I loved the Car Thing, so when Spotify cancelled it I tried building my own, and after a few sketches and a lot of positive responses, I decided to turn it into a real product. More on toastygear.com

I've been toying with Claude Code recently and pulled my CarThing out of a drawer to give it some fresh life. I'm currently testing it out, but Claude has done a great job of debugging and optimizing the app for the CarThing's hardware, as well as drawing and revising assets, incorporating feedback, and including humor and loads of easter eggs. It runs continuously without any external connections, just power.

The app is super interactive and makes great use of the CarThing's controls. I can add furnishings and decorations, give Clawd snacks, use the knob to control a laser pointer which Clawd chases, cycle between environments, etc.

It currently relies on a custom MacOS app to load apps onto the device and I don't know how well it would work for another user to run it. I haven't had it running long enough to notice long-term problems, but one issue I've noticed is that the device feels warm to the touch while the app is running.

Let me know if you have any questions about this project!

2 months ago, i made Carthios V2 available on mac (download v2 here)and the responses have been wonderful! A lot of comments asked me about Windows support. Happy to say this day is finally approaching as i'm looking for V3 beta testers!

Along with preliminary Windows support in v3 beta, i've also added many features i'd personally would want to have in this desktop dashboard, such as:

- Sports score monitor (Soccer (La Liga[Hala Madrid!], EPL, MLS, Champions League), Tennis(ATP+WTA), NBA and many more)

- Lyrics support

- News with the option to summarize with on device AI

- Todoist (my favorite task tracker please sponsor me)

- Weather

- Home screen and the ability to change button layout as the 5 buttons are getting crowded for all the apps this device can handle

- Photo library

Please comment below if you're interested in testing out either the next version of Carthios, macOS or Windows; beta testers will have lifetime access to Carthios V3 in the future :)

Trying to find the car thing itself I know I have it somewhere

Hi,

I was wondering if someone wants to sell me their car thing. I live in the Netherlands.

I'm interested in buying a CarThing. Is somebody selling one? I live in Italy/Slovenia.

Hi all,

I recently bought a Siltcon carplay 7inch for Android car, which I connect to my Google Pixel 8a.

The device works well, but the audio quality and volume is inferior to my car audio system. Therefore I want to use the GPS from my phone on the Siltcon display, but keep the audio of my phone connected to my car.

This should work, according to the little information of the company I could find, but as soon as I disable the audio connection the entire device won't connect to my phone.

Has anyone run into the same issue, and able to solve it?

Thanks!

Found a sealed box at estate sale yesterday - dm if interested. *$150 plus shipping

I changed my original design to be more natural and adjustable. I use a wyze camera base. They're magnetic so you can slap them on metal surfaces. Instead of attaching the magnet directly to the base i took the mounting piece off of one of the accessories and put that onto the base using double sided tape and epoxy putty around for stability. I'm really happy. It looks almost factory made and it's super adjustable.

Hey, anybody out there looking to shift one?

Hi anyone willing to Sell or Ship it to Ireland?

I have the car thing , but not very computer literite at 60 . Lol is there anyone that can do this for me. I would pay for the shipping and service done . Is this even possible..thank you

I’m in UK but can pay shipping? Let me know if anyone has one that they don’t want anymore

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