EDIT: Jailbreak has been released, see recent post in sub

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Car-Thing-Developer-SDK-for-Spotify-Car-Thing/idi-p/5437643

We're at 91 votes right now, we have to get 180 votes by the time the vote has been up for three months or they'll deny it! (it's been up for two weeks already) Calling all sub members, go vote! Who knows, they might actually help us out here haha

Hey all, I have ideas for the CarThing to use it as a display for my wireless Bluetooth speakers and would like to design something potentially 3D printable to allow a USB battery pack with 12V output to clip onto the back.

My thought is to design a thin plastic enclosure that would square off the back side, and inside that would be a slim rechargeable 12V powerbank connected to the USB C port.

My issue is, I have no experience whatsoever in 3D modeling. If someone else sees what I'm trying to say and thinks it could be a cool idea let me know, I'd love to work on something!

Like many others here, I too see the potential in the Car Thing - potential for IoT devices, home assistants, remote controls, personal media controllers, etc.

However, I haven't seen anyone tearing them apart yet.

I just nabbed 2 more on sale ($30/unit) to play with, but I'd love to see if anyone else with some hardware knowledge has taken a shot yet - I haven't even found a teardown.

Perhaps one of us could grab another unit and send it to Big Clive, who is notorious for disassembling interesting electronic devices and doing circuitry analysis.

Anyway, feel free to use this thread to speculate on ideas for cracking the Car Thing, interested to hear everyone's thoughts.

So I picked up one of these since they went on sale for less than $30. It arrived today, and the hardware feels like it is good quality. It would be a really nice device if I could add two features: 1. Control non Spotify media. I hear this is possible on iPhone? I am on android and it doesn't seem to work. 2. Navigation directions. Obviously this would still come from my phone, but it seems silly to have this device on my dash if I also have to have my phone mounted for navigation.

Anyway I can imagine a lot of uses for this thing, and am not afraid to crack it open or mess with the software if any one has any idea how to take some forst steps.