[RohaNN_kWh]

Car Thing from Spotify is a new smart player designed for easy access to your music and podcasts while you drive. Use voice or the touch controls to quickly hear your Spotify favourites and discover new tunes.

Car Thing essentially looks and operates similarly to an iPhone, though it also has a large dial. Users can play music by tapping on the touch-screen or by directing it with voice commands. The dial functions as another means to browse and select songs.





It was initially a limited product launch, available in the U.S. on an invite-only basis, But now available for purchase at $80. Over 2 Million People Have Already Signed Up To Buy Spotify’s Car Thing. The car accessory marks Spotify’s foray into the hardware business.

New users will be waiting quite long before they start receiving their units as Spotify CEO Daniel Ek confirmed that chip shortage is a production bottleneck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj2PGkj1pGU

Source: HYPEBEAST

[narayans80]

In the age of Android Auto/Apple Carplay (which are even going wireless) that are integrated with steering mounted controls. Fiddling with buttons and dials like iPod of early 2000s looks stone age.

Apple Music has Lossless even in Android, so even if they bring lossless only on this device, I doubt music only listeners would buy one. I don't know how big a deal is lossless audio for podcasts.

[akshay4587]

What's the Point of this, apart from Bragging rights that I have this device?
A quick look up informed me, that you have to connect this device to a power source, then pair it with your phone, and finally pair your phone with the car Music System.

https://carthing.spotify.com/setup

I am currently using Spotify/Apple Music on my phone directly connected to my car's music system; Why would I add some more mess to the whole process

[libranof1987]

What is Spotify thinking?! Cars across the spectrum are increasingly being equipped with large, smart entertainment consoles that allow you to do a host of things, and Apple CarPlay / Android Auto have become everyday features. Or are they playing a long game by competing with hardware manufacturers such as Sony / Harman and so on? A hardware device that only plays Spotify will find limited takers - those that have really old cars (no BT especially).

Also, there's a damper already:

“The No. 1 constraint for us at this particular moment … is chip shortages,” CEO Daniel Ek said, according to CNET. “We just can’t make enough of them to get them out there to consumers.”

[2000rpm]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

What is Spotify thinking?!
Also, there's a damper already:

Quite a brilliant idea in the existing car space (cars without Carplay or Android Auto).

Upgrade to a proper system requires atleast 40-50K for a decent system. This can be a good plugin. Also, I think with the way its designed, it should be usable with 2-wheelers as well.

[akshay4587]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

Quite a brilliant idea in the existing car space (cars without Carplay or Android Auto).

Upgrade to a proper system requires atleast 40-50K for a decent system. This can be a good plugin. Also, I think with the way its designed, it should be usable with 2-wheelers as well.

None of my car's have Car play/Android Auto.
Just plain Bluetooth for Audio streaming, I connect my phone to the music player, and I am set.
With Car thing, I have to connect Car thing to a power Source, then pair it with my phone, and then connect my phone to the Music system.

I am a bit lost here, how is this thing useful????

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by akshay4587

With Car thing, I have to connect Car thing to a power Source, then pair it with my phone, and then connect my phone to the Music system.

I am a bit lost here, how is this thing useful????

I guess the Spotify concept is similar to Amazon Echo Auto, which I have.

Echo Auto connects to the phone and music system in parallel. Just need to pair the device once to the phone and it takes care of the connection afterwards, as long as phone blue tooth is on.

The only use I have found for the device is the accurate voice assist for playing songs. I had this feature in the original FIAT Blue&Me (but not all that accurate), but missed out on steering controls + voice assist when I changed to an aftermarket Clarion music system.



PS: Does feel like stone age compared to new generation systems, doesn't it?

[akshay4587]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

I guess the Spotify concept is similar to Amazon Echo Auto, which I have.

Echo Auto connects to the phone and music system in parallel. Just need to pair the device once to the phone and it takes care of the connection afterwards, as long as phone blue tooth is on.

The only use I have found for the device is the accurate voice assist for playing songs. I had this feature in the original FIAT Blue&Me (but not all that accurate), but missed out on steering controls + voice assist when I changed to an aftermarket Clarion music system.



PS: Does feel like stone age compared to new generation systems, doesn't it?

I had a Fiat with Blue&Me too, and I never bothered to use Voice commands.
My phone automatically pairs with the music system of my cars, and I can use whatever app I want, Spotify/Apple Music/You Tube.
Adding another device which is not actually necessary sounds clumsy and messy to me. It would have been nicer, if they had introduced a Stand Alone player instead.

[raksrules]

Instead of this, if they would have introduced a "Driving Mode" in their app which one can active before driving and shows similar interface with large buttons or so, that would be helpful. This, I guess is one more fancy device with limited functionality which will fade away soon.

[dazdandconfuzd]

Originally Posted by raksrules

Instead of this, if they would have introduced a "Driving Mode" in their app which one can active before driving and shows similar interface with large buttons or so, that would be helpful. This, I guess is one more fancy device with limited functionality which will fade away soon.

Driving mode is already available in the Spotify app.

[Nitronium]

Originally Posted by akshay4587

What's the Point of this, apart from Bragging rights that I have this device?
A quick look up informed me, that you have to connect this device to a power source, then pair it with your phone, and finally pair your phone with the car Music System.

https://carthing.spotify.com/setup

I am currently using Spotify/Apple Music on my phone directly connected to my car's music system; Why would I add some more mess to the whole process

The perspective I would add here is that a VAST majority of cars do not have Carplay/AA, and with consumer expectations now higher than ever, this is an easy solve that doesn't require a relatively expensive HU overhaul or tinkering with factory fit

The new car market is not the TG here, IMHO

[akshay4587]

Originally Posted by Nitronium

The perspective I would add here is that a VAST majority of cars do not have Carplay/AA, and with consumer expectations now higher than ever, this is an easy solve that doesn't require a relatively expensive HU overhaul or tinkering with factory fit

The new car market is not the TG here, IMHO

I still don't get it how.
None of my cars have AA/CarPlay, yet I am able to do everything this device does with Bluetooth and my Phone

[Mafia]

This is a makeshift device for older head units and has a sale window for a couple of years.

Spotify is a paid app. I have decent free apps to stream Indian content. I really need Spotify for my Rock music requirement, which I cannot listen to when I have others in the car as it is really noise to them.

[AKSarkar1]

Looks like a promising product (although the naming could have been better)!

I think the real market for such a product are the countries where the car market is yet maturing and tech like Carplay and Android Auto still aren't widely available. In India especially, this product could be a great choice in comparison to the basic ICE system that many entry-level cars yet come with.

Additionally, many of us petrol heads use cars way more than the conventional time period and I'm sure such a device would be welcome by many for cars in which installation of the latest ICE is not easily possible.

Happy to see a creative step coming directly from a streaming giant, hopefully, this would urge others to join in too.

[Durango Dude]

Why this "go-between" or a "middle-man" for the cars music system and phone? It's redundant and not going to find much takers. Even if the cars ICE is archaic all one needs a good BT adapter to connect phone to the cars music system. I used a BT Adapter briefly on my old Elantra.