Spotify Unveils Car Thing Dedicated Smart Player for the Car

With Car Thing, those Spotify users who cannot bear the thought of leaving home without their playlists and podcasts, have a dedicated solution for their cars, making it easy to expand their streaming experiences from the home and work. And without depending upon Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri, users can just say “Hey Spotify” to ask for a song, album, artist, playlist, station, or podcast. All using a dedicated player with a large dial to browse, select, play, pause and discover music, with the Car Thing touchscreen display showing what’s playing, what’s coming, and allowing users to swipe to get to it. Finally, four preset buttons give the user shortcuts to favorite artists, playlists, stations, and podcasts.
 
Users just need to have a Spotify Premium account to use Car Thing, connect the Thing to a 12V power outlet, connect a smartphone to Car Thing via Bluetooth, and connect the phone to the car audio system also via Bluetooth, analog AUX connection or USB cable. No new technologies, nothing revolutionary here. For some reason, Spotify just thinks that users don't want to touch their smartphones as much in the car, and that the Cat Thing will offer a better voice front-end for voice commands. At the same time, the proof-of-concept also sends a clear message to automotive manufacturers that they should actively consider talking to Spotify.

For placement inside the car, Car Thing comes with three different mounts using a magnet. It's all included in the box. In terms of hardware, Car Thing is a simple but not minimalistic device, built with a sturdy unibody design for durability, and finished in matte-textured rubber for better handling. The display supports tactile navigational controls plus buttons on top, a side dial, and a back button.  Under the hood, Car Thing is equipped with four near-field and mid-field microphones, coupled with advanced audio processing to optimize voice recognition with noise suppression capability to tune out sounds from the road. Its adaptive interference cancellation technology means it’s always working to prioritize the user's voice over all other sounds - including music. Even though Spotify doesn't say, we are quite certain that Car Thing is a Linux-based embedded hardware implementation, but nothing is said in terms of hardware (we don't believe Spotify would be stupid enough to use a fully featured Android distribution). Nevertheless, the system is able to interact with current smartphones, USB and Bluetooth protocols, and work with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. In terms of service, Car Thing connects to the Spotify app on a smartphone and uses the mobile data or Wi-Fi connection from the smartphone to work - no direct connectivity. Also, there's no speakers built-in.

The rationale for the design is described by Spotify as a direct attempt to replace traditional radio in the car. "Americans spend countless hours on the road. It’s no surprise, then, that there are over 70 million user-generated driving-related playlists on Spotify." And because the United States are an ideal playground to experiment with voice control, Spotify also decided to launch a limited release of Car Thing exclusive to eligible users in the US.

"Our focus remains on becoming the world’s number one audio platform — not on creating hardware — but we developed Car Thing because we saw a need from our users, many of whom were missing out on a seamless and personalized in-car listening experience. No matter the year or model of your vehicle, we feel everyone should have a superior listening experience. With Car Thing, we’ll now be bringing our entire catalogue of music and podcasts to a wider range of users across an even wider range of vehicles," the company states.

"The limited release of Car Thing is not meant to compete with in-car infotainment systems. Instead, it’s another step in our larger ubiquity strategy — creating a truly frictionless audio experience for our users, wherever they are and however they choose to listen," Spotify adds. In fact, Spotify is already working very actively with car manufacturers, particularly new brands in electric and autonomous - and always connected - vehicles, to have a built-in Spotify service directly available in the car's hardware.

For a set time, Car Thing from Spotify will be available in the US and on an invite-only basis - at no cost (excluding shipping) to select Spotify subscribers in the region.
carthing.spotify.com
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