Spotify begins testing 'Car Thing' voice assistant accessory

In the next few weeks Spotify will begin a U.S. test of its first hardware, an auto accessory offering hands-free music control.

Dubbed the Car Thing, the device is powered by a 12-volt outlet and links to both a smartphone and car over Bluetooth. A small circular screen shows what's playing, while buttons offer access to preset playlists.

By saying, "Hey Spotify," people can make Siri- or Alexa-style requests, such as "play 'A Flaming Ordeal' by Raison d'etre" or "shuffle my 'Bedtime for Bonzo' playlist."

Spotify is only reaching out to a select group of people for testing, and the company says it's interested primarily in gauging in-car music and podcast habits. Spotify is concentrating on being "the world's number one audio platform — not on creating hardware," it wrote in a blog post.

An anonymous source for the The Verge backed this statement, saying there are no intentions to launch the Car Thing as-is, or even to the general public. Nevertheless the company has trademarked "Car Thing," "Voice Thing" and "Home Thing," laying the groundwork for potential commercial products.

Hardware like the Car Thing could get around a key limitation on iPhone, which is Apple's control over voice commands. While people can ask Siri to play songs if they have an Apple Music subscription, they can't do the same if they have Spotify Premium or any other on-demand third-party service.

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11 Comments

entropys

said about 4 years ago

This car thing would have to be cheap to have any take up. Also, is there a car thing 1 and a car thing 2?

Meanwhile, I wish Apple would make a dongle. Yes a dongle! A wifi dongle that connects to any carplay equipped vehicle to enable wireless carplay.

dysamoria

said about 4 years ago

Yay, more gadgets to flood this saturated market. When I say saturated, I’m including people’s phone and all the stuff that comes in new cars.

oh and:

Yay, more devices to deliver commercials and gather user data.

gatorguy

said about 4 years ago

dysamoria said:

Yay, more gadgets to flood this saturated market. When I say saturated, I’m including people’s phone and all the stuff that comes in new cars.

oh and:

Yay, more devices to deliver commercials and gather user data.

If you read the entire article you'll see that there's no intention of launching this device for the public. They don't plan (for now at least) to "add another device for gathering user data"

Quote: "Spotify is only reaching out to a select group of people for testing, and the company says it's interested primarily in gauging in-car music and podcast habits....
An anonymous source for the The Verge backed this statement, saying there are no intentions to launch the Car Thing as-is, or even to the general public."