Key Takeaways
- The Car Thing by Spotify is being discontinued after poor sales, with existing devices set to be bricked by December 2024.
- Despite the discontinuation, a community of modders has been created to repurpose the Car Thing with alternative OS projects like DeskThing and GlanceThing.
- Members of the community are also pushing for Spotify to release the Car Thing’s firmware as open-source to prevent it from becoming e-waste.
Spotify is best known for being everyone’s go-to music streaming app. The company also attempted to make a hardware device, the Car Thing, which will be turned into a paperweight at the end of 2024. However, there are ways you can recycle the Car Thing, even after Spotify bricks it.
Why Is the Car Thing Being Discontinued?
The Spotify Car Thing was a small device with a 4-inch touchscreen, a dial, and several buttons. It was intended to be a convenient way to listen to Spotify in older cars that don’t have Android Auto or Apple CarPlay abilities.
Car Thing launched in 2021, and after just one year of production, Spotify stopped sales in July 2022, five months after it became accessible to the general public. In May 2024, Spotify announced that it’d brick all existing Car Things by December 9, 2024, and advised users to dispose of them.
Spotify hasn’t officially disclosed the reason why Car Thing was discontinued. On the surface, it seems like poor sales figures are to blame, but the company hasn’t released those either. It’s unfortunate because Car Thing was actually a pretty good piece of hardware for a first attempt, but the company is sending it to a landfill anyway.
This isn’t the first time Spotify has killed something out of the blue. Spotify is known to remove app features without warning. These aren’t features you’d rarely use either, these are the ones you’d want back, instead of features that would make music streaming services cheaper if dropped.
How to Repurpose Spotify Car Thing
A rather active community of modders has popped around the Car Thing despite it being available for such a short time. If you’ve also grown attached to your Car Thing, there are plenty of community-supported projects you can install on the device and use it for just about anything.
With a little tweaking and an OS flash, you can turn the Car Thing into a handy desk gadget. One great project for this purpose is DeskThing, an alternative OS for the Car Thing.
It’s an open-source project that lets you install community-made apps to do anything from controlling your music to checking in on your Discord call. Installation and setup is extremely easy and there are detailed instructions available on the DeskThing GitHub repository.
Another option is GlanceThing, which turns your Car Thing into a glanceable action pad, adding functionality like command actions. customizable shortcuts, a status bar with date and time, and of course, music control for Spotify. It comes with a guided installer and you can find detailed instructions over at the GlanceThing GitHub repository page.
There’s also a demand in the community for Spotify to make the Car Thing’s firmware open-source so it can be reused. Regardless, there are plenty of options for recycling your Car Thing before it turns into a $90 brick you have to throw away.
