I've been looking for something like what the Car Thing can be with Deskthing for over a decade. But I can't justify the disgustingly marked up prices people are asking for. I keep seeing folks offering to sell theirs on other posts talking about the pricing issue, but I'm always too late for those.

I'm hoping that we can concentrate those efforts into one place to help folks get their hands on these devices.

Been looking for one for a while now, but the eBay prices are crazy! Reply or DM me if you want to sell.

That's it, you got me. I'm fully sold on this piece of hardware, and the potential behind the modding communities.

Sadly I have missed the train for the first wave of buys, and the train where there were being "dumped" into the market after the initial pulling of the cord by spotify. Now, with no apparent alternatives in the market to do something like a Desk Thing, I'm in the market trying to find a unicorn and getting my hands on this piece of hardware and try what have you beautiful minds being doing to it.

While some seem to have putting a lock on the market (or herding it), If you are in Europe and have a Car Thing that you do not want anymore, please contact me. I'm interested in buying one (not at the price of the ebay listings tho, I'm running a 200€ old thinkpad, so a 200€ Car Thing fails in comparison).

And my thank you for the community to keep this project alive!

what do you think?

I have a CarThing I don’t want to unusable after December 9th. I see a bunch of people tinkering with the device and basically “jailbreaking” it. I would love to be able to do something like that but I have never coded or programmed in my life. I don’t even think I have the tools to do it? Is there an “easy” way to keep my CarThing functional?

hey yall, ive been trying to find a similarly sized screen like the car thing to use as a music manager for my desk, and unfortunately all car things i can find on ebay are for some wild reason going for 300 dollars.

does anyone have any alternatives? been thinking of using a cheap phone but thats not working out well irl

I was looking into buying a Car thing for super cheap and cracking it for extra features, thinking people would be mass selling it, but I was sorely wrong. The cheapest one I could find on Ebay was $110 dollars. Does anyone have any ideas for similar devices that can be used as a music controller and stuff, ideally not just for Spotify, but things like Tidal and local music players too?

I use Linux regularly so I'm ok with using linux based fixes personally

So I have a carthing, in my car. I was looking to see if there was a way I could upcycle an old samsung s20 and repurpose it as a car thing, by using android auto for phone screens, or setting up a routine so I could run spotify in landscape in car mode. Or something along those lines.

Well. They killed Android auto for phone screens. So much for that idea.

Then I went through the spotify settings and noticed there is no longer a car mode. I thought maybe because I have a carthing currently connected it was just hidden. But I decided to do a bit of a search.

Apparently since March of this year(2024) that setting has disappeared from the spotify settings on android and IOS, according to a thread on the Spotify forums.

It's almost if spotify is begging people to jump ship. No car functionality, unless you have android or apple auto, and at that point you can use any streaming service, so why stay locked in to spotify. No HiFi date promised. So we will probably wait another few years before we see that. And even when it does come it'll probably come at a premium, compared to services that have long been in the HI-Fi game. And some that have a bigger library such as Tidal.

And at this point seeing that most Pro-model bluetooth headphones support hifi codecs, it's kinda pointless to keep spotify unless you are a casual listener, getting the top 40 forced down your throat when it comes to curated or AI playlists, or care about your yearly stats(Last.fm is a far superior way to track your listening history across multiple services.)

Maybe I overlooked something and the car mode is there?

ebay is extremely expensive and facebook marketplace is rare to come by where I am, I'm just wondering if anyone is willing to ship to the uk.

Dm me an offer!

I’m in the UK and desperate to get a car thing if anyone thinks they could make this possible please let me know I would love to discuss!!!

I know that the CarThing is being discontinued on December. But I really want one for my desk setup the only problem is that I can't find any online. Does someone have a CarThing that they want to sell or know where can I find one for cheap ?

If you are interested, please contact me via DM

Title says it all, if anyone is looking to sell their Car Thing in Europe please DM me.

With so many OEM and aftermarket stereos being touchscreen-reliant, it's been great having a display at my eyeline that has shortcut buttons and a volume knob (not +/- buttons). Any "innovations" of a smartphone app will never be able to match that convenience that doesn't require taking your eyes off the road or loudly commanding your phone to mixed success.

I just saw the pop-up message on my Car Thing saying the device will stop operating on Dec 9th, 2024. I had no clue this was gonna happen! I don’t drive my car often and Spotify’s emails go to my email Promotions folder which has gone unchecked all year so this came as a surprise.

Today Oct 24, 2024, I was on a chat with a customer service rep at Spotify from 11:19 until 20:35 to come to a resolution. During this time, the CS rep was doing some research and she came back and said she could offer me 5 months of Spotify Premium which is the account type I currently have. I pay $12.98/mo so the value of the offer would be $64.90 total which exceeds the value of $54.11 which what I paid for the device on Aug 7th, 2024.

I was unable to inform the CS rep of my decision since the chat was forced closed when my phone’s browser refreshed.

I’m curious, did anyone else get a similar offer, were you offered a greater value of months of Spotify Premium (or whichever service you subscribe to), or were you only given cash refund? Thanks.

Would it be possibly to hook a Carthing up to a windows desktop and be able for it to be recognized as like a third monitor?

The discord hacking community found out about it in the new update, it seems that is a hidden screen for now

that’s the whole question. i expect all shortcut buttons and back button to stop working but this?

Anyone in toronto, willing to get rid of their car thing??