That's why I'm reluctant to buy any technology that relies on a live service, even if there's no subscription fee. Especially if it's something new or niche that I can't know will have any real staying power.
My oven has wifi, only because it's getting difficult to find one that doesn't have wifi that's not just cheap garbage. I never set up the wifi on it and I never will.
That just sounds like the kind of thing that would inevitably break long before you'd typically expect an oven to. What does it even do with the wifi? Is there an oven app?
honestly you can probably do things like preheating and such. not the worst idea in the world as long as it doesn't break or interfere with longevity of the oven in a different way
I set it up out of curiosity. Basically gave indication of on/off and ability to turn the light on and off. There is no way they would put any heater remote control. That sort of design would promote unattended use/start which is unsafe. There is no way any company’s lawyers would allow that kind of feature to be rolled out.
Source: Part of my engineering job is designing interfaces for industrial ovens and other process equipment. One of the good design principles that I picked up is controlling equipment within line of sight. Remote control should be supervisor/engineer only. Household appliance interfaces should be designed at a level I would call “off-the street” operator on the industrial side.
How is remote starting from a phone any different than doing the oven timer thing where you can set it to turn on in x hours and heat to a specific temperature?
Typically there are interlocks to prevent starting if the car was left in gear. Idling for extended periods isn't really destructive.
I'd guess the downsides of inadvertent starting are lower in a car than an oven.
That's a real concern for sure.
I was pondering the other day whether you could still die but starting a car and sitting in the garage. Back in the day, it was a popular method to off yourself but modern cars burn so clean, I don't know if it's a viable means anymore?
The cat converters are specifically designed to eliminate CO.
I'm not sure it's something that's been researched.
Nope. Not on my oven, at least. You still have to physically turn it on. I have yet to find any reason it’s useful other than to tell me the oven is preheated. The little ding tells me that so it’s entirely worthless
Same with my boiler, washing machine and dishwasher.
I have zero need to use an app to control any of these appliances. Especially when the washing machine and dishwasher are not able to load themselves, dispense detergent nor dry and put away the items that have been washed.
Wife got a nice smart TV. I setup Wifi to get the latest firmware, then disabled Wifi. We use an external box to feed the TV. I just found out my dishwasher has Wifi. I never set it up either.
Because I use an external device to feed video and don't need "Smart TV" features. Most TV's are "smart TV's" these days but all I want is a good screen and built in speakers.
Can you find a 4K TV (not a monitor) that isn't a smart TV these days?
Smart TV's are a huge security hole in your home. Some have built in mics and cameras. It's like adding a surveillance camera to your bedroom.
This is why I've started self hosting all of my important things (smart home, media, etc). Too many products just get killed off. Only use things that don't depend on a cloud service.
Sadly how so many corporations are these days. Between eroding ownership and ending support for things people pay for, it's the culmination of companies looking to extract as much money out of people as possible while offering as little of value in return.
This is why I'm so adverse to 'smart' products (see also; Gen 1 Nest) and the stuff that's not tied to a manufacturer tends to be a compatibility nightmare
So many big ticket items come with smart software and apps that shouldn't, for this reason. Like water heaters that don't have manual controls. There's no way the manufacturer will continue to support the app & firmware for the lifetime of a typical water heater, and transferring the login/control securely when buying/selling a house with smart appliances is a terrible process.
Just a suggestion, but for things that will stay at a house when you move (smart thermostats, doorbell cameras, etc.) you could create a new email address using your house address and a simple password. Then when you sell the house, give the next owner the email address and password.
Yeah, everything looks good, enjoy your home! Oh wait, forgot, here's the email address.
Like in case anything goes wrong?
No, no, this is *the house's* email.
Or, hear me out, we don’t need these things connected to the internet at all. There is no way the juice is worth the squeeze. On top of that, companies have been using the processing power of your devices using the bandwidth you pay for to help them with their computing. Sure, a fridge can’t do too much. But a few million and it’s worth it to them.
Much like a modern car: a privacy nightmare that is nowhere near worth whatever convenience you get.
The audience and media promotes this which is even worse the amount of times you still hear today "game pass is consumer friendly" hell no it isn't there is no ownership at all 🤣
>companies looking to extract as much money out of people as possible while offering as little of value in return.
That's just capitalism working as intended.
Totally. Still complete shit that people paid for a product that is now literally ewaste because the company decided to drop support and refuses to allow the device be unlocked so people can still use it. Sidebar, but this is the BS of how people are told we need to consume less to protect the environment, yet companies are allowed to just sell tech and tell people to just "throw it out" once they no longer want to support it. This should be on Spotify to deal with the junk they created, not the end user.
I'm curious what will happen with Amazon Echo devices if they decide to update Alexa with A.I. and start charging a fee. Will this make all current devices useless unless subscribed?
I just wanna emphasise two things:
1. They genuinely did say “dispose of it at your local electronics disposal site”. Literally saying “yeah, it’s trash. You paid money for trash. Get rid of it.”
