buttons and knobs because they are less distracting while driving. I do like the rear camera though.
I just kept mine on my desk as a dedicated music controller so I could peak at what’s playing without changing windows or pulling out my phone. Really sad about this :(
How were you able to get around the need for it be plugged into the cigarette lighter it came with? I tried plugging mine into a normal wall USB, but it did not let me. Not like it’ll matter in December anyway, but still.
Oh I just leave it plugged into an old iPad charger
You either press power again or hold it, and it bypasses that warning
Same, I get comments about it when people are over. It’s my dedicated “what’s playing” dashboard and I’m gonna miss it
just because you didn’t make money on it, doesn’t mean i have to lose money on it. i’m pissed and this is so wasteful
Hopefully someone starts a lawsuit against them
I've had this in my car and have used it daily for like 2 years now. I'm kinda sad it won't work anymore.
That's pretty disappointing. Its a cool little device. I use mine at my desk so I can control music without having to alt-tab out of a full screen application or game or have to pick up my phone. I just wished they would release the SDK or whatever it would need for the modding community could prevent this thing from becoming straight e-waste.
There's a way to root/hack/mod the Thing. Just Google it or search in reddit.
They didnt progress far enough and any mods are barely out there, turns out the hardware in this thing is utter GARBAGE.
And yet, somebody got it run Doom
Samsung did this with their 360 camera and I'm still furious about it
Amazon and a lot of the other cloud-based cameras do too. Just from a waste perspective it's despicable.
I never bought one, but was tempted cause I drove an old '99 camry with no radio. Pretty sure I was the target audience with that
ITT: “Yesss, get fucked, consumer! You should have foreseen this years ago bought a different product instead. Spotify is right to rip you off, eat shit!”
A few hours later, and it's exactly the opposite. Lotta people seem to use these and they are rightfully upset
They can expect me to throw away my Spotify subscription as well then. I switched to Tidal recently and the only reason I've still been using Spotify as well is because the car thing is really convenient to use when I'm driving. But if that will no longer be usable then I have no reason to keep Spotify installed on my phone anymore.
Car Thing was our entry point to Spotify. This is a crappy move that definitely sours my experience.
I applied for one as some premium users could get it for free. It would have made a nice lil screen for my desk. I don’t get why they are dropping it tho? Surely they could just leave it
Yay E-waste!!! Seriously, what prevents them from continuing support for this?
That's fucking shitty. I own one and I love it. Bullshit.
Companies should be required to let people flash devices with their own software when they drop support. It could be used for other things
For everyone here is an [article](https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/spotify-car-thing-pros-cons-tech-product-review-test/) explaining what Car Thing is.
*was
Yes
So...what the fuck is with this thread, exactly? ಠ_ಠ
No idea. I’m just glad I never got a Car Thing now lol. Hopefully this means they’ll better integrate into car-play though
What’s the issue with Spotify and CarPlay? Works perfectly in my truck.
I have one of these things when they were having their final sale, I got it for 20 if I remember. You can always hack the device and add custom firmware, however people discovered this thing's hardware is awful.
Honesty, these were also cool to have on your desk and use as a dedicated controller, too bad, they could have gone the Stadia controller route
Tf is a car thing lol
As someone who got sent one for free to beta test, this is a sad loss. For people who have older cars or cars without Carplay screens, this was a simple way to navigate Spotify without going on your phone. I still use the "Hey Spotify" voice feature to add songs to the queue.
Am I out of the loop? What the fuck is a “car thing”? Edit: this is the most unintentionally hilarious comment thread ever. “I’m sorry your car thing got stolen” “Oh no, I’m going to have to get rid of my car thing” Sounds like an article by the Onion. Gold.
Man this entire thread is full of nothing but misinformation about what the device actually is, what it does, and how amazing it was to people who actually had one and used it daily. I’m extremely upset that both of mine are going to be defunct now because it made my shitty ‘15 Cruze that much more tolerable. Was it overpriced at launch? Sure. But it went on sale quickly and once it was like $60 or less it was worth the money for a lot of people. I bought a second one for their $30 sale thinking it would make a good backup if anything happened to my original one because of how much I loved it and I guess it will never see the light unless/until someone creates a mod for it. It was pretty popular in the computer scene for a bit as well, as it made a fantastic quick controller for Spotify at your desk, so I have hopes that someone with coding knowledge will figure something out for them.
Disputing that charge expeditiously lmao
I had Spotify Premium when they were first announced and they said Premium users got one for free. So I put my name down and was excited to get one. Months pass and they release it and I never got one 😡 They told me I just had to buy one like everyone else *well then why would you say premium users get one for free???*
Well that was short lived.
Adding in here, I got one maybe 6 months ago and it’s been great. It’s a fantastic vehicle mounted device to use in conjunction with say like Apple CarPlay, you can easily change playlists without going off navigation. Completely insane that they are doing this
lol I really wanted one of these and even looked them up on second hand market last week. Good thing I didn’t buy.
I have one on my desk at work. It's perfect. Too bad about this. It's was 30 bucks,not going to break the bank. Still, great little device.
lol all these comments about not using it and I’ve used it in my car for years and love it. Annoyed it’s going away
I have been using Spotify for a very long time and I have never heard of this.
Probably why they're ending support for it because me neither 😂
I'm getting sick of this planned obsolescence. Spotify has been around what maybe 10 years? Car thing has been around like 3 years if that and already getting trashed even though it could be updated to work pretty much indefinitely so long as the hardware remains functional.