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Spotify won’t open-source Car Thing, but starts refund process
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
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For reference, I bought my Car Thing for about $50 in 2022 and was able to get 3 months of credit for my family premium plan ($17/mo x3 = $51), so in essence a complete refund.
As much as it sucks to lose the Car Thing, I’m happy with this outcome at least. Anyone recommend a good replacement for an older car?
I ripped out my old radio and put one that had apple carplay. Was annoying to install but worth the effort.
Seconded. Only downside is that you might need to replace part or all of your dash where the radio goes (because many radio designs are proprietary and aren’t a standard double-DIN bezel), and possibly get an adapter if you have any steering wheel controls like volume or skip. It can be a little involved, though generally the instructions are quite good if you buy from someplace like Crutchfield, or use YouTube videos explaining how to remove and replace the parts.
How did this connect to your car and Internet? Literally anything with blue tooth support will work with a smartphone. If you need to go cheap then a cable and mp3 player can work.
Wait was this thing really just an extra control screen for your phone? Looking at their manual it connected to the car power, pulled information from the phone, sent the information back to the phone, and the phone sent the information to the car.
If that accurately describes what was happening then please just get a car mount for your phone.
It worked just as you described it, but having actual buttons helped use it in the car easier. The Car Thing was simply a remote control of sorts for Spotify using Bluetooth to connect to the phone. The phone itself is what connected to the Internet and your car.
I’m sure a phone mount would work, but I was just curious if there was something similar that others used.
That's fair. And it's ridiculous they want to brick such a simple device.