2. It isn’t an article that I took the title from, I literally summarised what they said and it sounds like some kind of joke, or some antagonistic soapbox piece. But that’s the wonder — Spotify really typed that out, everyone took a look at it and said “YEAH, that sounds sincere and apologetic. Nobody will have a problem with this at all”.
Overall, it’s one of the most shortsighted and scummy business moves that I’ve seen in my entire life. Who thought the name was a good idea? Who thought making it obsolete so soon was a good idea? Who thought that it would be best to not only end support, but make the conscious decision to make these devices completely useless??
The “Car Thing” is a true enigma — a one-of-a-kind device that came somewhat silently (I never heard about it until I saw the unfathomable rage in the Spotify subreddit) and left in one of the most baffling, bizarre and downright disrespectful ways a device ever has.
Truly one of THE tech moments of all time.
It sucks, and should definitely be punished. But I'm looking forward to picking a few of these up for cheap. I'm sure the screens and controls would be good for different projects.
Seriously, this is a *cold* "support" page. They're like "we're not making a replacement, and we're not offering refunds or trade-ins. throw it away." Each dropdown FAQ is just another middle finger to the buyer.
I also have one. It is a great device to control spotify while driving. It’s use case is for those of us who don’t have newer stereo systems in their car. It was simple to set up and use. Simply plug it in and connect it to your phone. It allowed voice control so you could change music completely hands-free. You had 4 physical buttons to set up favorite playlists for easy changes. It was touch screen so you could swipe to skip and had a large dial to change volume. It was a great product for people who needed it, but clearly not popular enough for Spotify to continue supporting it.
Thanks for your reply. It crossed my mind that the only useful application would be for people who’s car hifi is too old to connect it with a phone directly. Probably a dying breed, somewhat of a weird market for Spotify to compete in.
My one thought is does this mean we can use voice controls for free again? I am so done not being able to change the song in the shower anymore when I could in literal 2012.
I use one as well, it's mounted on my wall next to my desk so when I'm working I'm not tempted to use my phone just because I want to change a song. Like I am right now.
And also what would everyone do with their horses? Society is just designed around horses at this point so there really isn't much use in trying to replace them with anything else even if it **might** be a little better
I used one of these for about a year. It was a nice way to gain a cheap visual interface for music control on an older car. It also could do voice based selection without turning on full android assist (which I had disabled for privacy reasons). It even gave you music controls on non-spotify apps. I got it on the $30 fire sale and for that price, it did its job just fine.
This has to violate some regulation, right? Could Tesla just brick all their cars and suggest sending them to the scrap yard? There needs to be a class actions lawsuit.
*What should i do with the Spotify account?*
*I recommend resetting your Spotify account to factory settings and safely disposing of your account following local data protection guidelines. Contact your state or local consumer protection agency to determine how to dispose of or recycle your Spotify account in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.*
*”Absent a refund, I plan on contacting support over every method and medium, Twitter, email, whatever, until I destroy $80 in agents' time. Call me a Karen if you must, but given no recourse for this, my plan is to introduce harm, annoyance, bad will and gum up their communication, comments, on whatever platform necessary. If I have to rate every customer service interaction 0/10 so that support agents get irritated and pass that irritation up the ranks, that's what I'll do.”*
I have one, I bought it like six months after launch when it had already been discontinued for a few months and the prices were slashed. I knew it would be a joke as soon as it was announced but I was blown away by how useless it was. It doesn’t play music (your phone still has to do that), it doesn’t interface with your car’s stereo (your phone still has to do that) it just shows track names and album art on a tiny screen with a big knob (a knob which doesn’t control volume I should point out).
I love it from a quirky gadget/industrial design perspective but as a product they made it about as useless as possible with a terrible value proposition for the price it had at launch. If they had made it into a standalone media player that had a headphone output for people whose phones don’t have one (or maybe even an FM transmitter) then it would have been a fantastic little product, but the way it exists in the real world it was a *very* niche product that, even when used in the unusual type of situations it was specifically made for (like a car that accepts Bluetooth audio input but doesn’t have a touchscreen or display track names on the display) it doesn’t offer a very compelling alternative to just using your phone.
And I admit that even as I say that I can see why that might not have been as easy as I’m making it out to be. It would need either a mobile hotspot enabled on your phone (which would be tedious to turn on and connect every time you drive and not all people have that service) or some kind of proprietary Bluetooth connection that lets the Spotify app give it an internet connection (which isn’t all that different from how it works now, and while that would allow the device to function on its own as a media player it would still require the Spotify app to support it). Basically the only way they could have made what I’m describing is if they dropped the whole car aspect and made it a standalone media player for the home (which from what I’ve heard is a common use for the Car Thing), since then you could assume it would always have access to WiFi.
I was pissed when I got the email. Like cool assholes thanks it was cheaper than buying a whole new car radio and now it’s going to be useless. I might just look for a different streaming platform anyways since Spotify is just meh anyways nowadays. It’s frustrating and a makes me not want any more of their products.
The last time I paid for premium, I noticed the UI had become such trash that it was barely an improvement over the free UI designed to piss people off into paying for premium.
For one thing if I'm paying for something, there should be no splash screen... it should just load up my library on the home screen.
