Spotify Already Broke the Car Thing... By Accident

[@feefeee]

Very high production value, I'm blown away you aren't more popular.

[@anoraker]

Thank you!

[@DarkFiber23]

You have some great presentation skills and your videos are quite well put together.
Just subscribed. :)

[@anoraker]

Thank you very much!

[@frokfrdk]

That home screen bug is the same thing I observed when disconnecting my phone completely offline and then using the car thing with downloaded music offline

[@anoraker]

Super interesting! Just proves the point too, this thing does little more than display server data and once they cut that off...

[@thereasonweidont]

They should’ve just made a landscape mode that this device would’ve helped them prototype

[@TheMisterPixel]

I totally disagree with that the Car Thing would be not powerful enough to do anything useful with. Look at all the projects that works on an Arduino UNO (16MHz microcontroller), a nice color LCD, a rotary dial and some connectivity. This hardwaare is basically all that combined in a nice package but the processor is more powerful. I don't have one but if we would be able to low level program it I would consider getting one because they will be very cheap second hand.

[@anoraker]

I'm not saying it's not possible to do something useful with it. Just that it'll be tedious and hard work because you have to work around the lower-end hardware. If you watch, I went on to show several great works in progress that are attempting to repurpose the device in great ways.

[@TheMisterPixel]

@@anoraker Yeah sorry if it came across that way but I was not bashing you for mentioning the low performance but I have heard other people say that even if they fully open the hardware, it would still be useless. Anyway, I hope your channel grows quickly!

[@anoraker]

@@TheMisterPixel I will say it has limited usefulness... you basically have to do something with it like it already does (fancy web page display) because of the hardware limits. You're not gonna game on this thing... or even use it as a second monitor. That makes repurposing it, well... difficult. It might happen! It'll take awhile.
But thanks for watching! Hoping to grow quickly too!

[@FabiioAlmeiida]

@@anoraker smart home dashboard, 3d printer screen (klipperscreen), clock, weather station... So so many uses for that thing, just need to be creative.

Love to see there was a follow up video linked from the first one. Never seen any of your other vids idk if there even is any but i hope there's some cool shit to get into. Great vid format its very watchable without twitch like distractions a lot of makers use.

[@TheOriginalBlanked]

I subscribed for a DIY Spotify Car thing!! Please release an alternative that is just as clean for desktop use!!

[@godiegogo333]

Very informative thank you! You earned a sub!

[@o_hammer109]

Great contents!
Furthermore, I have seen the first video as well, and I unfortunately do 100% agree that nowadays, you don't even have the right to own some of your own hardware!!!
We "customers" are being bullied unfortunately on a daily basis.
Regarding your video, I do have some comments "some of which are in question form", but first I'd like to state, that I don't really have nor have access to this Car thing!
Second, I'm not here to criticize your video in a negative way, I hope my questions would allow understand the device itself, and thank you in advance for the efforts and please keep up the hard work!
Now, you mentioned that the device is trying to reach "The Server" to reflect the main menu!
1- What Server exactly, if the whole device "as I understood from the previous and this videos" is a simple application that lives inside a Linux environment "on the actual Car Thing" and it's only role is to reflect the playlist "including multimedia" from your phone's Spotify.apk "or whatever the extension was!" via Bluetooth?
2- How come the Car Thing's application went through firmware update without logs? How about the actual device manufacturer's website and/or customer service in regards to the latest updates, I think they owe the device owners some explanation before "September you said!?" a least!
3- So we both know that piconet or what's so called Bluetooth Network uses a master/slave mechanism, I believe then, that whenever you're able to unlock the application on your master's OS, your Car Thing would react accordingly!
So unlocking the application on the master device would actually unlock "at least" some of the Car Thing's functionalities!!!
4- Why would a device like the Car Thing "slave" go through an authentication/verification process if the actual data holder "including biological" is the master "Android/iOS" in other words your phone or tablet!!!? I do believe, that if you have a premium Spotify subscription, even if your phone/tablet is absolutely off the internet grid "completely offline with no internet connection, no WiFi, no 3G nor LTE, nothing" you'll be able to play your downloaded music offline on your phone! And that is for granted!
5- How come a beautifully decorated Bluetooth Speaker alike device "Car Thing" *CAN NOT* reflect your mobile's offline "purchased" data on it's screen? How come you can't access your locally downloaded audio tracks along with their thumbnails? And what more than a piconet does it need to establish a live link with your personal device, since it's just a remote control with a "Television ;) " especially that you said at some point that the Car Thing is somewhat a "media player!"
At the end, I think that even if the manufacturer decides to shutdown this Car Thing's production line, the gadget will still be able to act as used to do. It will stop be useful only when they shutdown the whole spotify project!!! Especially that the Car Thing is just an external remote control that talks to your spotify application!
From the other hand, if you are trying to create/re-create something out of this device "saying re-purpose the whole thing", you have already asked this question and answered it by yourself! The device is around 100$ US and with that amount of money you can buy more than one fancy "Chinese" device like the Orange Pi 3B for example!

[@anoraker]

Hello, here's some answers to your questions:
1) The car thing reaches out to servers that Spotify owns. The Car Thing runs a very basic version of Linux that essentially just loads a blank web page on an old version of Chromium. The first thing that happens is that Web Page reaches out to Spotify servers for the data to populate the home screen and everything.
2) It didn't go through a firmware update. The changes happened "in the cloud" ... but the Car Thing is completely dependent on that Cloud to do anything.
3) You can replace the Car Thing's OS, and even mimic it by using Spotify's API instead of the server-side connection it currently uses.
4) "Using it offline" is actually a great example. If you disconnect your phone from all the internet (airplane mode) you'll reproduce what I was seeing... no home screen at all. Some data is still there that's stored locally in spotify app (playlists) ... but this still shows how this is a "cloud dependent" device. Once Spotify cuts off the cloud. so ends the Car Thing.
Here, let's some up all your questions with a basic analogy.
Imagine you built a computer. but it only had one function and no way to change that function. Imagine that function was: Open a browser and load UA-cam.com.
Well that may not seem like much, but with access to all of UA-cam, it's honestly not a half-bad video player. All the content, controls, playlists, "local download" stuff... all of it comes from UA-cam, it's not on your device.
... now imagine tomorrow UA-cam shut down. ... what would you device do? Absolutely nothing without UA-cam. Not without replacing the OS so that did something else.
That's the state the Car Thing is in. And that's essentially how they will brick it in December. They'll remove the bit of code on their servers that powers the Car Thing.

[@keithmooore]

Can it be repurposed to android auto since it works similarly?

[@RahulJC]

maybe use it as a sim dash using sim hub....

[@meghorse2677]

The Car Thing Hacks discord invite is expired -- could you post a new link?

[@anoraker]

Odd. Try this link instead:
discord.gg/UMkKp7w7a4

[@meghorse2677]

@@anoraker thank you!

[@mx2004mx]

what do you mean it didnt do well, spotify didnt advertise it

[@anoraker]

I mean... they created a whole website for it, sent out emails, and even seeded review units to tech sites. They didn't NOT advertise it.