ALBAWABA - Customers who bought Spotify's Car Thing device are being notified that after December 9, 2024, their gadgets will no longer function. In July 2022, Spotify announced the gadget was discontinued, saying previously that they would continue to service the devices that had already been sold.
However, two years later, The Car Thing will cease to function completely on December 9th, according to emails sent to customers who purchased it. No refund or subscription credit is being offered for the owners of the now utterly unusable gadget, and no plans for open-sourcing the device are in place.
As a "part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings" is Spotify's stated justification for discontinuing its very first hardware product, adding that the shutting down of the service will allow the streaming giant to “focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users.”
Following Spotify's statement, a number of Car Thing owners took to online communities to express their dissatisfaction with the business and implore them to open-source the gadget rather than condemning it to recycling facilities at most or seeking a refund.
On the company's support website, customers are instructed to reset their Car Thing to factory settings and "safely dispose of your device following local electronic waste guidelines," with no intention of returning to the hardware sector in the near future, as it states “there are no plans to release a replacement or new version of Car Thing.”