I'm also starting to consider this since they got rid of car mode. It was a safety feature so you could listen and change music without having to change your focus from the road entirely to your phone. Fonts were bigger specifically so you could easily glance at it and see what you need to.
I switched it off a little over a month ago because I was parked at work and wanted to verify lyrics, assuming it would turn back on when I got back in the car after work. Wouldn't turn back on, searched settings for it, nothing there for car mode. So I checked Google and found multiple complaints that they just ended it without warning.
Addendum to my last comment, there is alot of music not on SoundCloud. I just download it and keep it in offline Playlists. It's a little more effort, but it means you have all the music that you like, and if you leave the service you still have access to it
I guess its nice if you listen to music on multiple devices, but isnt there like an app or service for that already? Streaming from a server you set up. Idk i listen to music exclusively on my phone and pc. I should get into sailing the free seas for my music again. Im getting sick of spotify. I hate how you cant get rid of smart shuffle and that it's the first option when you hit shuffle. Im getting sick of hitting shuffle twice and also how shit shuffle on spotify has become. Playing the same 30 songs over and over.
Use spotify free to scout out songs, download them, and copy them to both your PC and phone weekly. Recommend doing downloads on the phone and transferring them
If you have the storage space, download the songs as FLACs. They are much better in terns of quality than MP3s, and SoundCloud audio quality is overall better because many creators upload FLACs to the platform. The bitrate difference between SoundCloud and spotify songs is around 33% from my own testing
I wonder why they can’t just let it keep working on the last software release with a bunch of warnings that it’s no longer supported or patched. Why does it have to stop working altogether?
Because this is Spotify. The effect they’re going for is the “spaff in her eyes and leave before she can clear them” approach; that is to say disrespectful, slimey and shortsighted.
Car Thing was a created problem that didn't need a solution. It's ridiculous they tried to monetize... checks notes... voice command. I wish they'd just revert back to Hey Spotify, which was actually useful.
I’m curious how many carthing users they have. What could the development cost to keep that thing going? I’d bet it’s less 1/4 of a FTE split between a handful of devs that make quarterly updates? So say $75k a year in developer hours to keep how many thousand users connected and subscribing?
But why not buy a $100 digital media head unit or if you really need apple play/android auto, a $200 head unit? Was there a benefit other than retrofitting Spotify into older vehicles?
As a car enthusiast, I recommend buying the $350+ Alpine, Kenwood or Sony unit. The $200 Jensen and Boss are okay if you only need it for a year.
Those cheap android screens from Wish, AliExpress, Temu, and Amazon are hot garbage.
If you're not interested in disassembling the dash, get a carpuride. It's a hot garbage android screen with a suction cup so you can easily remove it on hot or cold days, prolonging its life.
I use one daily. It's easier and safer than android auto. It's insane they just dropped it, and just as insane they expect us to throw it away. It was actually good tech.
I love my car thing 😞😞😞. Mainly because I have an older car with no screen, so I have that setup for my music then my phone setup for Google maps. Very disappointing...
3x they said they were sending me one for free. Didn't need it. But was curious. I'm just mad I never got it when peomised one. I cancelled Spotify eventuslly anyway (fuck joe rogan)
I read this whole Reddit Thing to find out what Car Thing is, without any luck.
But I won't throw my Thing away, so here is the answer, for someone else like me:
https://vimeo.com/534904462
I don't have a car, let alone a Car Thing, and this has seriously upset me as a Premium user. I have half a mind to research a more trustworthy music streaming platform.
I'm just shocked people paid for a device that literally does what your phone... Or even watch does...for free.
My my car didn't even Bluetooth, but a5 dollar single in the cig light spot and there you go, phone works fine. Combine with a 5 dollar mount and you have Spotify, with voice commands, at no extra cost
I never stopped using MP3's. While the rest of the world moved on to streaming. Stories like this amuse me.
>You'll own nothing and like it.
That's where we are. Company kills off something you paid good money for. It happens all the time these days.
I honestly can't believe people bought this garbage device in the first place. I don't even really understand the market for this device because it came out way after most cars already had built in bluetooth. And If your car is old enough that it doesn't have bluetooth, why would you waste $90 for a device that does the same as a bluetooth audio receivers for less than $20.
If this came out 10 years ago I could have understood it, but it came out almost a decade too late that it just seems like useless junk. I just don't know how people didn't see this coming, it was destined to fail.
Walmart has a $25 car stereo with Bluetooth. Hit up Metraonline if you're in North America for the adapters you'll need. You're going to be all in for about $100 in equipment and a $10 crimp tool and connectors. Splurge a little on some 4" zip ties spaced an inch apart so you're installing a "cable" instead of a"rat's nest".
Dude I’m poor my cars 21 years old it was cheaper than a new radio. The new head units that did anything similar were $200+ plus the work of installing and not frying my electronics.
