Spotify begins testing 'Car Thing' voice assistant accessory

AppleInsider

In the next few weeks Spotify will begin a U.S. test of its first hardware, an auto accessory offering hands-free music control.

Dubbed the Car Thing, the device is powered by a 12-volt outlet and links to both a smartphone and car over Bluetooth. A small circular screen shows what's playing, while buttons offer access to preset playlists.

By saying, "Hey Spotify," people can make Siri- or Alexa-style requests, such as "play 'A Flaming Ordeal' by Raison d'etre" or "shuffle my 'Bedtime for Bonzo' playlist."

Spotify is only reaching out to a select group of people for testing, and the company says it's interested primarily in gauging in-car music and podcast habits. Spotify is concentrating on being "the world's number one audio platform -- not on creating hardware," it wrote in a blog post.

An anonymous source for the The Verge backed this statement, saying there are no intentions to launch the Car Thing as-is, or even to the general public. Nevertheless the company has trademarked "Car Thing," "Voice Thing" and "Home Thing," laying the groundwork for potential commercial products.

Hardware like the Car Thing could get around a key limitation on iPhone, which is Apple's control over voice commands. While people can ask Siri to play songs if they have an Apple Music subscription, they can't do the same if they have Spotify Premium or any other on-demand third-party service.

entropys

This car thing would have to be cheap to have any take up. Also, is there a car thing 1 and a car thing 2?

Meanwhile, I wish Apple would make a dongle. Yes a dongle! A wifi dongle that connects to any carplay equipped vehicle to enable wireless carplay.

dysamoria

Yay, more gadgets to flood this saturated market. When I say saturated, I’m including people’s phone and all the stuff that comes in new cars.

oh and:

Yay, more devices to deliver commercials and gather user data.

gatorguy

dysamoria said:

Yay, more gadgets to flood this saturated market. When I say saturated, I’m including people’s phone and all the stuff that comes in new cars.

oh and:

Yay, more devices to deliver commercials and gather user data.

If you read the entire article you'll see that there's no intention of launching this device for the public. They don't plan (for now at least) to "add another device for gathering user data"

Quote:  "Spotify is only reaching out to a select group of people for testing, and the company says it's interested primarily in gauging in-car music and podcast habits....
An anonymous source for the The Verge backed this statement, saying there are no intentions to launch the Car Thing as-is, or even to the general public."

EsquireCats

Another company to soon realise the 'hard' in hardware. Best of luck.

mikethemartian

It’s called a cigarette lighter outlet.

kkqd1337

If Apple stopped being such idiots and allowed Siri to control Spotify this would be totally unnecessary 

Flytrap

kkqd1337 said:

If Apple stopped being such idiots and allowed Siri to control Spotify this would be totally unnecessary 

Nothing stops Spotify from making their own voice assistant and either building it into the Spotify app or releasing it as a stand alone app. This is what the other mainstream music streaming services (Amazon and Google) have done.

Spotify just want everything for free... free global app distribution, free global payment services, free foreign exchange repatriation to a currency of their choice, free tax compliance in every country where they collect money, free application development frameworks with which to build their apps, free global promotion of their app in the App Store, free this and free that.

And if they are too lazy to build in voice command into their own app, then integrate with Siri Shortcuts like thousands of other apps already have... then users will be able to use Hey Siri commands to control Spotify.

Without the App Store there would be no Spotify... but the App Store would still be just fine without Spotify.

kkqd1337

Flytrap said:

kkqd1337 said:

If Apple stopped being such idiots and allowed Siri to control Spotify this would be totally unnecessary 

Nothing stops Spotify from making their own voice assistant and either building it into the Spotify app or releasing it as a stand alone app. This is what the other mainstream music streaming services (Amazon and Google) have done.

Spotify just want everything for free... free global app distribution, free global payment services, free foreign exchange repatriation to a currency of their choice, free tax compliance in every country where they collect money, free application development frameworks with which to build their apps, free global promotion of their app in the App Store, free this and free that.

And if they are too lazy to build in voice command into their own app, then integrate with Siri Shortcuts like thousands of other apps already have... then users will be able to use Hey Siri commands to control Spotify.

Without the App Store there would be no Spotify... but the App Store would still be just fine without Spotify.

