The dream of the Spotify Car Thing is kept alive by loyal bootleggers

Spotify’s Car Thing has officially expired. Long live Spotify’s Car Thing. It was yesterday last day enjoy Car Thing as Spotify intended as a way to collect playlists and podcasts for those with old cars without a head unit.

Folks on the official Car Thing subreddit and elsewhere Found out on the internet how to bypass the annoying splash screen that locks them out of the once bootable device they spent $80-120 on not so long ago expiration datesome Car Thing devices have become unusable, forcing users to a splash screen bye-bye. There are several ways to get beyond the screen or to keep a dying device on life support. It all depends on how hard you are willing to revive it.

Android authority found out that some users can go to the stop screen by canceling their device.Remember the car thing I reviewed three years ago?I pulled it out of the closet for this story and I can still use the interface : Even the Spotify audio service has offered help a few times. Other people have been able to jump to the screen by holding down the settings button, the back button, and the first preset button.

For now, that is basic advice The community doesn’t seem to be connecting Car Thing to the internet. In the meantime, Spotify encourages you to contact customer service to discuss your “reimbursement options” no later than January 14, 2025. I’m curious as to what they will offer me the service because Gizmodo directly purchased the device so we could write about it in 2021. I’ve seen scattered Reddit reports of the company offering premium subscriptions instead of full refunds. I reached out to Spotify for clarification.

What do you do with Spotify Car Thing if you have it and it becomes useless? You can try diving into the clutter community to see what you find A desk thingwhich allows you to place Car Thing on a desk for quick media access, and Something to look atwhich allows you to add app shortcuts and additional Spotify controls. Nocturne too does the same and provides a different interface to Car Thing. All hacks require some knowledge of jailbreaking and command line access. offer during business hours Another route that has come up a bit is the random route third party dongle. It appeared in a comment on the Car Thing hacking subreddit.It essentially adds button-and-handle functionality if you already have Android Auto or Apple CarPlay available.