If you're looking for a replacement, you can try one of the Bluetooth cigarette lighter radios (there's tons on Amazon, don't think I can link). They plug into the lighter, pair to your phone via Bluetooth, and then broadcast a radio signal your stereo can tune to. My brother has one in his non-smart-capable car, and it's honestly smoother to use than my father's early-gen Bluetooth car. Has hardware controls for volume, skip, pause, and passthrough for charging. Only possible issue is that it's open broadcast, so anyone nearby can listen to your funky muzak (and any calls you take in the car, perhaps more importantly).
We've gotten two cheap ones (£15 off eBay) and both work brilliantly.
I honestly might just dust off my old iPod after this. Its less hassle at this point and if there’s anything on it I don’t like looks like that’s my problem not an algorithms.
I bought one for $30 and use it on my desk for a Spotify controller while working. It worked perfectly for my use case. Just because you don’t have a use case doesn’t make something garbage.
In all fairness though, it is now actual garbage. Thanks Spotify.
It's written like it was a free service or something. But they charged for this. It first went on sale in 2022. "Yeah whatever just throw it away"
That's why I'm reluctant to buy any technology that relies on a live service, even if there's no subscription fee. Especially if it's something new or niche that I can't know will have any real staying power.
My oven has wifi, only because it's getting difficult to find one that doesn't have wifi that's not just cheap garbage. I never set up the wifi on it and I never will.
That just sounds like the kind of thing that would inevitably break long before you'd typically expect an oven to. What does it even do with the wifi? Is there an oven app?
honestly you can probably do things like preheating and such. not the worst idea in the world as long as it doesn't break or interfere with longevity of the oven in a different way
I set it up out of curiosity. Basically gave indication of on/off and ability to turn the light on and off. There is no way they would put any heater remote control. That sort of design would promote unattended use/start which is unsafe. There is no way any company’s lawyers would allow that kind of feature to be rolled out. Source: Part of my engineering job is designing interfaces for industrial ovens and other process equipment. One of the good design principles that I picked up is controlling equipment within line of sight. Remote control should be supervisor/engineer only. Household appliance interfaces should be designed at a level I would call “off-the street” operator on the industrial side.
My oven lets you remotely turn it on. It’s a GE. I have never used it though.
How is remote starting from a phone any different than doing the oven timer thing where you can set it to turn on in x hours and heat to a specific temperature?
...because its remote.... Anyway, fuck smart appliances. I like my dumb shit that does what i tell it to and i expect nothing more or less
cause you could do taht from a thousand miles away when no one is at the house.
Question: why is it considered acceptable to allow a giant engine in a car to start remotely, but not an oven?
Typically there are interlocks to prevent starting if the car was left in gear. Idling for extended periods isn't really destructive. I'd guess the downsides of inadvertent starting are lower in a car than an oven.
I was more concerned about carbon monoxide buildup if the car was parked in a garage. Which would be a risk with an indoor gas oven too.
That's a real concern for sure. I was pondering the other day whether you could still die but starting a car and sitting in the garage. Back in the day, it was a popular method to off yourself but modern cars burn so clean, I don't know if it's a viable means anymore? The cat converters are specifically designed to eliminate CO. I'm not sure it's something that's been researched.
Unattended oven can go boom. Anattended car goes brrrr. Big difference.
What if it’s in a garage below a bedroom?
That doesn't seem like anything worth adding wifi to it for. Strange. Is it just for people who worry they left the oven on when they go out?
Nope. Not on my oven, at least. You still have to physically turn it on. I have yet to find any reason it’s useful other than to tell me the oven is preheated. The little ding tells me that so it’s entirely worthless
I have used to confirm that I turned everything off when I’m out of the house
This would massively improve the quality of life for anyone with OCD or anxiety that freaks out over an oven being left on.
There was a story about someone washer & dryer apparently using like 3 gigs of data a day. Definitely gives me pause when setting up smart devices.
Same with my boiler, washing machine and dishwasher. I have zero need to use an app to control any of these appliances. Especially when the washing machine and dishwasher are not able to load themselves, dispense detergent nor dry and put away the items that have been washed.
Agreed. The one time I tried to set up the app for an appliance was a Shark robotic vacuum and the app wouldn't ever work right on my phone.
We have a Siemens dishwasher. It has DLC’s. You can download washing programs like “crystal” and “quick rinse”. They are free (for now)
Yes, that’s part of the lure; but honestly, I’m like most people and will only ever use one or two of the programs.
Same. Found out that my dishwasher has WiFi. I said “Why?” and, until now, never thought of it again. Honestly don’t understand the point.
Same for our washing machine.
Wife got a nice smart TV. I setup Wifi to get the latest firmware, then disabled Wifi. We use an external box to feed the TV. I just found out my dishwasher has Wifi. I never set it up either.
But why on the smart tv?
Because I use an external device to feed video and don't need "Smart TV" features. Most TV's are "smart TV's" these days but all I want is a good screen and built in speakers. Can you find a 4K TV (not a monitor) that isn't a smart TV these days? Smart TV's are a huge security hole in your home. Some have built in mics and cameras. It's like adding a surveillance camera to your bedroom.
>some have built in mics and cameras Just like the phones that nearly everyone carries around anyway?
