The Spotify Car Thing cost $100, but I can't use it anymore.
EDIT: The only reason why I still had it at this point was because I could use it with other apps. However, now that my Spotify Subscription is cancelled, it doesn't work with anything. It's mildly infuriating because today, I can't still use it with other apps like I was able to yesterday.
Please don't make the same mistake I made. No one should buy this.
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The system working as intended. Now you're "locked in".
[email protected]
Sadly he is always right. I wish he was wrong all the time.
I'd check his wikipedia page before throwing around "always" like that.
Thank Faust there are times he is wrong! At least I know we live in not the worst world imaginable.
The Controversies section of his Wikipedia page is euh interesting to say the least. He said some things that are not remotely acceptable
Oh even without the controversies, the eating of miscellaneous foot attachments is wrong enough on its own.
Edit: I do btw fully agree with rms being a crude piece of failed excrement
Funny you mentioned RedHat's cancelation of Stallman.
I didn't mention that? I don't write on Wikipedia.
But don't you think his views on pedophilia are unacceptable? He says he has changed his mind and that's great but doesn't excuse what he said.
I usually agree with his views on software but the rest is often questionable
"Just find another
jobplace to livehead unit"-deliberately obtuse bootlickers
Something tells me they just didn't realize someone would buy a Spotify car play without already having a subscription.
I mean really, you're too cheap for 9.99/m but you'll drop 100 bucks for something your phone already does?
Seems like OP is just in a very unique situation that Spotify didn't expect anyone to be in.
They say never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence. But with a corporations I'm pretty sure its the other way around.
I'd usually agree but this product seems exclusively intended for someone who's heavily into Spotify, and the marketing clearly states you need a subscription.
So they knew. It was by design.
Knew what? That people buying the device already have one?
You still have it backwards. They didn't sell you the device to get you on the subscription, they assumed only people with money to spend on a subscription would WASTE A HUNDRED BUCKS ON SOME DUMB SHIT LIKE THIS.
Am I missing something, or would basically any old smartphone work in place of this? I have a Pixel which sits in a cradle and takes care of anything I'd use this for. I guess a physical button or dial might be nice, but I have a volume dial on the car dash.
Seems plainly obvious that it'll require a sub. It's a Spotify box.
You're correct, I have a five or six year old kindle fire i got for like 60 bucks that I rooted and installed stock android on, it's just a really cheap tablet now. Works perfectly for stuff like this.
My last smartphone would also have worked.
This whole thread is just a bunch of moron-consumer apologists. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to hate corporations and their practices, but this is just a bad purchase and buyers remorse packaged as big corpos fault.
I mean, on all the purchase advertisements they said you must have Spotify premium to use this.
They subsidized the price the device based on the expected return from convincing people to keep their subscriptions. Since it supports other clients they probably also have to manage software updates.
Spotify is a bag of dicks for a lot of other reasons but this really doesn't seem to be one of them.
They could have fixed that when they discontinued them quite easily.
9.99/m is 119.88/y and it doesn't stop. Maybe OP thought that the purchase was a one time purchase, and I don't really blame him, since why would the thing exist if phones with a subscription can already do that it does?
He bought a piece of convenience tech designed for a specific piece of software, when said convenience tech is totally unnecessary to the function of that software, then got mad that he needed the software
I am shocked that everyone in this thread isn't roasting this dude nonstop. He's an idiot.
They just don't consider personal responsibility to even exist. It's the corporation's fault they spent a hundred bucks on a thing your old phone and a 15 dollar magnetic mount could have done for you, because said device needs a subscription service.
I had a guy tell me in this thread that I had "privilege" for saying Spotify didnt expect people without a paid subscription to be spending money on such an overpriced device. OP is throwing hundo's away on stupid shit but it HAS to be the corpos fault somehow, people will toss logic right out the window to keep the cognitive dissonance at bay.
Doesn't stop? You sign on the dotted line for a lifetime of payments? You can't cancel your subscription?
That's the exact logic that would lead someone with an ounce of intelligence to go "oh yeah, this product is a completely stupid piece of shit that's marketed toward people with more money than brain cells."
Did it say anywhere on the package that it gets you a lifetime subscription to Spotify? No. Does OP understand that Spotify works on a subscription model? Probably, Saas isnt fucking new.
This is the kind of boy-who-cried-wolf bullshit that keeps corporations from actually being held accountable, because people who want better worker's rights and taxes on corporations look like idiots when lumped in with children like you who consider personal responsibility and thinking for yourself to be too scawy.
I cancelled my paid Spotify account because I can't get them to stop fucking recommending Joe Rogan to me.
