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Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

support.spotify.com

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Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#21

Post by brayhite »

stefan_ wrote: post #12
probably_wrong wrote: post #9

> What should I do with the device? > We recommend resetting your Car Thing to factory settings and safely disposing of your device following local electronic waste guidelines. It's not everyday that the manufacturer of a working product tells you "throw it in the trash". I wish someone would force them to make a recall instead.

Taking the piss, people paid $80 for these only 2 years ago. Make the waste of a PM that decided "it no longer aligned with the Spotify vision" tour the globe to personally pick up these things and hand people back their money.

You think a PM made this decision? Not at least someone at a VP or higher level?

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#22

Post by mingus88 »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #15

This is infuriating. I bought the CarThing for a Christmas present for someone just six months ago. I understand it was no longer supported at the time, but there is no reason why it couldn't still function as a controller, there solution is just to throw it away? Hate the PR speak here "This decision wasn't made lightly, and we want to assure you that our commitment to providing a superior listening experience remai…

When their main competitors have been streaming high res, lossless and atmos content for a while now, it’s rough to see them claim they are committed to a superior listening experience with 320kbps ogg being the best they have in 2024.

Perhaps pruning projects like this helps them deliver on higher quality streams, which they have been alluding to for years now. Spotify Hifi was announced in 2021.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#23

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #15

This is infuriating. I bought the CarThing for a Christmas present for someone just six months ago. I understand it was no longer supported at the time, but there is no reason why it couldn't still function as a controller, there solution is just to throw it away? Hate the PR speak here "This decision wasn't made lightly, and we want to assure you that our commitment to providing a superior listening experience remai…

> I bought the CarThing for a Christmas present for someone just six months ago

Depending on your jurisdiction, this may be a short enough window to warrant a refund. Or at the very least a chargeback.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#24

Post by ChildOfChaos »

mingus88 wrote: post #22
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #15

This is infuriating. I bought the CarThing for a Christmas present for someone just six months ago. I understand it was no longer supported at the time, but there is no reason why it couldn't still function as a controller, there solution is just to throw it away? Hate the PR speak here "This decision wasn't made lightly, and we want to assure you that our commitment to providing a superior listening experience remai…

When their main competitors have been streaming high res, lossless and atmos content for a while now, it’s rough to see them claim they are committed to a superior listening experience with 320kbps ogg being the best they have in 2024. Perhaps pruning projects like this helps them deliver on higher quality streams, which they have been alluding to for years now. Spotify Hifi was announced in 2021.

I'm not sure how it would. The Spotify Car thing is just a controller for your phone, it doesn't actually do the streaming of the music, that is still handled by the app on the phone. It's just a kick in the teeth for users that bought into it, I get it's a failed product but that should be the cost of business that they support it at least somewhat, it wouldn't take much, but they are killing it completely.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#25

Post by ejj28 »

Really upset by this, I love my Car Thing and the voice control Spotify built into it is second to none - it's quick, always hears me perfectly even with noise in the car, and most importantly, it actually plays what I want it to play.

It seems like it's integrated with my music history, so if I ask it to play a song that I listen to a lot but it has a very common name, it'll still get it right - it's like magic.

Google Assistant is absolute trash in comparison, even on the (rare) occasion that it finds the right song, it's super slow and half the time it won't even start the music. And good luck asking it to play a song that shares a name with a movie, it'll think you're trying to play the movie.

Really disappointed that Spotify is going to stop me from using a piece of hardware that I paid for, and by making me switch to Google Assistant is going to make listening to music in the car hell.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#26

Post by nickthegreek »

djc6 wrote: post #18
smallerfish wrote: post #2

If anybody at Spotify with the influence to make it happen is reading this: please publish an open source firmware loader (or specs to build one, or similar) to allow community driven projects to be developed on this hardware. You'd gain a lot of good will by doing this.

Seems maybe its already been hacked: https://www.xda-developers.com/spotify-car-thing-root/

I bought one of these for $25 back then hoping someone would create something sweet with it. Well its still in the box, no cool hacks had been released last time I checked. I believe the thing barely has any ram.

some subreddits to monitor:

https://www.reddit.com/r/carthinghax/

https://www.reddit.com/r/SpotifyCarThingJBreak/

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#27

Post by ejj28 »

yreg wrote: post #16

There is a DIY alternative: https://github.com/witnessmenow/Spotify-Diy-Thing

Hardly an alternative unfortunately.

The biggest benefit of the Car Thing for me was flawless voice control that leagues ahead of Google Assistant, the Car Thing was much more than a screen that showed album art.

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#28

Post by lotsofpulp »

djc6 wrote: post #8

I've really enjoyed using the Car Thing in my 14 year old Mazda CX9. My car shows no signs of failing, so I don't anticipate replacing it anytime soon for one with Carplay. The Car Thing is so much more convenient than unlocking iPhone with my face, opening spotify, futzing around on the phone to change songs or playlists or whatever. And its easily accessible to my passenger. Its a far better interface than phone fo…

You can probably get a really nice wireless CarPlay compatible head unit installed by a local shop for less than $1.5k to $2k.

https://www.crutchfield.com/g_300/All-Car-Stereos.html

Re: Spotify Car Thing will be discontinued

#29

Post by ourguile »

ejj28 wrote: post #27
yreg wrote: post #16

There is a DIY alternative: https://github.com/witnessmenow/Spotify-Diy-Thing

Hardly an alternative unfortunately. The biggest benefit of the Car Thing for me was flawless voice control that leagues ahead of Google Assistant, the Car Thing was much more than a screen that showed album art.

I have to second this, I've never had an issue with Car Thing's voice recognition. As you'd mentioned, even in a windy or loud car and with tough to pronounce names, it's always understood what I was asking - or opening the correct playlists from my library.

I haven't found a similar replacement for that.

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