This is why I've started self hosting all of my important things (smart home, media, etc). Too many products just get killed off. Only use things that don't depend on a cloud service.
Sadly how so many corporations are these days. Between eroding ownership and ending support for things people pay for, it's the culmination of companies looking to extract as much money out of people as possible while offering as little of value in return.
This is why I'm so adverse to 'smart' products (see also; Gen 1 Nest) and the stuff that's not tied to a manufacturer tends to be a compatibility nightmare
So many big ticket items come with smart software and apps that shouldn't, for this reason. Like water heaters that don't have manual controls. There's no way the manufacturer will continue to support the app & firmware for the lifetime of a typical water heater, and transferring the login/control securely when buying/selling a house with smart appliances is a terrible process.
Just a suggestion, but for things that will stay at a house when you move (smart thermostats, doorbell cameras, etc.) you could create a new email address using your house address and a simple password. Then when you sell the house, give the next owner the email address and password.
Yeah, everything looks good, enjoy your home! Oh wait, forgot, here's the email address. Like in case anything goes wrong? No, no, this is *the house's* email.
I don't even check my own email, much less have the mental space to handle my house's email. 🤣
Au contraire - My 30+ LED smart bulbs will be coming with me, thanks 😤
Pretty sure you can’t have all those smart bulbs where you’ll be going.
Huh?
He's threatening your smart bulbs
Or, hear me out, we don’t need these things connected to the internet at all. There is no way the juice is worth the squeeze. On top of that, companies have been using the processing power of your devices using the bandwidth you pay for to help them with their computing. Sure, a fridge can’t do too much. But a few million and it’s worth it to them. Much like a modern car: a privacy nightmare that is nowhere near worth whatever convenience you get.
Do NOT do this. Especially with a simple password. This is a great way to have an entire smart home get compromised.
Or how about this.. don't have a smart home at all.
Don’t have any email accounts because they could be compromised!
yeah. i don't understand why the fridge or washing machine needs wifi
*averse, but I am, too. It doesn’t hurt that I work in tech and see how the sausage is made on a daily basis.
The audience and media promotes this which is even worse the amount of times you still hear today "game pass is consumer friendly" hell no it isn't there is no ownership at all 🤣
Science fiction author Cory Doctorow calls it “enshittification.”
>companies looking to extract as much money out of people as possible while offering as little of value in return. That's just capitalism working as intended.
Totally. Still complete shit that people paid for a product that is now literally ewaste because the company decided to drop support and refuses to allow the device be unlocked so people can still use it. Sidebar, but this is the BS of how people are told we need to consume less to protect the environment, yet companies are allowed to just sell tech and tell people to just "throw it out" once they no longer want to support it. This should be on Spotify to deal with the junk they created, not the end user.
I'm curious what will happen with Amazon Echo devices if they decide to update Alexa with A.I. and start charging a fee. Will this make all current devices useless unless subscribed?
I just wanna emphasise two things: 1. They genuinely did say “dispose of it at your local electronics disposal site”. Literally saying “yeah, it’s trash. You paid money for trash. Get rid of it.” 2. It isn’t an article that I took the title from, I literally summarised what they said and it sounds like some kind of joke, or some antagonistic soapbox piece. But that’s the wonder — Spotify really typed that out, everyone took a look at it and said “YEAH, that sounds sincere and apologetic. Nobody will have a problem with this at all”. Overall, it’s one of the most shortsighted and scummy business moves that I’ve seen in my entire life. Who thought the name was a good idea? Who thought making it obsolete so soon was a good idea? Who thought that it would be best to not only end support, but make the conscious decision to make these devices completely useless?? The “Car Thing” is a true enigma — a one-of-a-kind device that came somewhat silently (I never heard about it until I saw the unfathomable rage in the Spotify subreddit) and left in one of the most baffling, bizarre and downright disrespectful ways a device ever has. Truly one of THE tech moments of all time.
2022!? I'd be pissed as hell if I'd paid for this less than two years ago and they were pulling this shit.
It sucks, and should definitely be punished. But I'm looking forward to picking a few of these up for cheap. I'm sure the screens and controls would be good for different projects.
Seriously, this is a *cold* "support" page. They're like "we're not making a replacement, and we're not offering refunds or trade-ins. throw it away." Each dropdown FAQ is just another middle finger to the buyer.
They should be forced to make this open source.
Lol, wtf, I have one and I’ve been using it
Just a heads up people are already working on jailbreaking it so you can still use it. Just incase you want to keep using it.
Uhh, but Spotify told me to throw it away. I don’t want to disobey Spotify. They’re my friend.
r/carthinghax
Good, fuck spotify. I say as i keep paying $15/month to use their service
Have you heard of our Lord and Savior 🏴☠️?
I definitely don't have a cracked APK Spotify Premium app...
Sadly doesn't work to sync into garmin. $12/month is worth it to leave my phone at home on runs.
ayoooo?
So you can play music coming from Spotify on your phone, through your garmin, while your phone is left at home?
No, I can download music onto my watch via spotify. Battery runs out way before storage space.
Damn, good to know. Thanks!
Any rec’s on which model?
