Spotify car thing discontinued

[Bradey]

Plan

Premium family 

Country

US

Device

(iPhone xs

Operating System

Idk whatever iOS they on now

My Question or Issue

I have had Spotify since it came out; I upgraded to a premium plan with my family in 2018. The decision to stop supporting Car Thing breaks my heart. My truck doesn't have bluetooth or a display so when Spotify Car Thing came out I was ecstatic. I love Spotify I have always thought it was way better than apple music because they would try to make**bleep** like the car thing and they weren't some huge heartless corporation like apple. But this and the fact that our premium plan gets raised a dollar all the time has made me rethink my position. 

My whole family uses I phones and have been discussing switching to apple music for YEARS. I WAS ALWAYS THE ONE TO KEEP THEM WITH SPOTIFY. Now I am over it if you don't make this right and my car thing stops working in December we will be switching to apple music.

[Bradey]

Hi everyone,

Spotify made the difficult decision to discontinue Car Thing. We wanted to share this news months in advance to ensure that our users had plenty of time to prepare for this change, which is effective December 9. This was not a step we have taken lightly, but we want to ensure that any users who have purchased Car Thing have the opportunity to be refunded for the amount they paid for the device. Users are able to contact our Customer Support teams in this link .

In an effort to streamline the discussion and ensure all relevant feedback is centralized, we have merged all threads related to this topic into this one comprehensive discussion. Any new threads created on this topic in the future will also be merged into this thread. 

• FAQs on the Discontinuation of Car Thing

We encourage you to continue to share your thoughts and participate in the conversation below.

[Andreuha]

Posting here because this is basically the only option to give Spotify feedback. Disregarding community feedback is par for the course for Spotify, so my expectations are as low as it gets, but here it goes anyway: FAILING to open-source irrevocably destroys any credibility Spotify will have if they ever decide to release any new physical device in the future. At the same time, open-sourcing has zero impact on their business. Completely not caring about stuff like this creates opportunities for competitors, which is a strategic blunder.

[Nlp717]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

Operating System

My Question or Issue

If Spotify is taking away Car thing, then we need to be compensated for the money we used to buy the device that we HAD TO WAIT FOR IN THE BEGINNING. Spotify if you don’t, some lawsuits are sure to happen.

[frillweeman]

I'm just as upset with Spotify's decision to brick Car Thing as everyone else. I liked the idea of Car Thing from back when I was a beta tester of the original prototype, which looked nothing like the current version. Car Thing really did bridge a gap in the market for people with older vehicles who wanted a dedicated screen for music while having maps on their phone.

As a software engineer, I understand why they'd make the decision to cut support since it will require ongoing development efforts. However, as a human, I do not understand why they'd screw over their loyal customers like this by not offering any kind of compensation for selling us a brick.

My respect for Spotify has done nothing but tank. It started with their massive layoffs and this Car Thing announcement was likely a consequence of that bad decision. It's clear what their priorities are and that they have no regard for ethics.

How can we move forward? Here's what I've done/am planning to do:

1. Cancel Spotify Premium and switch to a different service such as Apple Music or Tidal (my choice currently).
2. Continue to bother Customer Support with asking for refunds until they cave. To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't happened yet, but eventually we'll be tying up their support resources enough for them to offer something.
3. Reach out to content creators such as Louis Rossman, who take a stance against companies' trending shift to undermine the idea of ownership. Having creators bring awareness of this issue with a niche product will put more eyes on it and bring about more disrespect for Spotify, prompting some kind of official response, hopefully.
4. Get a CarPlay head unit for your car. Used versions of these can be bought for cheap on eBay and Best Buy, while full priced new units can be bought from Crutchfield. I recommend starting with Crutchfield to get fit kits and such, and then just look for the actual head unit on a cheaper site. I got a Sony unit from LKQ pulled out of a scrapped car, and it works perfectly. YouTube videos will help you through the install process, and it shouldn't take more than an hour once you have all the parts.
5. Start/become involved in a class action lawsuit (if hopefully we haven't waived our right to class actions buried somewhere in their ToS).
6. Report this to the FTC if you live in the US, or relevant consumer protection agencies in your country.

