Currently flashing my Spotify Car Thing with DeskThing. I’m sad that Spotify killed these off, but am excited to play around with hacking it a bit!
#carthing
Forgot the axe dropped on the 9th. Didn’t think it was four days since I used it last. Now off to GitHub to find new firmware…
Le Car Thing de Spotify s’est transformé en presse-papier, comme prévu http://dlvr.it/TGhgmh #Spotify #CarThing
Lilbits: New software can breathe new life into discontinued hardware
Google announced two years ago that it was killing its short-lived Stadia game streaming service. and while the company was refunding customers who’d purchased games and hardware, folks who’d purchased the Stadia Controller weren’t thrilled that Google’s original plans would have led to the device becoming useless once the servers shut down.
Fortunately Google later released a tool that would let users convert the Stadia Controller into a Bluetooth game controller that could be used with other devices. And while the tool was only supposed to be around for a year, Google later extended its lifespan… and now the company has quietly done it again. So if you’ve got a Stadia Controller lying around, or find one in a garage sale, you’ve got at least until the end of 2025 to turn it into a Bluetooth controller.
Stadia Controller (Google)Meanwhile Spotify is taking a very different approach with its short-lived Car Thing accessory that was designed as a wireless display and controller for streaming music in an automobile. After announcing earlier this year that it would discontinue all support for the Car Thing, the company has indeed begun to shut down its servers, and users are seeing messages letting them know that their devices will no longer work.
There is an active community of hardware hackers that have found ways to repurpose the CarThing for use as a DeskThing or for other purposes. But there’s no particularly easy way to get it to serve its original purpose… at least not yet.
Stadia Controller Bluetooth mode [@Wario64]
Google has quietly extended the deadline for turning the discontinued Stadia Controller into a Bluetooth game controller that can be used with a wider range of devices. The utility will now be available until at least Dec 31, 2025.
Car thing is officially dead [/r/CarThing]
Spotify is killing off support for the Car Thing today. It appears to be a phased rollout, but many users are now seeing a message saying their devices are no longer operational. Hackers have found new uses for the hardware… but not in cars, for the most part. via /r/CarThing (reddit) and Thing Lab (Discord)
/u/ballsandbiscuitsWhat’s next for Surface in 2025, including a possible 11-inch mini Surface Laptop? [Windows Central]
Report: Microsoft could launch new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models in 2025 with Intel Lunar Lake chips, as well as a new Surface Laptop Studio (might be Intel or AMD) and maybe a new 11 inch Surface device with Snapdragon X.
The Luckfox Pico WebBee RV1103 looks like a USB flash drive, but it’s a tiny computer with a RV1103 processor with a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A7 CPU and a RISC-V microcontroller, 64MB of DDR2 memory, a128MB of SLC NAND flash storage, and a microSD card reader and 10/100 Ethernet port. It sells for $14.
Keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Bluesky or @bradlinder@fosstodon.org on Mastodon. You can also follow Liliputing on Threads, Facebook, and X.
#carthing #google #leaks #lilbits #luckfox #luckfoxPicoWebbeeRv1103 #repurposingHardware #rumors #rv1103 #spotify #spotifycarthing #stadiaController #surfaceLaptop #surfaceLaptopMini #surfacePro
Spotify is killing off support for the Car Thing today. It appears to be a phased rollout, but many users are now seeing a message saying their devices are no longer operational. Hackers have found new uses for the hardware... but not in cars, for the most part. https://buff.ly/3Vv5Rjm #Spotify #CarThing
Spotify : un jailbreak ressuscite le Car Thing http://dlvr.it/TG8rw0 #Spotify #CarThing
DeskThing turns Spotify’s discontinued Car Thing into a PC controller and display
DeskThing is a free and open source application that breathes new life into Spotify’s discontinued Car Thing accessory by transforming it from a Spotify controller for cars into a desktop device that controls a wide variety of applications running on your PC.