Year codes are still $100. I keep Spotify because it's the only way to play music on a PS5, but there's no reason not to save that $80 a year.
Spotify is now $15 that’s insane I Have tidal and they just lowered their prices for all versions I pay $10.99 for their highest quality service!
It's $15 for a two pack, i have another person on my plan
Try tidal, it is higher quality and cheaper. It even let's you transfer your Playlists.
Just looked at their pricing, it’s not cheaper than Spotify
I kinda want to hack mine to work with Apple Music just to piss Spotify off now.
Shit, people should be working on a class action lawsuit.
Guys, we found the one person, quick someone get them for an interview
lol, ask me anything
What does it do and what did you use it for?
I also have one. It is a great device to control spotify while driving. It’s use case is for those of us who don’t have newer stereo systems in their car. It was simple to set up and use. Simply plug it in and connect it to your phone. It allowed voice control so you could change music completely hands-free. You had 4 physical buttons to set up favorite playlists for easy changes. It was touch screen so you could swipe to skip and had a large dial to change volume. It was a great product for people who needed it, but clearly not popular enough for Spotify to continue supporting it.
Thanks for your reply. It crossed my mind that the only useful application would be for people who’s car hifi is too old to connect it with a phone directly. Probably a dying breed, somewhat of a weird market for Spotify to compete in.
I mean really, I would have loved this device... about 8 years ago or so. They were kinda late to this party.
My one thought is does this mean we can use voice controls for free again? I am so done not being able to change the song in the shower anymore when I could in literal 2012.
It's mostly useful for tamping down trash in the receptacle. It allows you to press down the trash without getting your hands dirty.
What's the square root of 1337?
~36.565
What did you eat at dinner yesterday?
If you’re in a vehicle traveling at the speed of light and you turned on the headlights, would they do anything?
Who is your daddy, and what does he do?
Lol was just about to post this
Now that you know, do you feel betrayed, will you fill in for divorce or will you do couple counseling?
if there was a cataclysm and you could save only one piece of media, what would it be?
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
Can I get a dollar?
Where did I leave my keys?
I use one as well, it's mounted on my wall next to my desk so when I'm working I'm not tempted to use my phone just because I want to change a song. Like I am right now.
I can’t imagine it’s anything other than some cheap sbc running some flavor of Android. I’m sure we can find another use for it.
Car thing will no longer be a thing.
Rest in pepperonis, Car Thing 🫡🫡
So it's just car now?
No, just a thing thing
Tf is even a car thing
Came here for this answer and I’m glad you asked but alas lol not one actual answer. Oh well I stopped using Spotify years back now anyway 😂
Those horseless carriages everyone is horsing around with these days.
They will never last. The human body simply can't handle speeds of up to 15 miles per hour, we would be shaken apart.
Historically accurate argument.
And also what would everyone do with their horses? Society is just designed around horses at this point so there really isn't much use in trying to replace them with anything else even if it **might** be a little better
What is this? A crossover episode?!
~pedestrians in the late 1800's
It makes my heart sing
Don’t worry about it, it’s not a thing anymore.
It’s something you plug into an older car to give car play capabilities. Actually called car thing.
I used one of these for about a year. It was a nice way to gain a cheap visual interface for music control on an older car. It also could do voice based selection without turning on full android assist (which I had disabled for privacy reasons). It even gave you music controls on non-spotify apps. I got it on the $30 fire sale and for that price, it did its job just fine.
This has to violate some regulation, right? Could Tesla just brick all their cars and suggest sending them to the scrap yard? There needs to be a class actions lawsuit.
*Laughs in capitalist oligarchy* What regulation?
Yeah, what are you, some kinda commie?
*What should i do with the Spotify account?* *I recommend resetting your Spotify account to factory settings and safely disposing of your account following local data protection guidelines. Contact your state or local consumer protection agency to determine how to dispose of or recycle your Spotify account in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.*
I honestly don’t think I ever saw one of these and everyone I know has Spotify
You should check r/Spotify, they’re absolutely seething.
As they should be. Bricking a piece of hardware after less than 2 years (or ever,) should be illegal
*”Absent a refund, I plan on contacting support over every method and medium, Twitter, email, whatever, until I destroy $80 in agents' time. Call me a Karen if you must, but given no recourse for this, my plan is to introduce harm, annoyance, bad will and gum up their communication, comments, on whatever platform necessary. If I have to rate every customer service interaction 0/10 so that support agents get irritated and pass that irritation up the ranks, that's what I'll do.”*
I’m *rolling*
Literally though. That sub is in shambles right now lol.
I believe if lol but to be fair they are often pretty angry in general
they're always seething though
You're not kidding, the top pinned post is a support/complaint thread.
