More from this creator
Other episodes by Kitty Cat.
More like this
If you liked this, try these.
Transcript
The full episode, in writing.
Imagine turning on the music gadget you bought for your car and getting this message instead: “Car Thing is discontinued and no longer operational.” That’s what Spotify’s little dashboard screen told owners after the company shut it down. But here’s the twist: independent developers now offer replacement software for the same hardware. How did a music controller end up needing a rescue project?
Car Thing was Spotify’s screen and controller for playing music in a vehicle. It connected to the Spotify app on your phone, making it especially appealing if your car didn’t have a modern built-in display. It went on public sale in February 2022 for $90. This drama is between Spotify, the people who bought its hardware, and, eventually, the developers who decided that hardware might have another life.
The timeline is remarkably short. Spotify stopped making Car Thing in July 2022, just months after the public launch. At that point, it said existing devices would keep working. Then, in May 2024, owners learned the devices would stop operating that December. The shutdown happened: by December 10, the original Car Thing service no longer worked, and the screen directed owners to contact customer service by January 14, 2025, to discuss refund options.
That earlier promise is why this hit harder than a company simply ending sales. People had bought a physical object that still occupied space on their dashboards, yet the feature they bought it for was being switched off. Some demanded refunds online. Spotify’s advice to reset the device and dispose of it under local electronic-waste rules added another sting: from an owner’s perspective, a working piece of hardware was being turned into waste.
Spotify’s explanation was different. It said Car Thing had been an experiment to learn how people listen in cars. The company cited low demand and supply-chain problems when it stopped production. For the later shutdown, its support-page explanation was that streamlining products would let it focus on other features and improvements. That explains the business decision; it doesn’t erase the surprise for someone who had been told their device would keep working.
So where does it stand now? Spotify did shut down Car Thing’s original functionality. But as of October 2026, an independent project called Mira offers replacement firmware that its developers say can display and control Spotify playback on the device. It isn’t a Spotify reversal, and it isn’t endorsed by Spotify. Owners have to install the firmware themselves, connect through a phone or computer for internet, and accept that flashing replaces what was already on the device. Mira is a possible second life, not an automatic fix for every owner.
Car Thing went from promising a simpler drive to asking a complicated question about ownership. If an independent developer can revive a gadget after its maker shuts it down, how much control did the buyer ever really have over it?