Spotify is known as everyone’s favorite music streaming app. The company also attempted to create 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 if Spotify discontinues 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 feature Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.
The Car Thing was launched in 2021, and after just a year of production, Spotify stopped selling it in July 2022, five months after it became accessible to the general public. In May 2024, Spotify announced that it would discontinue all existing Car Things by December 9, 2024, and advised users to destroy them.
Spotify has not officially revealed 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. This is unfortunate because Car Thing was actually a pretty good piece of hardware for a first attempt, but the company is sending it to the landfill anyway.
This isn’t the first time Spotify has abruptly discontinued something. Spotify is known for removing app features without warning. These aren’t features you rarely use, these are ones you want back, rather than features that would make music streaming services cheaper if removed.
How to Repurpose Spotify Car Thing
Despite Car Thing being available for such a short time, an active community of modders has been circulating around Car Thing. If you’ve grown attached to your Car Thing, too, there are a number of community-supported projects you can install on the device and use it for almost anything.
With a little bit of tweaking and OS flash, you can turn the Car Thing into a handy desk gadget. A great project for this purpose is DeskThing, which is an alternative OS for the Car Thing.
It is an open-source project that lets you install community-created apps to do anything from controlling your music to checking on your Discord calls. Installation and setup is extremely easy and detailed instructions are available on the DeskThing GitHub repository.
Another option is GlanceThing, which turns your Car Thing into an at-a-glance action pad, adding functionality like command actions, customizable shortcuts, a status bar with date and time, and of course, music controls for Spotify. It comes with a guided installer and you can find detailed instructions on the GlanceThing GitHub repository page.
There is also a demand in the community for Spotify to make the Car Thing’s firmware open-source so that it can be reused. Still, there are plenty of options for recycling your Car Thing before it turns into a $90 brick.