Spotify Car Thing

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Spotify Car Thing

Basic Information
Release Year	2022
Product Type	Media player
In Production	No
Official Website	https://carthing.spotify.com

The Spotify Car Thing was a physical device that allowed extended control of the Spotify app. When connected to a device running the Spotify app, the Car Thing accesses an API for communication with the app, interacting with the Car Thing attempts to make API calls for interaction. Production of the Car Thing stopped July 2022. The product ceased functioning on 9 December 2024, when the Car Thing API was shutdown and thus preventing the device from interacting with the Spotify app.

Consumer impact summary

• Revocation of control: The discontinuation bricking of the device ultimately took away user control for thousands of people. Control was only regained after security vulnerabilities in the device were exploited.
• Always online: The Car Thing's dependence on the Spotify app required that a phone authorized with the Spotify app always be present and connected to the Car Thing. The Car Thing's lack of offline support forced the user to use an app possibly unnecessarily.
• Retroactive resale falsification: The discontinuation bricking incident has created some potential risk for reseller false advertising.
• Data collection: Spotify openly admitted that the Car Thing had been developed to collect data on "how people listen to music and podcasts". How the data collected through the SCT is useful for this purpose is unclear, in addition it is also unclear what the data is.
• Security concerns: The root access exploit, while beneficial to user freedom in allowing them to jailbreak their device, also raises some concerns for future buyers of jailbroken Car Things — a malicious seller could upload malware onto the device — resold SCTs may be a potential security risk.

Incidents

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents related to this product. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Spotify Car Thing category.

Production ended (July 2022)

On 27 July 2022, Spotify ended production of the Car Thing but did not share the news until 3 August. The company cited poor sales. Following the end of production, the company reduced the price from $89.99 to $29.99 on 20 August 2022 in order to clear out their stock. The Spotify Car Thing would eventually become sold out, exposing even more customers to its discontinuation.

Root access cracked by security researchers (October 2022)

On 20 October 2022, security researchers cracked the root access through local means. While this can be seen as a large issue for the product's security, it was not significant to customer security, instead giving customers the ability to repurpose the device by uploading their own software. There is a risk that resold jailbroken Car Things could contain malware but this is an unlikely target. Spotify's response to the exploit was "that the product is unsupported, and end-of-life, and therefore no bugs would be accepted pertaining to the product", which would mark the first time Spotify officially announced the discontinuation.

Complete discontinuation announced (May 2024)

Spotify officially announced the Car Thing's discontinuation on their website on 23 May 2024, warning users that it would cease functioning entirely after 9 December 2024 (effectively bricking the device). The resulting customer backlash led to Spotify instituting a refund process specifically for owners of the product.

Class-action lawsuit against Spotify (May 2024)

Spotify was served a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on 28 May 2024. The lawsuit claimed "Spotify misled consumers by selling them a soon-to-be obsolete product and then not offering refunds, reports Billboard". Prior to the lawsuit's filing, Spotify had set up a refund page for buyers through e-mail which directs customers to this link, where customers can receive a refund with proof of purchase (excluding resales). The lawsuit was dismissed by the plaintiffs after Spotify began issuing refunds.

See also

• Pencil by FiftyThree (2013–2019) was a Bluetooth active stylus sold by FiftyThree, Inc., designed to work with their Paper drawing app for iPad. Its key features — palm rejection, eraser, and Blend — relied entirely on Bluetooth integration with the Paper app via a proprietary SDK. FiftyThree discontinued its hardware business in 2016, and was acquired by WeTransfer in August 2018. In 2019, WeTransfer discontinued support for the Pencil in the Paper app, reducing the device to a basic passive stylus. The device's active features were never recoverable through third-party means. This is an early example of active hardware rendered functionally downgraded by a software decision made after purchase, without recourse for the consumer.