Car Thing is Back from the Dead, No Thanks to Spotify

Photo Credit: Spotify

Spotify killed off its Car Thing several years ago, creating e-waste and alienating customers. Now, custom firmware has given the auto dongle a new lease on life.

Spotify discontinued its auto dongle, Car Thing, after only a few months, rendering the device nonfunctional overnight. Besides creating e-waste, the move alienated customers who purchased one, leading hardware engineers to develop custom firmware for Car Thing, called Mira, to resuscitate it. Now, all you need is a USB-C cable and the firmware download to breathe new life into your Car Thing.

Setup requires plugging your Car Thing into your PC or phone to connect via Bluetooth to Spotify. Once connected, you can hook up the Car Thing wherever you want to once more control the music streaming from your phone. There’s podcast support, a lyrics view, source options, and various methods of control, such as gestures and voice.

The current version of Mira, 1.0, has a couple of known issues as of August. Bluetooth doesn’t always connect automatically, and sometimes waking the device from sleep can be finicky. But the project’s GitHub page provides detailed troubleshooting steps.

Mira is the latest project to emerge at the hands of consumers who wanted to continue using a device that had been killed off by its creator. Recently, users have been shedding the software restrictions on Amazon’s Echo Show. A developer even created a snapshot of AOL 2.5 from 1995—although that project is less about resuscitating a completely viable piece of hardware.

But the controversy surrounding Spotify’s Car Thing remains. Users argue that the company could have continued to support the device without much impact on its daily operations. Moreover, discontinuing support for the Car Thing altogether only serves to upset consumers and create more e-waste, which ultimately does more damage in the long run—both for the environment and for Spotify itself—than simply continuing support.

Meanwhile, as tech prices continue to skyrocket amid AI data centers sucking up available resources, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see a similar device from Spotify in the future. It’s far more likely that user-supported solutions will emerge for other deprecated tech as consumers strive to continue using devices for which they paid good money.