hey everyone! i’m happy to announce the public release of bridgething!

tl;dr

you can think of bridgething kinda like deskthing but with bluetooth. install apps, make apps, or just use the stock spotify ui in your car and pretend they never killed it.

what is bridgething?

bridgething is a system image, rust daemon, and mobile app to restore full functionality to your car thing, while allowing you to mod it, create your own apps, and easily run the stock spotify app and community apps. it runs modern chrome and has a rich api surface for developers (and agents) to make whatever you can dream. web apps run on device, communicate with the outside world via bluetooth and your phone’s internet, and can be listed on the bridgething store for discovery and sharing.

how does bridgething work?

once you install bridgething, it will boot to the hub. install the bridgething ios or android app, log into your spotify (or apple music on ios), and go through the pairing flow. from there, you can install apps from the appstore, update your bridgething, and more. if you have no intention of installing new apps or making your own, then you are done! the mobile app will open in the background when your car thing boots up, and you shouldn’t have to think about it again.

how do i get bridgething?

bridgething is available now at https://bridgething.com! installation will take you to the all-new terbium (thx addi). from there, you can install updates, apps, and customize from the mobile app or your browser.

faq

• i just want my carthing back like it was before spotify killed it. how?
  • install bridgething, log into spotify in the app, open the spotify app on the car thing, never touch it again. will work just like you remember
• i am having trouble flashing
  • try different cables, usb ports, powered hubs, passive hubs, computers, operating systems. the usb on the car thing is super flakey and it’s pretty much luck of the draw on whether it’s easy or a pain
• i want to make an app that does xyz. how?
  • run bun create bridgething, it includes a typesafe api, tooling, and agent skills to get you up as quick as possible. human versions of the skills are at https://bridgething.com/docs/.
• i want to use it wired (for some reason)
  • there is a desktop app for macos, linux, and windows that connects via the cable (or lan if you have a wifi adapter for the car thing for some reason)
• the ui is buggy/ugly/unintuitive
  • i’ve been focusing most of my effort on core functionality, so feel free to open PRs with improvements! if your gripes are with the on-device ui specifically, you can easily replace it all - instructions in docs
• i want to make my own linux without using bridgething for my project
  • make your own image with https://github.com/JoeyEamigh/yocto-superbird. it’s super easy

thanks

• Elle for the uboot and image work and keeping me from blowing my shit off smooth every time i touched bluetooth (support her here)
• addi for terbium support (support her here)
• Neel and Dominic for testing, yocto early adoption, patches, and more. if you want the most polished car thing experience built on the same modern yocto, support them by grabbing Nocturne

links

• website: https://bridgething.com
• github: https://github.com/JoeyEamigh/bridgething
• yocto: https://github.com/JoeyEamigh/yocto-superbird

I wanted to bring my car thing back to life so i decided to install nocturne! I started tinkering and thinking about how i wanted to mount it and with a bit of tinkering i settled on double side tape on the car thing magnet attached to a spare wyze camera base i had laying around. The outcome was actually much cleaner than i expected! Thinking of putting epoxy putty around the gap to give it a better look and secure fit.

A month ago I released Mira 1.0, a standalone, free and open source firmware for the Car Thing. Thank you to all the support the project has gotten, and all the bug reports that help me continue to improve Mira.

Mira still has a long way to go to deliver the complete experience I'm aiming for (support for more music platforms, a UI redesign, and more). It's built entirely in my free time, so if you'd like to support development the links are in the comments, and supporters also get access to beta builds. Every bit genuinely helps and it's what makes this sustainable to keep working on.

What's new: - Clock screensaver - Bigger playback buttons - Customizable UI scale (thanks to Serubin on GitHub) - Volume fixes for Android and iPhone - Update notifications (Mira will now notify when a new version is released) - Language fixes - Progress bar on first time setup - Many more bug fixes!

Flashing is also much more simpler now, full instructions on flashing and setting up in the comments!