I think you misunderstood what I am saying.

i can use my amazon echo and google home devices to play music from Spotify or Google Music, or almost any other music service

Apple have locked Siri to Apple Music only. Totally absurd. Have a go.... ask Siri to play music from another music service....

kruegdude

kkqd1337 said:

Flytrap said:

kkqd1337 said:

If Apple stopped being such idiots and allowed Siri to control Spotify this would be totally unnecessary 

Nothing stops Spotify from making their own voice assistant and either building it into the Spotify app or releasing it as a stand alone app. This is what the other mainstream music streaming services (Amazon and Google) have done.

Spotify just want everything for free... free global app distribution, free global payment services, free foreign exchange repatriation to a currency of their choice, free tax compliance in every country where they collect money, free application development frameworks with which to build their apps, free global promotion of their app in the App Store, free this and free that.

And if they are too lazy to build in voice command into their own app, then integrate with Siri Shortcuts like thousands of other apps already have... then users will be able to use Hey Siri commands to control Spotify.

Without the App Store there would be no Spotify... but the App Store would still be just fine without Spotify.

I think you misunderstood what I am saying.

i can use my amazon echo and google home devices to play music from Spotify or Google Music, or almost any other music service

Apple have locked Siri to Apple Music only. Totally absurd. Have a go.... ask Siri to play music from another music service....

From the Pandora site: “Pandora listeners on iOS mobile devices can create custom voice commands to access content using Siri.” So Siri is not locked to Apple Music, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you could know that if you wanted to. It’s available to another music service like Spotify if they’d get off their high horse and, gasp, develop some user friendly code for iOS.  Of course if they did that might ruin the “poor me” narrative stance they’re taking. 

IreneW

kruegdude said:

kkqd1337 said:

Flytrap said:

kkqd1337 said:

If Apple stopped being such idiots and allowed Siri to control Spotify this would be totally unnecessary 

Nothing stops Spotify from making their own voice assistant and either building it into the Spotify app or releasing it as a stand alone app. This is what the other mainstream music streaming services (Amazon and Google) have done.

Spotify just want everything for free... free global app distribution, free global payment services, free foreign exchange repatriation to a currency of their choice, free tax compliance in every country where they collect money, free application development frameworks with which to build their apps, free global promotion of their app in the App Store, free this and free that.

And if they are too lazy to build in voice command into their own app, then integrate with Siri Shortcuts like thousands of other apps already have... then users will be able to use Hey Siri commands to control Spotify.

Without the App Store there would be no Spotify... but the App Store would still be just fine without Spotify.

I think you misunderstood what I am saying.

i can use my amazon echo and google home devices to play music from Spotify or Google Music, or almost any other music service

Apple have locked Siri to Apple Music only. Totally absurd. Have a go.... ask Siri to play music from another music service....

From the Pandora site: “Pandora listeners on iOS mobile devices can create custom voice commands to access content using Siri.” So Siri is not locked to Apple Music, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you could know that if you wanted to. It’s available to another music service like Spotify if they’d get off their high horse and, gasp, develop some user friendly code for iOS.  Of course if they did that might ruin the “poor me” narrative stance they’re taking. 

Yes, requiring the user to create custom commands is _so_ Apple "just works". Not what @kkqd1337 asked for.

Latko

Flytrap said:

kkqd1337 said:

If Apple stopped being such idiots and allowed Siri to control Spotify this would be totally unnecessary 

Nothing stops Spotify from making their own voice assistant and either building it into the Spotify app or releasing it as a stand alone app. This is what the other mainstream music streaming services (Amazon and Google) have done.

Spotify just want everything for free... free global app distribution, free global payment services, free foreign exchange repatriation to a currency of their choice, free tax compliance in every country where they collect money, free application development frameworks with which to build their apps, free global promotion of their app in the App Store, free this and free that.

And if they are too lazy to build in voice command into their own app, then integrate with Siri Shortcuts like thousands of other apps already have... then users will be able to use Hey Siri commands to control Spotify.

Without the App Store there would be no Spotify... but the App Store would still be just fine without Spotify.

Without Apple Corp. cross-subsidizing Apple Music (staff, licenses, server/bandwidth, offices,...) there would be no AM, there would be a healthy music streaming market instead of a race to the bottom, and Spotify and others would be able to compete on a level playing field with decent artist fees.