Idk who needs to hear it, but stop buying this shit. If it has a computer inside, but you can't flash your own software onto it, just pass. If you're unsure, look around, find the nearest Linux user and ask for help.
You won't even have to ask if they use Linux, they'll tell you.
Nobara btw.
Arch users, assemble!
And my Arch!
And my... hang on, I just need to apply this tweak from the wiki...
And my axe!
To be fair, next to no one bought this. And the people that payed $90 for this are probably not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
This is basically a dumb android device with one app - an auto friendly version of Spotify. To use it, you need to pair it to your phone via Bluetooth. So, yeah, it assumes you have a phone in your car with Spotify on it.
Also it costs about as much as a cheap externally mounted CarPlay or Android auto screen. So, yeah. Not great.
If you want to put auto friendly app UIs in an older car, go get a cheap CarPlay or AA display. Those are platforms that have been around for a decade, and Apple & Google have long partnership agreements with automakers that are likely to ensure those platforms will be supported for years to come. Hell, Apple is still supporting ancient iPod connection protocols 20+ years later.
This thing was the Rabbit R1, but for a music streaming app.
the people that payed $90 for this are probably not the sharpest knives in the drawer
maybe, but even stupid people should be protected from being taken advantage of.
They should at least get a refund of 50% of the purchase price.
A few months ago my wife wanted to buy an electronic picture frame and I had a hard time explaining this to her.
Edit: an internet connected picture frame.
These fuckers disabled car mode in the android app to make you buy one of those and now they're killing it. I used car mode in my car and the moment it stopped working was when I cancelled my subscription.
When did they kill car mode on the app? I've been subscribed for years even before the Car Thing and I always have car mode on even outside of my car.
Mine doesn't have Car mode anymore, it stopped working a couple of weeks ago.
There's a setting to disable it, it always annoyed me so I disabled it auto going to car mode when it connected to Bluetooth
What did car mode do? Was it when it switched to big old buttons? Mine used to do that until I got Android Auto in my new car...so up until about a year ago
Yep exactly that. My car back then didn't have Android Auto and this was the only way to skip tracks while keeping my eyes on the road.
Edit: looks like they brought it back later: https://www.xda-developers.com/spotify-car-mode-testing/
Everybody buy your music. These streaming platforms are trash.
Yes, yes buy. Do not sail the high seas.
I want the bands to get some money. I buy from bandcamp when musicians are sensible enough to sell on there, or on their sites.
I wish list stuff until a Bandcamp Friday comes around where artists get all the money. I've stopped buying physical media, so waiting on a digital purchase isn't an issue for me.
I’ve almost never paid a cent for music.
My concert ticket stack is thicc though, and I have SOOOOO MANY hoodies, t-shirts, cups, and random bullshit. I’m not paying for DRM, but you can’t DRM a comfy zip-up!
Or pirate the music, then send some money in an envelope to the artists themselves.
Or pirate the music, then go to a concert or buy some merch.
There are three morbillion songs and I have no idea which ones I like. Streaming platforms became popular for a reason
Yeah most people don't care to maintain a local music library. It's a lot of work and compared to streaming services that do it for you this offers no real benefit. If you listen to lots of new/different music all the time, streaming is actually far cheaper.
They should at least release data sheets and any bootloader signing keys, allowing people to reuse the devices for other purposes. If you could replace the firmware, I’m sure you could use it for controlling your home automation setup or displaying the weather/news/train times/other info (or possibly other tasks depending on what’s in the SoC). Now, alas, it’s just e-waste.
That doesn't help make money. The engineers are needed elsewhere.
Since that was their first attempt at hardware, I bet they don't have access and/or rights to share shit, as everything is owned by OEM.
Even Google products have a longer lifespan 😖
I've since moved on to Tidal. Bought it at $30 when root mods started to be developed, but never really went anywhere.
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The bastards barely started selling it a few years ago. I feel like some responsibility should exist. It isn't a company that is going under, so it shouldn't be able to just casually kill the devices tied-service it only recently sold.
Agreed. Anything sold with the intention of being used with a subscription service should have 10 years of support.
Holy shit: "The company is recommending that customers do a factory reset on the product and find some way of responsibly recycling the hardware."
So they're not offering to dispose of it, or even giving any advice on how to dispose of it responsibly. Just suggesting people should probably do that.
If companies are allowed to behave this way we're all screwed. Any efforts by the average person to avert the environmental damage caused by the waste they produce is completely futile and any politician who claims that they're doing their best to try to hold companies accountable is a liar.
We need new laws y’all. All these companies should be forced to collect all their e-waste as part of their products lifecycle.
If a company produces any product and the company has a market cap over $1billion, then they should be responsible for collecting and recycling all their trash.
Spotify is an evil company. Bad for artists, bad for consumers. I’m glad to have quit using their service.
Remember kids, never place buttons for a service on a remote if you don't know if the remote will last longer than said service :)
This was predictable. Everyone has a phone. Phones have CarPlay and Android Auto.
The fact that they named it “Car Thing” made it clear that it didn’t have much of a valid use and that they didn’t really have a lot of confidence in it.
It’s annoying that they even created it in the first place. It’s more annoying that they now predictably are not supporting it anymore. It should be illegal.
It's a little annoying how the article only gives much of a hint as to what exactly a Car Thing is, beyond a "dashboard accessory", in the last paragraph of the article:
the product was more of a remote control for Spotify on your mobile phone than any kind of standalone player
It's worth noting that it was quite cheap and therefore a very good budget option to MacGyver music streaming into older cars.
I bought this for my old Cadillac that only had a tape deck and it was amazing (with a Bluetooth cassette). I haven't used it since I got rid of that old Cadillac about two years ago now. Pretty limited use case but it still sucks to kill shit for no reason.
I'm waiting for some FOSS developers to hack this thing and run custom firmware on it. Or someone who creates their own "Car Thing" using an Arduino or Raspberry Pi.
imo they should refund everyone who bought one and collect all the devices to recycle.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