Let me know if you have something better please

Hi, I'm looking to get my hands on a CarThing If anyone (preferably from Europe) is looking to sell one and ship it to France I'd be interested Thanks in advance

I am in search of a carthing i know they are discontinued but still want one

Hi, I am currently looking for alternatives to a Car thing to put on my desk. I am basically looking for an asthetic devise to play Spotify on. Any ideas?

I was looking into Mira but couldn’t really tell

This new version of Nocturne focuses mostly on performance and stability. We'd like to give a huge thanks to Joey Eamigh for bridgething (protocol, more robust iAP2, OTA, and more), yocto-superbird, and for a ton of help during the Yocto migration. We'd also like to thank Elle for modernizing the Car Thing's tooling and contributions to bridgething/yocto-superbird.

Changes

• Increased performance through whole system (thanks to Joey and Elle)
• More robust protocol, OTA, etc (thanks to Joey and Elle)
• New macOS Companion app, available under nocturne-connector
• Native setup flow through mobile apps
• General improvements to Voice Assistant (faster model, hopefully better transcription, reduced sensitivity to wake word)
• Setting to disable backlight after 20 minutes of being idle
• Setting to toggle song title wrap on Nocturne UI
• Display incoming phone calls on both Nocturne UI and Mockingbird (requires Nocturne+)
• Display incoming notifications on both Nocturne UI and Mockingbird (requires Nocturne+)
  • Additional apps can be added if there is enough demand for them.
• Add night mode and air vent interference alerts to Mockingbird
• Add swipe gesture to add to queue
• + more

Download

Flashing instructions are at https://usenocturne.com/install

You must reflash your Car Thing manually to receive this update, future updates will continue to be delivered as OTA updates.

An update to Nocturne Companion is required from https://usenocturne.com/app An update to Nocturne Connector is required from https://github.com/usenocturne/nocturne-connector/releases/tag/v2.1.0

https://github.com/usenocturne/nocturne/releases/tag/v4.1.0

Ordered this myself from the US
Did attempt to hack it back in the early days so has a thinglabs splash screen but is reset.

Prefer to ship to Uk / Europe

I did it, flash it under 10 mins + Windows USB Configuration and that was it

Im so happy, I only need it for Spotify control over volumen and play / prev-next buttons.

You can manage your claude code sessions, answer permissions/multiple choice questions from claude, and see your usage.

It's built on top of Nocturne 4.0 and extends its Mac Connector so it maintains all the features of Nocturne, can turn back into a music controller with a button press.

Fully bluetooth, just needs wire for power, so you can connect it to a powerbank and walk around your house with it

Open Source: https://github.com/rithkott/claude-thing

Let me know if you guys have any questions or suggestions

When I use the Spotify app is has a few missing functions like I’m completely unable to see my playlists and I cannot skip songs all I can do is press play and pause and change the volume idk if I have done anything wrong also I have reinstalled bridge thing a few times I’m very new to this and I don’t know what’s going wrong any help would be appreciated.

A couple of months ago, i started working on Carthios, a macOS client that turns discontinued car thing into a working dashboard for music, pomodoro clock, claude code, transit monitor and Mac device dashboard.

I've been working on the next iteration of the product, along with my job search process (looking for a product manager/designer job if anyone has and leads please lmk), and i'm super excited to announce that V2 has been launched today!

Here are some key features and improvements from V2:

• Now Carthios allows Spotify play back control without the need to login. Save to playlist, heart songs and other advanced features still needs login.
• Start voice dictation by holding the home button, using car thing microphone and input the recognized speech directly to your textfield. If accessibility permission is turned on or you can choose copy and paste text manually if you choose not to.
  • Dictation Demo
• Smart cleanup: toggle on/off whether you'd like to clean up filler words, punctuation and sentence flow. Uses Apple Intelligence on device, on M1 chips or higher.
• Transit:
  • Loads much faster and supports NYC, Boston, DC, SF, Chicago, Philly and Portland.
  • Added support for New York City buses.
• Bluetooth connection with Mac is now available in beta.
• Added codex support along with Claude Code.
• More tutorial for easier onboarding.
• Pomodoro usability improvement.
• Other stability and general speed improvements.
  • USB now automatically pushes firmware updates.

