Spotify Car Thing

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Basic Information
Release Year	2022
Product Type	Physical application extension
In Production	Discontinued, December 2024
Official Website	archive.org

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 The product ceased functioning on December 9th when the Car Thing API was shutdown, preventing the device from interacting with the Spotify app.

Consumer Impact Summary

User Freedom

• Freedom summary
  

User Privacy

• Privacy Summary
  

Consumer Protection Incidents

Production discontinued (July 27, 2022)

Production of the Car Thing is quietly halted due to poor sales.

Price reduced from $89.99 to $29.99 (August 20, 2022)

Spotify reduced the price by $60 in order to clear out their stock. The SCT would eventually sell out.

Root access in the SCT is cracked by Security researchers (October 20, 2022)

Root access was gained on the SCT through local means. While this is damning for the SCT's security it was not significant to consumer security, it merely gave consumers the ability to repurpose the device by uploading their own software. There is a risk that resold SCTs 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 is actually the first time Spotify officially announced the discontinuation. The bypass guide is available

Total discontinuation announced (May 23, 2024)

Spotify official announces the Car Thing's discontinuation on their website warning users that it will cease functioning entirely after December 9th, effectively [Discontinuation bricking discontinuation bricking the device.

SCT API is shut down and removed from the Spotify App (December 9, 2024)

The removal of the Spotify Car Thing API completely bricked all Car Things in distribution.

References

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2024/06/02/how-long-did-spotify-car-thing-last-timeline/