It’s one of a number of tools that have come out of the Car Thing hacking community in the wake of Spotify’s announcement that it will […]
Please #help me :3
I'm looking for a #spotify car thing. I'm willing to pay for it but I need it shipped. I'm from Germany and here scalpers are trying to sell them for up to 500% of the price. Maybe some brave #us citizen has still one working unit left over they wanna sell to me :p If so please PM me.
#spotify #carthing #dev #hacking #help #callforhelp #software
Recently noticed a friend has one of those doomed #CarThing devices, so this may be of use to other friends (context: #Spotify abruptly decided to discontinue support for these hardware players)
As #WilliamGibson would say. The Street finds its own uses for (car) things.
I'm gonna retire the Spotify Car Thing from my dashboard and use it on my desk to check out some projects that repurpose it. It's only got a month and change left of official support, and the sticky tack holding it to my dash keeps failing in the heat. 😆
Might use this mount: https://www.printables.com/model/642194-spotify-car-thing-monitor-mount
Pretty impressive that #spotify still is the market leader when it comes to music streaming despite not having lossless audio and spatial audio.
Objectively, Apple Music is much better value. Remember, the content is the largely the same regardless of the streaming service you use.
I am currently using Apple Music because I am still mighty pissed with Spotify essentially bricking CarThing
Rabbit + Android + Android Auto = The forbidden (forgotten) Spotify Car Thing
Tech Addicts Podcast – Peeking at Pentax
Gareth and Ted are at it again. This week some love for Joplin, TubeSync, Samsung Galaxy S-Pen Pro. There news, Spotify killing Car Thing, Spacetop G1, Pentax WG-8, HealthyPi, Galaxy Ring, One UI 6 updates and a new phone from HTC.
https://garethmyles.com/tech-addicts-podcast-peeking-at-pentax/
#Podcast #TechAddicts #CarThing #GalaxySPenPro #HealthyPi #HTC #Joplin #Linux #microsoft #Pentax #recall #Samsung #SpacetopG1 #Spotify #TubeSync
Il y avait trop longtemps que je n'avais publié sur mon blogue. Et mon 1er article de l'année (ouais, le 1er en 2024 !) est une chronique de réflexion et coup de gueule par rapport à #Spotify et son #CarThing qui cessera de fonctionner volontairement en décembre 2024.
https://dominic.tech/articles/spotify-et-son-car-thing-exemple-pas-ecologique-high-tech.html
Spotify Car Thing hacking community could keep the gadget useful after Spotify ends support
The Spotify Car Thing is a short-lived gadget that Spotify launched and then quickly discontinued in 2022. It’s basically a smartphone accessory for automobiles, giving you a 4 inch display and a dial that lets you interact with Spotify without looking at your phone.
Originally launched for $90, the Car Thing eventually had its price dropped to $50… and then it was discontinued. And last […]
https://liliputing.com/?p=169591
#carThing #carThingHaxCommunity #ewaste #hack #plannedObsolescence #spotify
Warum #Spotify eine Scheißfirma ist: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ONxtLqGG32Q
#carthing
Someone's already digging into the #Spotify #CarThing device and discovered that it's just a screen that runs on #Linux (not #Android 🎉), on #Wayland (this shocked me, but cool). Also it essentially just runs a #Chromium/#Chrome browser, a really old one.
Hardware-wise, it has a 4 core arm64 SOC, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB eMMC storage.
🔗 https://x.com/uwunetes/status/1797736493198590104
Just as the heat from the Car Thing e-waste debacle is cooling off, Spotify is gouging pricing by 10%. Time for me to go back to CD's and selfhosted Jellyfin streaming.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/03/spotify-to-increase-premium-pricing-in-the-us-to-11-99-per-month/
#spotify #carthing #streaming #enshittification #foss #jellyfin #music #usa #selfhost #selfhosting #self-hosting #self-host #server #technology #tech #selfhosted #homeserver
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