Spotify's Car Thing Accessory is Officially Dead

[MacRumors]

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.

Spotify's Car Thing was first introduced in April 2021, and it was Spotify's first hardware product. The accessory was designed to provide simple access to Spotify music while in a vehicle, and it was especially useful in vehicles without modern infotainment systems.

Spotify stopped making Car Thing just five months after it launched due to low product demand and supply chain issues. Existing Car Thing accessories continued to function as expected, until this week.

Back in May, Spotify announced that it was discontinuing Car Thing, and earlier this month, it told customers that the device would stop working at some point in December. Spotify says that Car Thing was discontinued in an effort to streamline product offerings.

Car Thing cost $90 when it launched, and existing units are entirely non-operational now that Spotify has decided to brick them. Spotify has directed customers to recycle their Car Things.

Article Link: Spotify's Car Thing Accessory is Officially Dead

 

[icanhazmac]

Should have never been released, XM wants their Roady back.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/spotify-stops-making-dash-mounted-car-thing-just-five-months-after-launch.2352999/?post=31295842#post-31295842

Refund options? Hmmmm, good on them if it is anything substantial.

 

[ikir]

Why not keeping it working? No sense. With little effort Spotify could make them work with basic functions.

 

[djc6]

Should have never been released, XM wants their Roady back.

Refund options? Hmmmm, good on them if it is anything substantial.

I liked my Spotify Car Thing - I drive a 15 year old Mazda it doesn't have any screen. Much nicer UI to pick songs than trying to unlock phone and use Spotify while driving.

They gave me a full refund back when they announced discontinuation - but I had to ask for refund.

Now I have a "portable CarPlay Unit" - a whole genre of devices I didn't know existed. I'm using this one:

CarpodGo

www.carpodgo.com

Its OK, but I miss the physical buttons on the Car Thing - much easier to use.

Some day my car will stop working and I'll move into the future. 178K miles and no signs of problems!

 

[rvd818]

RIP. It was just a Spotify Connect device as far as I know, seems like they could’ve kept it operational. Nonetheless, pour one out for a quirky product who was too good for this world.

 

[carniesandrubes]

It can be hacked to run other stuff. I use mine as a desktop controller for media.

 

[TurboJobo]

It was bad that we do not own our digital libraries but that they can even brick our hardware instead of just letting work for the few people that use it. Makes me think twice on buying new prototype and being free guinea pigs

 

[vegetassj4]

Here's my thing for playing music in a non modern automobile:

 

[airwalk331]

Like it was a nepo baby’s idea

 

[StoneJack]

Oh stealing artists' music was not profitable enough for Spotify?

 

[SFjohn]

It was bad that we do not own our digital libraries but that they can even brick our hardware instead of just letting work for the few people that use it. Makes me think twice on buying new prototype and being free guinea pigs

I own my own digital libraries, you can too.

 

[kalsta]

Gosh, what a kick in the groin for Spotify customers who went out and bought this. If Spotify itself had ceased streaming, I could understand… but… wha… why?

When will these big companies come to understand that when you suck in customers, then leave them out in the cold, it hurts your brand big time. Reminds me of all my InVision Studio files that I can never open again. 🙁

Edit: I somehow missed the mention of 'refund options'. That puts this in a better light.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Did it have to be paired with a phone or did it have its own cellular connection?

If it required a cellular connection, that's a likely explanation for shutting it down - cellular service bills were costing too much. If not, then I'd guess there was some maintenance issue that they deemed was cheaper to just refund the few who bought it than to actually properly fix it.

 

[coffeemilktea]

Too bad, I really wish I could still use it to listen to podcasts on my way to work.

No more Talk Tuah on Spotify's Car Thang. 😓

 

[diggy33]

Here's my thing for playing music in a non modern automobile:

View attachment 2460866

Man I remember cruising’ the mean streets of Woodbridge, VA with my granddad in his Lincoln Continental and jammin to what3ver he had in the 8-track.

 

[gk_brown]

It was bad that we do not own our digital libraries

You could consider purchasing your music instead of renting it.

 

[dannyyankou]

It made no sense. Your phone is your car thing.

That being said, selling a product and shutting down support for it just 3 years later feels scammy.

 

[dannyyankou]

You could consider purchasing your music instead of renting it.

You can’t purchase music in Dolby Atmos though. Yeah yeah, I know, audiophiles roll their eyes at that. I like it though.

 

[Krizoitz]

Why not keeping it working? No sense. With little effort Spotify could make them works with basic functions?

Because there is a non-trivial cost in doing that. Because it might have cost more than they ended up spending on just refunding everyone who bought one to design it like that or update it now.

It turns out its almost never "little effort" to keep something like this running without the backend supporting it.

It's likely a significant effort to modify the device in a reliable way (I say reliable to avoid the whole "person X hacked it and it works' arguments) so they keep working. They were designed to be connected devices. There are design considerations underpinning a device like that that are entirely different from a device that is designed to function offline or connected in some other way.

Buying a device that requires a data connection isn't just buying the physical device, its also accepting that there is an underlying infrastructure behind the scenes that is necessary for it to work and that has a cost and can go away. Don't buy connection required devices if you aren't prepared for them to be shut down someday. Either buy from companies with a good track record of running services long term (of which there are admittedly only a handful) or buy devices that are designed from the beginning to be able to function both on and offline.

 

[vertsix]

I didn't even know this existed.

 

[Rodan52]

Too bad, I really wish I could still use it to listen to podcasts on my way to work.

No more Talk Tuah on Spotify's Car Thang. 😓

You can still play Spotify content on your iPhone via bluetooth to your car sound system. For me having CarThing would just seems like duplication.

 

[klasma]

In other words, Car Thing is no longer a thing.

 

[fahlman]

I own my own digital libraries, you can too.

Apple Music is $10.99 per month. How many new songs can I purchase per month for eleven bucks?

 

[jecowa]

Apple Music is $10.99 per month. How many new songs can I purchase per month for eleven bucks?

Guessing 10 or 11 songs.

 

[Razorpit]

Here's my thing for playing music in a non modern automobile:

View attachment 2460866

You got three on the tree?