Tips for using Car Thing

[MattSuda]

This thread is for sharing your tips on using Car Thing 💚 🚙

Do you have any tips for other users on how you are using and getting the most out of Car Thing?

Did you find any hidden features not mentioned in the user manual?

We'd love to hear them. Share your Car Thing tips with us in this thread.

[MattSuda]

Here are my Car Thing tips:

• Here is a video I made of me unboxing, setting up, and using Spotify Car Thing: https://youtu.be/DyOoDsogDBw

• When using Car Thing, the now playing screen does not show the current time in the song and the remaining time left on the progress bar by default. To see these times, tap on the progress bar and big numbers will pop up on the left and right side of the screen. You can use the big dial to change the time in the song that you want to listen to. (scrub)

• On the now playing screen there is a pause button, but you can also tap on the big album art to pause and resume play as well.

• On the now playing screen if you tap on the title at the top of where you are currently playing from it will take you back to the playlist view for example and you can scroll through and select a song to switch the playback to.

• On the now playing screen if you move the dial, you can increase or decrease the audio volume on your phone which results in the audio coming out of your car speakers being quieter or louder. I personally usually have my phone volume set to full volume and then just adjust the car volume itself if I want it quieter or louder.

• The default Car Thing name is kinda boring the way it appears in your phone's Bluetooth menu by default. By default the name is "Car Thing (Serial Number) but I went into my iPhone Bluetooth settings and renamed it to "Spotify Car Thing 💚". You could also name it "Spotify Car Thing 🟢". You can always revert this custom name back to default in your phone settings if you need to.

• If you want to test Car Thing and get used to it without draining your car battery you can plug the cable into a USB charger inside. The audio will either playback from your phone speakers or you can pair to a bluetooth speaker. Using a 12W USB charger worked for me. If the USB doesn't have enough power you will get a message to use the included car charger. Note that this is not the intended use for Car Thing so this is mainly for testing purposes or for troubleshooting an issue you have so that you can write a post about it in this Car Thing board. I found this super helpful when I wanted to troubleshoot an issue I had.

• Car Thing auto adjusts its screen brightness based on how bright or dark it is outside so there's no need to adjust screen brightness, it does it on its own.

• There is currently no option to repeat a song on the now playing screen. To repeat a song so that Repeat One is turned on, say "Hey Spotify, repeat this song" and the assistant will repeat the song and this will be confirmed in the popup assistant window with a large Repeat One icon. Also there will be a Repeat One icon in the top right corner of the display to show that Repeat One is enabled.

• If you would prefer to have the microphone off and disable "Hey Spotify" you can press the button on top that is furthest to the right. There is a setting there to turn off the microphone. In settings there is also options to restart the device if you are having issues, and there is also a setting to factory reset it.

• I like that you can pair multiple phones to Car Thing and switch to different phones. I have not yet tried this out but it's nice if you have multiple drivers.

There are also help articles on the support site that will help you use Car Thing:

• Car Thing Support page
  
  
• Car Thing video tutorials
• Getting a Car Thing
• Setting up Car Thing
• Mounting Car Thing
• Using Car Thing
• Car Thing settings
• Car Thing not working
• Car Thing: Return & Refund Policy
• Voice control (tons of tips for how to use "Hey Spotify")

[MattSuda]

I'm back with another Car Thing tip.

In my video you probably saw the cable situation I was having: https://youtu.be/DyOoDsogDBw

The cable that comes with Car Thing is 3 feet but after having some excess cable dangling, I measured the distance from Car Thing to my power outlet and found that a 2 feet cable would work much better and result in the cable not hanging at all. Instead it would be a straight path from the Car Thing USB port to the USB port on the power outlet. When plugging the cable into Car Thing, I positioned the cable so it's not hanging from the left of Car Thing but from the right of Car Thing since my power outlet is on the right side. There is a little bit of the cable that goes across the backside of Car Thing to be able to do this but you don't see it. 

2 feet cable I got: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RLPHQSJ/

They are braided and look just like the included cable.

You can measure first and then search Amazon or other stores for the length you need. You just need to make sure it's a charging cable that is USB-C to USB-A. And a bonus is if it's also braided. 

Much better:

[Chenz6]

Thanks for your tips!

[laurinhi5]

Can you add songs to Queue on the Car Thing?

[needforname]

Great tips. Thanks! Mine just arrived in the mail. There sure seems to be a lot of hate against this device, though I personally find it pretty useful in my car that lacks Bluetooth. I especially like not having to switch between Spotify and other apps on my phone (Waze navigation, etc).

The one feature that I don’t think it has but wishing it did, is the ability to add a track to playlists. For that I’ve had to resort to using my phone. If anyone knows if this is possible please let me know.

On a side note, with all of the supposed efforts by Spotify to get users to use playlists, it sure seems odd how many blatant oversights there are when it comes to playlists (particularly on the mobile iPhone app, which is what I use 99% of the time).

For example, the inability to add a track to multiple playlists at once is a huge annoyance (especially since it’s such a simple fix and obvious solution to a frequently requested and upvoted feature). The inability to see if a track is already in a playlist is another bizarre omission; as is the absence of artist bios… the option to auto-replace all songs that a user has liked or added to playlists, with remastered higher quality versions of the recordings that may exist on later albums… the option to notify a user of liking or playlist-adding a song that they’ve already saved from an artist’s other album (i.e. greatest hits albums, compilation albums that contain exact recordings from prior albums).

I realize I’m off topic with these feature omission mentions, but I figure any chance of getting these seen by a rep who may actually agree and do something about it, is worth the mention.

Anyway, thanks again for the great tips and any possible answer regarding the playlist saving question.