I'm moments away from canceling. Splash screens of some bullshit podcast or something I don't want to see. Getting fed up.
Get on board, sail the seas
Search for Github SpotDL And Navidrome
No need to sail them seas, but maybe still use a vpn, just on case. Fun fact i heard from a friend of a friend: Youtube starts rate limiting after 50,000 audio-only video downloads, until you have a new IP.
I am skeptical of the quality of audio on YouTube. And of full album tracks running together properly.
Am I wrong?
Im not audiophile so I scrape audio with newpipe. Downloaded and stream quality are indistinguishably satisfactory.
I've also noticed that sometimes it downloads the wrong versions of songs. While my Spotify playlist has the album version of a song, it might sometimes download a live performance audio or a reprise version.
It's free. You're getting "free" quality. Actual quality anything costs money or requires theft.
I have hundreds upon hundreds of songs in my Spotify music library. Downloading them one by one sounds like hell. And then I wouldn't be discovering new music either.
If you want to move them elsewhere(or even just get a csv export of them) there are apps for that.
https://freeyourmusic.com will let you pay a one time fee to do it to as many services as you want, it’s a bit slow but it’ll get there eventually.
Renting music sounds like hell to me. If the songs can't exist as files on my computer (Opus, Ogg, MP3, etc.) then I'm out.
ive donated to slsk. I like the song radio and album radio features of spotify, found one of my favorite bands that way
leave em sail the seas or tidal for the same price you get better audio so win win in my book either way
plus you're supporting jigga
Allegedly, YouTube Music is about to shove podcasts in our faces with a soon to come update.
I'm leaving YTM if they do that. I'll go back to ☠️⚓⛵ and using locally available music.
If you have an android, just download blackplayer and use a YT link to mp3 site to get whatever music you want.
I've been pretty happy with YouTube music. I got legacied in due to Google Music shutting down and thought I would hate it, but I've had zero complaints. Plus, it comes with free YouTube Premium, so I haven't seen an ad in years.
I have so many complaints, Google Play music was fine. It did exactly what I wanted it to.
YouTube music is like an alien looked at that app, and tried to recreate it exclusively by smashing it's forehead against a keyboard until an app that started most of the time came out.
I would actually argue that Google Play Music was the best music streaming app that I've used. It was great being able to upload music from CDs of small local bands and have it right in there with the other streaming music.
Just today I had a hankering to listen to a specific song through my android auto, and instead of just being able to verbally ask the unit for that song, or even being able to search through the atrocity that is the YouTube Music interface on my head unit, I had to pull over, pull out my phone, search for the band, then click the uploads tab (because uploaded music does not show with the regular search results) and then click the song to get it to play.
Yes and the glorious "playing near you" feature of Play Music. That made the best recommendations for local shows, and I mean local, within a few miles, not just bands I'd listened to but always relevant and often small shows! That feature, I found several new bands I liked that way and good live music. YouTube has nothing like that. Also interface not as intuitive, more cluttered. My kids like it better because they do like having the videos available, but as I do not give a fuck about that but do like live music this is still not as good as the Play Music.
It's not optimal, and I would like for uploaded music to just show up in the regular search, but there is a top navigation bar where you can just switch between where to search (uploads being one of the options). Also YTM has the upside of showing YouTube uploads as well, I could always find obscure bonus EPs that only came with the physical CD because someone uploaded it, which is really handy
It's definitely not Google play music, but I treat it a bit like Pandora twenty years ago and it's ok for that.
I'm still pissed ytm no longer allowed me to view playlist songs like it would in gpm
You think they that much care and attention into the app?
But seriously, yeah, I had pretty much the same experience -Google Play Music just worked beautifully, whereas YouTube Music was a steaming turd on Android. I gave up after six months and two phones and went to Deezer, never looked back
I would say the same myself. They don't do the worst job for music discovery either which is important to me. Amazon Music drove me nuts constantly recommending Cage the Elephant and other well-known (profitable) artists instead of obscure music similar to my tastes.
Same. Honestly, I expected YTM to make things worse. That's usually how those kinda things go. But it actually did get better for me. I jumped to Google Play Music because it had better selection than Spotify (at least back then). YTM kept that, but fixed the issues I was having with the desktop browser player sometimes getting stuck. And the more recent support for lyrics that are synced to the music is great.
Their queueing system sucks. All I want to do is queue up some songs but instead YTM fills my queue with tons of crap I've never listened to before because that's how they make money. They put my manually queued songs at the END of the queue so I have to move them up 20+ spaces. There's literally no way to do it other than creating a custom playlist every time I listen to music, and they intentionally made that take more clicks/taps than queuing. I don't get how people are ok with the YTM app, it's terrible.
