Spotify begins testing 'Car Thing' voice assistant accessory
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.

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.
Comments
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.
oh and:
Yay, more devices to deliver commercials and gather 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."
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 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....