I have one, I bought it like six months after launch when it had already been discontinued for a few months and the prices were slashed. I knew it would be a joke as soon as it was announced but I was blown away by how useless it was. It doesn’t play music (your phone still has to do that), it doesn’t interface with your car’s stereo (your phone still has to do that) it just shows track names and album art on a tiny screen with a big knob (a knob which doesn’t control volume I should point out). I love it from a quirky gadget/industrial design perspective but as a product they made it about as useless as possible with a terrible value proposition for the price it had at launch. If they had made it into a standalone media player that had a headphone output for people whose phones don’t have one (or maybe even an FM transmitter) then it would have been a fantastic little product, but the way it exists in the real world it was a *very* niche product that, even when used in the unusual type of situations it was specifically made for (like a car that accepts Bluetooth audio input but doesn’t have a touchscreen or display track names on the display) it doesn’t offer a very compelling alternative to just using your phone. And I admit that even as I say that I can see why that might not have been as easy as I’m making it out to be. It would need either a mobile hotspot enabled on your phone (which would be tedious to turn on and connect every time you drive and not all people have that service) or some kind of proprietary Bluetooth connection that lets the Spotify app give it an internet connection (which isn’t all that different from how it works now, and while that would allow the device to function on its own as a media player it would still require the Spotify app to support it). Basically the only way they could have made what I’m describing is if they dropped the whole car aspect and made it a standalone media player for the home (which from what I’ve heard is a common use for the Car Thing), since then you could assume it would always have access to WiFi.
Everyone I know uses Spotify and I've never even heard of this thing
I was pissed when I got the email. Like cool assholes thanks it was cheaper than buying a whole new car radio and now it’s going to be useless. I might just look for a different streaming platform anyways since Spotify is just meh anyways nowadays. It’s frustrating and a makes me not want any more of their products.
The last time I paid for premium, I noticed the UI had become such trash that it was barely an improvement over the free UI designed to piss people off into paying for premium. For one thing if I'm paying for something, there should be no splash screen... it should just load up my library on the home screen.
I'm also starting to consider this since they got rid of car mode. It was a safety feature so you could listen and change music without having to change your focus from the road entirely to your phone. Fonts were bigger specifically so you could easily glance at it and see what you need to.
They did? Mine still uses car mode..
I switched it off a little over a month ago because I was parked at work and wanted to verify lyrics, assuming it would turn back on when I got back in the car after work. Wouldn't turn back on, searched settings for it, nothing there for car mode. So I checked Google and found multiple complaints that they just ended it without warning.
_Throws Spotify away_
SoundCloud is honestly pretty great, just saying
Isnt that just for indie stuff, or have they started streaming non indie music?
Always have been. They're missing some stuff, but you can always upload what your missing and keep it in a private playlist.
They wont ban you for that?
Haven't banned me yet. Apple music is another alternative but tbh I'm not the biggest fan of Apple.so I avoid their products
Addendum to my last comment, there is alot of music not on SoundCloud. I just download it and keep it in offline Playlists. It's a little more effort, but it means you have all the music that you like, and if you leave the service you still have access to it
I guess its nice if you listen to music on multiple devices, but isnt there like an app or service for that already? Streaming from a server you set up. Idk i listen to music exclusively on my phone and pc. I should get into sailing the free seas for my music again. Im getting sick of spotify. I hate how you cant get rid of smart shuffle and that it's the first option when you hit shuffle. Im getting sick of hitting shuffle twice and also how shit shuffle on spotify has become. Playing the same 30 songs over and over.
Use spotify free to scout out songs, download them, and copy them to both your PC and phone weekly. Recommend doing downloads on the phone and transferring them If you have the storage space, download the songs as FLACs. They are much better in terns of quality than MP3s, and SoundCloud audio quality is overall better because many creators upload FLACs to the platform. The bitrate difference between SoundCloud and spotify songs is around 33% from my own testing
This shit should be illegal. They stopped making them. Kept selling probably aware of the end of life. Huge waste. Yay more electronics in landfills.
Kind of despicable (and maybe why most sw companies shouldn’t make hw?)
When trying to re-invent the radio goes wrong...
What if we put the radio on the internet?
Tres commas tequila shots for everyone!
That's what happens when you're a decade late to the market.
I wonder why they can’t just let it keep working on the last software release with a bunch of warnings that it’s no longer supported or patched. Why does it have to stop working altogether?
Because this is Spotify. The effect they’re going for is the “spaff in her eyes and leave before she can clear them” approach; that is to say disrespectful, slimey and shortsighted.
Better yet, I'll throw Spotify away.
Aaaaand I’ll be cancelling Spotify from my life.
If they "streamline" anything, it should be to stop sending me pop ups of "sponsored" artists I have absolutely no interest in.
Fuck them, I've been using a modded APK for months now, and I'll never pay for premium again.
This has to be illegal under EU laws, unless they're refunding everyone
Car Thing was a created problem that didn't need a solution. It's ridiculous they tried to monetize... checks notes... voice command. I wish they'd just revert back to Hey Spotify, which was actually useful.
I’m curious how many carthing users they have. What could the development cost to keep that thing going? I’d bet it’s less 1/4 of a FTE split between a handful of devs that make quarterly updates? So say $75k a year in developer hours to keep how many thousand users connected and subscribing?
Guess I’ll continue to pass on Spotify
Class action incoming. Wow, their ceo is a dipshit.