I hate YTM and I hate that I can't cancel it because they bundle it with YouTube premium, which my partner uses every day. Screw Google and they anti-consumer manipulative bs.
Yeah, you can use the play next button but it's not ideal
wrong.
No, I'm not wrong. Option 1 does not exist on my phone. There is no switch.
And the "play next" feature also sucks. I don't want to "play next". I want to build a queue like literally any other music app and that isn't what "play next" does.
Edit: I don't see that "auto-play" switch on the web app in Safari either.
yes you are, it must be there unless you're using an obsolete release of the app. Below is a screenshot how it looks like
yes, you can build a queue by "adding to queue".
So I finally figured it out. this is how that toggle works:
So no matter what it's still a bad experience.
oh yeah, you are right-ish. it doesn't show up if you launch a "radio", which innately is a automatic, end-less playlist of similar music. I do agree though that this should be more visible in the UI
No. I'm not wrong, and I don't appreciate you repeatedly telling me I am when you obviously have no clue what I'm looking at.
It isn't there. I'm on Android 13 with the latest version of the app. There is no "auto-play" toggle anywhere. I'd upload screenshots to prove it but lemmy is throwing exceptions. I've checked every tab and settings page as well.
Time to give Napster a shot!
Is Limewire still a thing?
No but direct downloads are all the rage. Here are my two favorite sites for free music. Every track is available in either 320k MP3, or FLAC lossless. So they're even better than Limewire ever was:
https://slavart.gamesdrive.net/tracks
https://free-mp3-download.net/ (FYI don't use punctuation in your queries or it breaks the search on this one)
I'm gonna go pull my fucking LPs out of the attic.
You want SoulSeek. I swear it's not a dating app
Don't think so. Soulseek on the other hand...
Not as the software it was, but frostwire is still kicking
EDIT: correction, frostwire is now a BitTorrent client
Looks like there are still Gnutella clients out there though
https://gtk-gnutella.sourceforge.io/
If you want a virus and to not be able to download anything, sure. https://fmhy.net/unsafesites#software--apps
lol
It's kind of a joke, but Napster is actually trying to get back into it. They hired the guy in charge of music from Roblox to be CEO
There's literally a feature on Spotify where you can hide an artist and never see it, fyi
Really? Where out of curiosity? I've never experienced that.
On PC. Keep (kept) it in a separate window while working.
Never had issues with that either tbh. I guess the algo just picked up on something for you. That's annoying.
White guy late 50's? What algo would ever target me?
That's really dissapointing, did Spotify seriously release a hardware device that expensive, and mandates a subscription to operate?
It's a shame because it looks quite nice too, and is sadly guaranteed to be e-waste at some point
Are you kidding me? It's been par for the course as far as car assessors go. Sirus radio was like 100 and still required a subscription. A lot of GPS were that price and most had subscriptions.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted - enshittification as a viable consumer business model was pretty much proven in the auto space.
Just like they want to charge you to use the heated seats you’re paying the gas to lug around anyway
That's not the same thing at all. As bad as e.g. Sirius or GPS subscription might be, at least with those the subscription is for ongoing access to new data being transmitted to you. In contrast, a subscription purely for the use of hardware already included in the car is literally theft.
The hardware is free for subscribers to the service...
Just because it's percieved as normal doesn't mean it's something we should put up with though.
With GPS subscriptions (the ones I'm aware of anyway) they will still navigate you from A to B when you stop paying the subscription, you usually just miss out on traffic updates, map updates and other localized enhancements. If there are any that deny you navigation outside the subscription that's plain scummy IMO.
I'm not familiar with Sirius Radio but from what I can see online, it's a satellite radio subscription service that seems to bring new things to the table (like starting a radio station at the beginning of a last song etc). The hardware appears to actually serve a purpose, i.e. it's the satellite receiver for the radio service subscription. I believe we could compare this to buying a Starlink dish for internet access, and paying the monthly subscription. The spotify device shown here is not a standalone device and is only fitted with bluetooth IIRC, requiring a phone for operation.
In comparison to Spotify, Sirius does not appear to have ever had a free plan - whereas Spotify does... I see is no reason why Spotify could not make their free plan usable on this device.
Edit: fix typo
The device is free to premium users. It's a marketing device for the premium subscription.
The box clearly states that a premium subscription is required.
Glad to see someone mention that the subscription being required for use is clearly conveyed. It’s not like this was some hidden information
Assuming you're referring to the Sirius radio, it makes the Spotify device an even worse proposition IMO
Edit: Clarify assumption
Those I don't fault. Sirius has satellites to maintain and they don't get ad revenue.
