Car thing available outside the US?

[MrKragh]

My Question or Issue

Hi Spotify!

I was wondering if you have any plans to launch Car Thing in Europe in the forseeable future. Would love to be able to get my hands on one and I'm just wondering if you by any chance have a rough time frame of when it's going to happen (IF it's coming to europe).

Regards. 

An exited Dane

[ogostos]

Plan

Premium

Country

Armenia

I was wondering what does term "only available in US" actually mean. I've connected to support and have a chat with them. The main feedback was "we cannot guarantee all functionality outside of US". Still I am a bit confused and more details is needed to clarify where issues may arise. Information I have gathered till this day is that Car Thing is simply a remote controlling interface attached to iphone via bluetooth.  That means this device is not even connected to internet, as it has no wi-fi. Car thing is just a 4-inch screen for spotify app in you phone, in other words it should be connected to phone and work.

Thus, I see only two possible issue points - purchase and connection. The former is understable and resolves by lots of ways nowadays. The latter is where I stuck. What problem can I possible encounter when I do pairing with my premium account? The one thing which I can imagine is that on this step some additional request (from phone app) may be fired to check whether premium account is from US or not.

Can anyone provide a little more details on this topic.

[Ver]

Hey @ogostos,

Thanks for posting here.

There aren't any country restrictions on the Car Thing, so it should technically work. However, we can't guarantee that everything will run smoothly.

Hope this sheds some light on the matter. The Community is here for you if there's anything else!

[bentpins]

Ordered to NZ, got it shipped via a USA based parcel forwarder. Using it happily. Didn't need a USA card for payment. It didn't stop me from setting up or even ask what country I'm from (it shows Sweden in Car Thing's Settings>About>Country field).

I am not sure if updates work in unsupported countries - it showed that one was pending and would apply next reconnection, but that didn't kick off at all. After opening Spotify as if I was in the USA (if you catch my drift) for a few minutes then it did update - I'm not sure if that was the trigger for it to kick off or not though

[BjornRoth]

OTA updates to Car Thing should not be restricted by country.

[ogostos]

Hi all, I have an update on this topic. My CarThing has finally arrived. Everything works as intended, without taking into account some bugs and lags here and there.  Thanks all for the help.

[Kiril]

Hey there @ogostos,

Thanks for keeping us in the loop here.

We're happy to hear that your CarThing arrived safely and that all works as intended 🙂 Wishing you plenty miles of safe driving while listening to good music 🚗🎶

If you have more questions or need anything else, the Community is here for you.

[erichier]

Hi everyone! A friend of mine wants to send me a car thing from the USA as a birthday gift. I was unsure whether it would work here in Germany (or for that matter anywhere outside the USA). Has anyone tried that? Are there official information on that? 

[Alex]

Hey @erichier,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

The Car thing should technically work anywhere, but since it's released for use only in the US we can't guarantee that everything will function properly if used abroad.

Other users have discussed this topic here. Feel free to check it out for more hands-on info 🙂

Take care!

[aplanedividedthesky]

Hi guys,

Have any of you attempted to use Car Thing outside of the US, with a non-US account? I'm based in Europe, and will be travelling to the US soon. I was considering purchasing Car Thing while being there, but I am not entirely sure whether it will work once back in Europe with my European account - i.e. whether Spotify will actively block my European account from working with Car Thing here in Europe.

I have approached Spotify support and after asking a supervisor, the agent could only confirm that it "probably won't work". I reckon it's not 100% confirmed.

With that in mind, I'm coming to the community: have any of you tried that with any degree of reasonable success? (i.e. solutions based on using US-based VPNs or similar funky stuff are not an option)

Thanks in advance!

[aplanedividedthesky]

I've received my Car Thing today, and I can happily confirm that it works out of the box here in Switzerland. Very happy about it! 

I have to check now how to trigger the firmware update, since it does not seem to do it by itself. Thanks for the support so far!

[aplanedividedthesky]

Hey, did you simply set US in your Spotify profile? Or did you go the extra mile and connected to Spotify through an american VPN? I can't seem to get mine to update here in Switzerland.

[BjornRoth]

It should update, there are no geographical limits for OTAs. The updates will happen in the background and the new firmware will be active on the next power-on after the update.

[aplanedividedthesky]

Thanks for the reply Björn! Then I assume I run already the latest version.

Cheers

[BjornRoth]

I looked into your device details and the latest version (6.10.10) is installed so you will see it next time you power on Car Thing.

[aplanedividedthesky]

I've just reconnected it now, and indeed, I can see that the version was upgraded from 6.1.something to 6.10.10.
Thanks a lot Björn, much appreciated!

[hanseljr]

I have the same issue. I live in the USA and my account says US on my profile.  But the car thing shows Sweden as country.  I don’t understand why???  Seems like everyone gets this issue and it’s unsolved. 

[BjornRoth]

The “Sweden” text has no effect or consequences. Just a bit of Spotify heritage 🙂

[agam1111]

When I go into the checkout to buy the car thing' I'm not able to select somewhere other the US, how can I order internationally?

[Eni]

Hey there @agam1111, 

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community. 

We can confirm that the Car Thing can only be purchased in the US and currently, we don't have international shippings.

We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us and will make sure to pass it onto the right team, as we always strive to improve your experience. 

If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.