I wish everyone the best of luck, and feel free to reach out in the comments if you have any questions.

[rcmastah]

Agreed, this is incredibly irresponsible of them. I see no reason why they have to brick a device that I paid $90 for. This blatant planned obsolescence is becoming a disturbing trend with more and more companies. They should at the very least open source it to let us continue using the hardware THAT WE PAID FOR! Not to mention the environmental irresponsibility of literally telling your paying customers to throw away a perfectly functional device. Absolutely unacceptable, make your voices heard people!! These practices cannot continue.

[rcmastah]

Agreed, the very least they could do is make it open source to let us continue using it. Furthermore, they should explain why they feel the need to brick a device that we paid $90 for, because from the customer's point of view at the time of writing, it is for no reason.

[TRPARK00]

I couldn’t agree more!!!  Long term Spotify customers who are willing to invest in Spotify’s new innovation and initiatives only to have Spotify throw us to the curb without any offers of refunds!  Horrible Horrible Customer Service!!!

[smn_spo]

I contacted support asking for a partial refund or credit and they responded saying, "It seems that the service has been used for years now, and we can't offer compensation for that reason."  The Car Thing isn't a service, it's hardware!  It's asinine that they wouldn't continue operation for a purchased product.  I'm displeased to say the least.

[madproof]

Oh yeah, I work in software, specifically helping develop APIs to connect to devices, for my company. Aside from the cost, which would be minimal and might even be $0 extra if it's a shared API with other services, there is no reason they can't leave it running. It's all a load of BS.

[haguilar91]

I purchased it as well, really disappointed that a company worried of the environment will send a lot of unrecyclable materials to the dumpster, you should enable an offline monitoring option, like you do, with other apps than Spotify grab the controls from the phone and put it on the Carthing, That is already available, is not necessary to make it completely obsolete, Make it's software open source and enable tooting of the device.

In synthesis:

1. Use the standard controls for all apps on Carthing.

2. Open source the Carthing software.

3. Enable rooting of the device.

[TRPARK00]

couldn’t agree more!!!  Long term Spotify customers who are willing to invest in Spotify’s new innovation and initiatives only to have Spotify throw us to the curb without any offers of refunds!  Horrible Horrible Customer Service!!!

[HAW02]

I was told that I had to provide a proof of purchase and receipt before I could even prove that I actually have a Car Thing. Even then, they wouldn't say what they would do other than kept telling me to review the Community Help page.

[snl07]

I'm definitely down. I'm so tired of Spotify being terrible on purpose

[FloMaster915]

Same here. I will be canceling my subscription. I just got off chat help. They refused to reimburse me for my paid car thing. I didn’t fall within their criteria. **bleep** Spotify ! Back to xm radio it is. 

[Carmeng5]

I paid for a car thing. Either refund my money or let me keep using it. This is just as ridiculous as the constantly bad app updates that make the app worse. Leave things alone. Why does your team not understand if it's not broke don't fix it?

[jjlyonii]

You don't want to support Car Thing anymore, and that would be ok if it was still a useable thing. It's a fancy little gadget that allows me to control media through my phone without poking through menus. It's a perfect candidate for allowing owners to find other creative uses.

There's already a large community that has found all sorts of uses for this device, but has to take some not so straight forward methods to make it work.

If not an official SDK, at least providing an imaging tool and/or guidelines on interacting with it from another app (if possible).

[frillweeman]

Lol, they told me the same thing. I asked them how I wasn't supposed to worry that a device I paid for will suddenly break and become useless due to a deliberate decision on their end. This outsourced "support" is a joke.

[markpro]

Agreed!

LETS SAY IT AGAIN——

---

@Andreuha wrote:

FAILING to open-source irrevocably destroys any credibility Spotify will have if they ever decide to release any new physical device in the future.

---

[FloMaster915]

I just got of chat support and they pretty much told me to **bleep** off. No refund available. I’m done with Spotify after this month . **bleep** them. 

[the_kaktus]

Did not receive refund or credit even after escalating. Disappointing.

[FloMaster915]

I just did chat. They pretty much told me to **bleep** off