GPS makers, well making maps on that scale is very expensive. Not everyone can be google and give it away to end consumers by harvesting user data and selling ads to businessplaces.
Spotify though, fair enough to charge for the hardware but once bought should work with the ad-supported version of their product....
The hardware is free for subscribers...
If you buy it outright it tells you that you need a subscription.
I think I got an Echo Auto for $25 (during the public tests). It doesn't need any kind of a subscription to use as far as I'm aware. It only does streaming still, but there are Alexa skills that let you stream from your Plex or Jellyfin server.
Yes, but the Echo platform is a tool to gather user data.
Man you are seriously going to hate the future lol
I could still use it for playing music in other apps. Now I can't.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2022/11/01/spotify-car-thing-root-achieved/
You can root it. Didn't look too much into it but you might be able to do something with that.
Also failing that, get a short range radio transmitter. They're cheap and the audio ain't great but you can plug your phone in and get audio on your car.
Car thing doesn’t handle the audio, they have to pair their phone to their stereo with Bluetooth or an aux cable anyway.
So people are paying 100 bucks for an interface? Neat.
It's free for Spotify subscribers.
How is that any different than just using the app on a phone in a mount then?
It adds a tactile scroll wheel.
Is that it? I'm sure you can find a replacement that doesn't require a subscription if that's all you cared about.
It was free for premium subscribers and was marketed to those who had older cars.
I mean, it's basically a cheap smartphone or computer tablet, with a lower resolution, but nice quality screen, and a giant volume spinner. $100 does not get you much at all in the phone and tablet space. I don't think there's much of any profit margin, if at all for it.
Poor-poor multibillion company has to
nickle and dime youearn sometging to eatNo way to hack the hardware and allow it to be used for something else?
I just saw another comment mentioning it can be rooted: https://lemmy.world/comment/2904183
I considered getting one of these a couple years ago and saw Spotify was discounting them heavily and even giving them away for free in some cases. I didn't wind up getting one but do wish they would release a simple player + speaker like this for home use.
you can try this
https://github.com/williamtcastro/carthing-non-premium-spotify
the whole ui/dashboard is just a web app, so it's pretty easy to "jailbreak" or modify
Why would you even buy this? Literally just buy a phone mount and use your phone. This thing was a textbook example of a useless product.
They named their device “Car Thing?” Just looked it up. Why not just buy a phone mount and play through your phone?
You can get a magnetic phone mount for like $10-15 that fits in the CD slot like in the picture. Not sure why this is a thing.
I have one on my seat bolt that is strong enough to hold a tablet for like $20.
i’m also strong enough to hold a tablet for $20
Yeah but can you hold my seat bolt on now?
I'll do it for $10.
$9.50
$3.50
$3 take it or leave it
My phone mount attaches to my car's air vent and I've been using it for years. Cost maybe 15 bucks.
I think this is the real takeaway from this post. Someone bought this thing.
Because they know idiots will buy it
It has the nice big knob so you can change the music while looking at the road...
Can't you get Bluetooth steering wheel controls for like $30?
Fits with the stupid, low effort, cave-man speak error message "Need Premium Account"
Deception followed by coersion is an excellent way to increase shareholder returns.
Why do you hate capitalism?
Deception and coercion are by definition not part of capitalism. If those things are happening, capitalism has broken down.
— Wikipedia
I’ve highlighted the parts the conflict with deception and coercion.
You're quoting capitalism's sales pitch of capitalism.
Go to your local tent city in every city if you want to see what "voluntary" looks like, dying of exposure and
policecapital defense force harassment while serving as capitalism scarecrows to keep the working poor scared shitless into "voluntarily" showing up to be exploited for already wealthy people's further profit for their unquenchable greed.Capitalists aren't even willing to admit being greedy, only acting on "rational self-interest." If you want to believe what capitalism claims to be, you do you. If you want to see what capitalism is, use your senses and your critical thinking skills.
It's a definition. When something doesn't match the definition, it doesn't meant the definition is wrong it means it's wrong to call that thing that term.
Greed is, by definition, irrational. But greed vs generosity is independent of capitalism.
If you want to see what "capitalism" is, learn what a definition is and how that relates to reality.
If there are people who truly have no choice, then you don't have a free market and you don't have capitalism. However, I will say that I was homeless and during that time my choices were constrained but didn't disappear. I stopped being homeless because I made the right choices while homeless. This "having no choice" thing is simply not true.
Capital accumulation
I have a car thing, I use it at my desk for media controls. It is pretty great.