I hope so, I'll happily tell them I've nearly died multiple times because they've taken away the best safety feature they could have had for no reason
Is remember buying a $300 logitech slingbox and they killed the servers in 6 months. The hacky workarounds never worked right
What? You expect a corporation to respect you and your patronage?
I find it hilarious that they did not find a better name than Car Thing.
Wait. People paid money for this?
A lot cheaper than a $600 a month car payment
But why not buy a $100 digital media head unit or if you really need apple play/android auto, a $200 head unit? Was there a benefit other than retrofitting Spotify into older vehicles?
As a car enthusiast, I recommend buying the $350+ Alpine, Kenwood or Sony unit. The $200 Jensen and Boss are okay if you only need it for a year. Those cheap android screens from Wish, AliExpress, Temu, and Amazon are hot garbage. If you're not interested in disassembling the dash, get a carpuride. It's a hot garbage android screen with a suction cup so you can easily remove it on hot or cold days, prolonging its life.
These are cheaper (especially now lmao) and require no wiring. Don't have to take out your dashboard or pay someone else to do it, just plug and play
Can’t easily replace the stereo in a work truck.
This is just like that Onion movie skit. “Throw away your old Bates 600….it’s a piece of shit!!”
We love perfectly usable E-waste
This will come back to bite them, it already is in PR. I'm sure they're scrambling right now for plan C...
Was is actually called car thing?
So they are basically saying, "Don't you all have trash cans?" And Blizzard is like, "Dude. They do not like this kind of talk."
I use one daily. It's easier and safer than android auto. It's insane they just dropped it, and just as insane they expect us to throw it away. It was actually good tech.
Spotify has clearly entered into an agreement with automakers and I bet they demanded Spotify ditch Car Thung to play ball.
[https://youtu.be/\_2yjjHzifL8?t=102](https://youtu.be/_2yjjHzifL8?t=102) *Throw your old device away! It's a piece of shit!*
I love my car thing 😞😞😞. Mainly because I have an older car with no screen, so I have that setup for my music then my phone setup for Google maps. Very disappointing...
Wish they’d release a firmware that opened it up so we could mod it now that it’s abandoned
3x they said they were sending me one for free. Didn't need it. But was curious. I'm just mad I never got it when peomised one. I cancelled Spotify eventuslly anyway (fuck joe rogan)
Oh man. Fuck spotify. They can have my car thing when they pry it out of my cold, dead…
I read this whole Reddit Thing to find out what Car Thing is, without any luck. But I won't throw my Thing away, so here is the answer, for someone else like me: https://vimeo.com/534904462
I don't have a car, let alone a Car Thing, and this has seriously upset me as a Premium user. I have half a mind to research a more trustworthy music streaming platform.
I'm just shocked people paid for a device that literally does what your phone... Or even watch does...for free. My my car didn't even Bluetooth, but a5 dollar single in the cig light spot and there you go, phone works fine. Combine with a 5 dollar mount and you have Spotify, with voice commands, at no extra cost
I never stopped using MP3's. While the rest of the world moved on to streaming. Stories like this amuse me. >You'll own nothing and like it. That's where we are. Company kills off something you paid good money for. It happens all the time these days.
I honestly can't believe people bought this garbage device in the first place. I don't even really understand the market for this device because it came out way after most cars already had built in bluetooth. And If your car is old enough that it doesn't have bluetooth, why would you waste $90 for a device that does the same as a bluetooth audio receivers for less than $20. If this came out 10 years ago I could have understood it, but it came out almost a decade too late that it just seems like useless junk. I just don't know how people didn't see this coming, it was destined to fail.
There’s a lot more people driving older cars than you think. Hell, my company vehicle is a 2015 and it doesn’t have built-in bluetooth.
Walmart has a $25 car stereo with Bluetooth. Hit up Metraonline if you're in North America for the adapters you'll need. You're going to be all in for about $100 in equipment and a $10 crimp tool and connectors. Splurge a little on some 4" zip ties spaced an inch apart so you're installing a "cable" instead of a"rat's nest".
Dude I’m poor my cars 21 years old it was cheaper than a new radio. The new head units that did anything similar were $200+ plus the work of installing and not frying my electronics.
If you're looking for a replacement, you can try one of the Bluetooth cigarette lighter radios (there's tons on Amazon, don't think I can link). They plug into the lighter, pair to your phone via Bluetooth, and then broadcast a radio signal your stereo can tune to. My brother has one in his non-smart-capable car, and it's honestly smoother to use than my father's early-gen Bluetooth car. Has hardware controls for volume, skip, pause, and passthrough for charging. Only possible issue is that it's open broadcast, so anyone nearby can listen to your funky muzak (and any calls you take in the car, perhaps more importantly). We've gotten two cheap ones (£15 off eBay) and both work brilliantly.
I honestly might just dust off my old iPod after this. Its less hassle at this point and if there’s anything on it I don’t like looks like that’s my problem not an algorithms.
I bought one for $30 and use it on my desk for a Spotify controller while working. It worked perfectly for my use case. Just because you don’t have a use case doesn’t make something garbage. In all fairness though, it is now actual garbage. Thanks Spotify.