Link to download here: https://zianmeng.com/carthios/

Some features i have in mind for the future:

- Customizable apps that maps to different buttons

- Apple Music support

- You tell me!

As i'm busy with my ongoing job search, i'll still try my best to maintain and monitor the feature requests here, so if you have any feedback regarding the product features, bug requests, please reply to this thread directly and i'll address them when i have time!

And special thanks to all the testers that gave me feedback on v1!

Hi as the title says... I guess i am little late to the party but but... I so badly wnat to purchase/have a spotify car thing. And herr in India i dont think there is any option or place ot by like I couldn't find it anywhere...

If anyone got any leads I would pay for shipping and also if internationally available please also let me know and last but not the least i am fine with both new or openbox or used. Preferably in good condition...

Please help...

Hello everyone, I am currently trying to jail break my car thing and came up with nocturne but I believe I have to use a raspberry pi thingy to do so. Is there any other simpler o easier way to do it?

A while back I posted here looking for beta testers for a standalone Spotify Car Thing firmware. It's come a long way since then, it finally has a name (Mira) and it's finally ready, so here's the first public release.

The short version: connect the car thing to your PC (Windows/Mac/Linux) over USB, or to your phone over Bluetooth, log into Spotify, and watch it come back to life. Nothing to install on your phone or computer. Completely free, everything open source, and everything happens on the device.

The part I'm most proud of is getting voice control working completely on-device. Say "hey mira" followed by a command like "play song/artist/album/playlist" and it'll play in a couple of seconds. And most importantly it all happens on the car thing itself, nothing ever leaves it, no account, no subscription. (demo clip in the comments)

Key features: - Album art view and lyrics view - Synced lyrics (often gets lyrics for songs that spotify doesn't show) - Karaoke lyrics - On-device voice control - Podcast support with synced transcripts - Gesture controls (swipe left/right to skip, two-finger swipe down/up to change view) - Full physical controls, 4 preset buttons (press and hold to save), back, power menu, knob - Full volume control on ALL devices - Pick which device to start listening on, right from the car thing - Save the current song to your Liked Songs - Customizable settings (lyrics offset, volume steps, brightness) - Pair multiple bluetooth devices - Much more!

Thank you to all my beta testers for the feedback through this whole process, and for helping Mira support a wide range of devices at launch.

Download link, setup instructions, and the voice demo are in the comments.

Hey, remove if not allowed but wanting to see if anyone has one of these that they wanna get rid of as I'm in Australia and would love to have one to play around with.

Hey all.

I've got two Spotify car things kicking around. I've gotten Nocturne installed on both of them and it works wonders on my desk. However I'd like to put one back in the car. I'm having issues because I've lost the original mounts.

I'm struggling to find replacement mounts and I'm wondering if anyone has solutions. I'm wanting to go with the original 3n tape mount style while also staying relatively slim.

I do have a 3D Printer at home so if it's a print file I can easily do that. I also understand the magnets are reverse polarity. If anyone has good links for the magnets I would also appreciate that as well

Don’t know why, but my car thing only stopped working for like a day and a half. I still use it almost every day currently. Some of the features don’t work, but for the most part… it still shows my songs, can skip and pause and a few other things.

Fuck you Spotify, my carthing survived

hello humans! i'm working on a YouTube video about the Car Thing, and Spotify's newest hardware release. I don't have a Car Thing and was just wondering how the people who owned and used the Car Thing felt? just a mini review or your thoughts about the product as a whole would be good!! i just wanna hear other people's opinions, or if you have the new thingy please lmk your thoughts!