Idk who needs to hear it, but stop buying this shit. If it has a computer inside, but you can't flash your own software onto it, just pass. If you're unsure, look around, find the nearest Linux user and ask for help.
You won't even have to ask if they use Linux, they'll tell you.
Nobara btw.
Arch users, assemble!
And my Arch!
And my... hang on, I just need to apply this tweak from the wiki...
And my axe!
To be fair, next to no one bought this. And the people that payed $90 for this are probably not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
This is basically a dumb android device with one app - an auto friendly version of Spotify. To use it, you need to pair it to your phone via Bluetooth. So, yeah, it assumes you have a phone in your car with Spotify on it.
Also it costs about as much as a cheap externally mounted CarPlay or Android auto screen. So, yeah. Not great.
If you want to put auto friendly app UIs in an older car, go get a cheap CarPlay or AA display. Those are platforms that have been around for a decade, and Apple & Google have long partnership agreements with automakers that are likely to ensure those platforms will be supported for years to come. Hell, Apple is still supporting ancient iPod connection protocols 20+ years later.
This thing was the Rabbit R1, but for a music streaming app.
the people that payed $90 for this are probably not the sharpest knives in the drawer
maybe, but even stupid people should be protected from being taken advantage of.
They should at least get a refund of 50% of the purchase price.
A few months ago my wife wanted to buy an electronic picture frame and I had a hard time explaining this to her.
Edit: an internet connected picture frame.
Everybody buy your music. These streaming platforms are trash.
Yes, yes buy. Do not sail the high seas.
I want the bands to get some money. I buy from bandcamp when musicians are sensible enough to sell on there, or on their sites.
I wish list stuff until a Bandcamp Friday comes around where artists get all the money. I've stopped buying physical media, so waiting on a digital purchase isn't an issue for me.
I’ve almost never paid a cent for music.
My concert ticket stack is thicc though, and I have SOOOOO MANY hoodies, t-shirts, cups, and random bullshit. I’m not paying for DRM, but you can’t DRM a comfy zip-up!
Me too...I'm at 1500+ albums. But I do download them too for when the sad times to come...
What.cd
I'm so glad nothing has replaced what.cd yet...
If there was though, what do you think it would be called? I would like to avoid it at all costs and continue to buy subscriptions
I'm afraid that that information has had to be [redacted]. Choose another path.
Lidarr is pretty keen if you already have sonarr and radar running.
Am I the only one who finds it super annoying, that "detection through sound waves" (Sonar) does video things while "detection through light" (lidar) does the sound things?
WHY?! Swap names already! It's driving me nuts!
Why use a private tracker when soulseek allegedly exists? There are also Telegram bots that can allegedly download FLACs from Deezer
piracy is not stealing if buying isn’t owning
There are three morbillion songs and I have no idea which ones I like. Streaming platforms became popular for a reason
Yeah most people don't care to maintain a local music library. It's a lot of work and compared to streaming services that do it for you this offers no real benefit. If you listen to lots of new/different music all the time, streaming is actually far cheaper.
I love buying CDs on eBay.
I also love buying direct downloads from artists.
Plex[Amp] makes this work in my pocket
I just realised iTunes (store) is no longer a thing. Everything's just streaming now.
Time to bust out the walkman
iTunes was an unhappy medium. I liked how you can actually buy albums, but they gave the MP3s weird filenames to make it more difficult to move to another device. I did it anyway, but I had to find the right folder, figure out what track it was, and rename the track. I'm against it but it's still better than streaming.
These fuckers disabled car mode in the android app to make you buy one of those and now they're killing it. I used car mode in my car and the moment it stopped working was when I cancelled my subscription.
When did they kill car mode on the app? I've been subscribed for years even before the Car Thing and I always have car mode on even outside of my car.
Mine doesn't have Car mode anymore, it stopped working a couple of weeks ago.
There's a setting to disable it, it always annoyed me so I disabled it auto going to car mode when it connected to Bluetooth
The bastards barely started selling it a few years ago. I feel like some responsibility should exist. It isn't a company that is going under, so it shouldn't be able to just casually kill the devices tied-service it only recently sold.
Agreed. Anything sold with the intention of being used with a subscription service should have 10 years of support.
They should at least release data sheets and any bootloader signing keys, allowing people to reuse the devices for other purposes. If you could replace the firmware, I’m sure you could use it for controlling your home automation setup or displaying the weather/news/train times/other info (or possibly other tasks depending on what’s in the SoC). Now, alas, it’s just e-waste.
That doesn't help make money. The engineers are needed elsewhere.
Since that was their first attempt at hardware, I bet they don't have access and/or rights to share shit, as everything is owned by OEM.
Even Google products have a longer lifespan 😖
I've since moved on to Tidal. Bought it at $30 when root mods started to be developed, but never really went anywhere.
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It's a little annoying how the article only gives much of a hint as to what exactly a Car Thing is, beyond a "dashboard accessory", in the last paragraph of the article:
the product was more of a remote control for Spotify on your mobile phone than any kind of standalone player
It's worth noting that it was quite cheap and therefore a very good budget option to MacGyver music streaming into older cars.
Car Thing is basically the Rabbit R1, but for music. In other words, a cheap Android device, with one app (a car dashboard variation of Spotify), a scroll wheel, and a some shortcut buttons.
It works by connecting to your phone via Bluetooth. So, yeah, instead of using the phone for the auto friendly UI, it pipes that UI to a second cheaper mobile device.
It’s truly stupid, and it cost about the same as an external CarPlay / Android Auto screen… which could display an auto friendly Spotify UI, and much much more.
I bought this for my old Cadillac that only had a tape deck and it was amazing (with a Bluetooth cassette). I haven't used it since I got rid of that old Cadillac about two years ago now. Pretty limited use case but it still sucks to kill shit for no reason.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Customers who bought the Car Thing are receiving emails warning that it will stop working altogether as of December 9th.
Unfortunately for those owners, Spotify isn’t offering any kind of subscription credit or automatic refund for the device — nor is the company open-sourcing it.
“We’re discontinuing Car Thing as part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings,” Spotify wrote in an FAQ on its website.
“We understand it may be disappointing, but this decision allows us to focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users.”
The company is recommending that customers do a factory reset on the product and find some way of responsibly recycling the hardware.
Car Thing was initially made available on an invite-only basis in April 2021, with Spotify later opening a public waitlist to buy the accessory later that year.
The original article contains 306 words, the summary contains 145 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I liked using mine at my desk at work. Phone in pocket, connected to headphones. Car thing on desk, controlling music
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
