Spotify Has Stopped Making Its Car Thing Dashboard Accessory (theverge.com) 23
Spotify has stopped manufacturing Car Thing, a dashboard accessory designed to make it easier to control the streaming service on your phone from a car. From a report: The change was quietly announced as part of the company's latest earnings release, which notes the decision cost the company $32 million. "Reported Gross Margin was negatively impacted by our decision to stop manufacturing Car Thing," the release reads. "Based on several factors, including product demand and supply chain issues, we have decided to stop further production of Car Thing units," a spokesperson for the company told TechCrunch. "Existing devices will perform as intended. This initiative has unlocked helpful learnings, and we remain focused on the car as an important place for audio."
It was pointless (Score:1)
Never made sense (Score:3)
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But you can't hold your phone while driving, and if you take it out of your pocket, then you might forget / leave it behind. It makes sense if you want to KEEP your cell phone in your pocket and not mount the phone in your car somewhere..
The car thing's actually a bluetooth accessory that requires a phone to operate, and it's really just a handsfree device controlling the cell phone.
Im.. I probably wouldn't have purchased it, because the device lacks navigation features, etc, But it sounds pretty cool
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Yeah, if someone produced a device of this form factor that bridged an older headunit with only AUX-in to full android auto/apple carplay, you have a viable product.
As it stands, it's a redundant product with any built-in bluetooth support (which almost always includes AVRCP, allowing control of the phone through the car stereo controls). So it has some usefulness for cars over 10 years old, but newer than that and it's pointless.
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So it has some usefulness for cars over 10 years old, but newer than that ...
But newer than that, and you might want it as a replacement device to Avoid Subscription fees vehicle manufacturers are attaching to their In-Car entertainment system's features. For example: BMW iDrive... or em, Toyota Supra... You get the Apple CarPlay for 4 years after buying your car, but after that a $80 annual subscription fee that can increase every year is required; I imagine future cars will have Android
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Re: Never made sense (Score:2)
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This device never made any sense when we are all walking around with phones in our pockets.
I heard Americans have big cars but are you saying you can walk around in them? I had no idea!
Android Auto (Score:3)
Works just fine for Spotify, Pandora etc. on my Pioneer AVH-3500NEX
It makes no sense anymore to invest in specific car electronics anymore including car manufacturer OEM systems. They become obsolete well before the vehicle does.
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Unfortunately, cars aren't exactly going for a nice DIN/Double DIN form factor for headunits anymore, so aftermarket options are very limited (either you are lucky and had a car that has the standard form factor, or you have to settle for the rather ugly workaround of tacking the headunit on randomly or giving up some storage compartment to mount it.
A full android auto version of this sort of product however could be fantastic for older cars with awkward headunits that still provide some way to get a 3.5mm
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Oh sure, they're upselling all this infotainment crap that does nothing but distract drivers more. You're right DIN and Double DIN were form factors that didn't differentiate enough and manufacturers said "we'll just build more complex systems and tie vehicle functions into it." In most cases, you can't change out the units for fear of having some vehicle function inhibited. This happened to my son's car (A VW) with a Double DIN unit. the previous owner of his car upgraded the radio and the stupid ODB II po
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Sometimes it's even worse than that, and the factory head unit also sits on the CANbus, and removing it means that other stuff not related at all to the stereo stop working. My brother had that on a Dodge truck a while back, and basically had to shove the factory head unit into the bowels of the dash and mount his new unit in front of it to keep the door locks working. Luckily the dashboard in that thing was huge and had the empty space in there to accommodate it.
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I can see it now, you get a check engine light and you take it to the dealer and they diagnose it for $100. They come back and say you need a new speaker that'll cost you $2000 to fix. #smh
Lacking in features (Score:2)
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Probably not. Spotify's CarPlay support in their app is hilariously bad so anything they burned into firmware in some hardware device would probably be at least as bad and a pain to update.
Should've seen that coming (Score:2)
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It's more e-waste anyway.
Made no sense because it was limited (Score:2)
If you wanna make something neato for the car, make a touchless controller that works with both android and apple, and let me remap the gestures.
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You mean like this? [amazon.com] Sorry to see they don't have Google on your planet.
However, that's the opposite of a touchless controller, so maybe what we should really do is get you this [amazon.com].
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What kind of touchless gestures would you like to use while driving? wink?
This things probably would have been a success... (Score:1)
,..If Spotify had just gone to the trouble of writing an app for it.