Spotify’s Car Thing has officially expired. Long live the Spotify car thing. Yesterday was Last day To enjoy Car Thing as Spotify intended, as an alternative to grabbing playlists and podcasts for those of us with older cars without a head unit. But that’s not stopping tinkerers from keeping the dream of Spotify’s Car Thing alive.
People at Car Thing’s official subreddit and elsewhere Online, they figured out how to get around the annoying boot screen that prevents them from accessing a once-working device they spent $80-$120 on not long ago. since expiration datesome Car Thing devices became unusable, forcing users to do so Splash screen With a long farewell. There are several ways to bypass the splash screen or avoid it completely to maintain life support for a dying device. It all depends on how much you are willing to work to revive it.
Robot body I found that some users can bypass the screensaver by canceling the update on their device. Remember the car thing I reviewed three years ago? I took it out of the closet for this story and can still use the interface as if things were viable. Even the audio service Spotify has offered to help several times. Other people have been able to jump onto the splash screen by pressing the settings button, back button, and first preset button during playback.
yet, Main tip It seems that it is part of society that the car thing is not connected to the Internet. Meanwhile, Spotify encourages you to contact customer service to discuss Refund Options no later than January 14, 2025. I’m curious what the service will do for me because Gizmodo is honest Bought the device So we can write about it in 2021. I’ve seen scattered reports on Reddit that the company is offering premium subscriptions instead of full refunds. I’ve reached out to Spotify for further clarification.
What to do with Spotify Car Thing if you have one and it becomes useless? You can try diving into the patching community to see what you find. I stumbled Office thingwhich lets you prop up Car Thing on the desk for quick access to media, and Quick look at the thingwhich enables you to add app shortcuts and additional Spotify controls. Soft music also It does the same thing and offers a different look to the Car Thing interface. All hacks require some knowledge of jailbreaking and leveraging the command line. I wish I had worked a little harder before submitting this article, but it requires concentration, which I cannot do during a work hour. Another route that has come up a bit is this random ass Third party dongle. It appeared in a comment on a subreddit dedicated to the Car Thing hack. It basically adds button and knob functionality if you already have Android Auto or Apple CarPlay available.