But the product description was pretty clear that you needed premium to use it. The same goes for using any third party Spotify client. Shouldn't have expected otherwise.
What is this device? I'm confused as to why it even exists.
Edit: I discovered it is literally called "Car Thing".
I've never heard of it before, it looks like a smartphone that doesn't do anything other than have the spotify app? Like is there any mapping or calling built in? And to lock hardware like this behind their premium subscription is wildly, not mildly infuriating.
Man we’ve hit the point where people don’t even know about Sirius or XM radio do they? You paid to listen and you had to pay for the receiver, oh and likely an adapter to get it to work on the vehicle too.
I got a SiriusXM antenna thing and they paid me for it lol
My car radio (a Pioneer one I installed many years ago) supports SiriusXM; I just had to get the right receiver for it. SiriusXM were having a sale where you'd pay $70 for the receiver but they'd give you a $70 rebate, making it free. During the rebate period, Crutchfield had a sale where they reduced the price of the receiver to $30. I bought it for $30, filled in the $70 rebate form, and they gave me the whole $70 rebate.
I've been on a $5/month promotional plan for a few years. Whenever the price goes up, I complain to them and they reduce it back down. It's a pretty good service for $5/month, since you get both satellite and streaming included. Satellite is good since it works all over the USA - good for road trips.
Oh jeez that’s not a bad deal at all, and that’s almost what I was doing. I would just let the subscription/deal lapse and they would call and ask why I didn’t renew. Told them I’m not paying $15 a month and than they offer the $60 for a year or 2 years.
At the time they didn’t even have dedicated car units, you had to have one of their portable units, and an am/fm adapter or tape adapter.
All it provides is a simplified ui and voice control, the same voice control as the Spotify app. It doesn’t even play the audio, it is a remote for the app on your phone which is doing the real work.
I have the hobby of cracking stuff like that (but mainly windows apps to tell you the truth) and there are many-ish people out there with the same hobby. search around a bit and google stuff like "Spotify Car Thing github" or "Spotify Thing bypass" or jailbreak. Heavily rely on github and russian forums. Also random small blogs
If you're so determined though and nobody else has done it and you're fine not using it for 3+ months, there's a very slim chance that I could find the time to bypass it
EDIT: Yeap it's cracked and it's easy too
And? Their site clearly states that a premium subscription is required.
And was that the case since it first went on sale?
Yes. They said so in their announcement of the device's general availability.
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-02-22/car-thing-from-spotify-is-now-officially-available-in-the-u-s/
Do I just want to ask a question too?
Yes?
Correct.. ?
Where do babies come from?
how is babby formed
am i pergnert?
A. Luigi. Borad?
Honestly this is such a stupid product... Just buy an Android Auto and/or Carplay device instead. They are cheaper, offer more features, and don't force you to pay a subscription fee to utilize it.
Fuck products like this one. If you own it, it should be yours to use.
Do you have a recommendation for a good one of the Android auto things? They vary so much in price and I don't know if paying more means it's actually better
Cars in 2030: to use brakes you need premium account. Sorry!
As a consumer, Spotify competes for my money with Bandcamp, who gave their cut to artists throughout covid.
Owning things is always a better model than renting them (edit: exceptions exist, none of which I need to be @ed about)
totally agree. and plus i kind of want to be charged money here. i want the musicians i listen to to get paid and be able to continue making music. i don't know if the amount they get paid vs spotify's cut is fair, but honestly if I wasn't paying my monthly subscription id probably be paying $0 and listening to less music.
I have hundreds upon hundreds of songs in my Spotify music collection. The people telling me to just pirate my library are absolutely wild. I can't even imagine how long it would take me to find and download every single song. And then I wouldn't have a simple way to discover new music. Spotify is the one and only subscription service I find to be useful.
I'm enjoying Tidal as an alternative, haven't heard anything bad about them!
I tried Tidal back when "Amazon Music HD" launched and I was on a hunt for the best lossless streaming. My only issue with tidal is their catalogue. It is laughably deficient. In the end I found zero good lossless streaming options and went back to ripping my own CDs.
Compared to when I first tried them a few years ago their catalogue has gotten significantly better
About 6 months ago I took my 750ish songs from Spotify over and only the FFXIV game tracks didn't get imported in the move
Compared to like 60 or so percent when I last tried I'd say it's come a long way
even more incompetent ****or greedy
Napster pays artists more, costs less… but the service was garbage.
I mean to be fair, Spotify as a company clearly would rather give millions to right-wing shitheads than ~anything else.
Image Transcription:
A photo of a Spotify Car Thing with the text displaying on the screen under the Spotify logo: "Need a Premium account To use Car Thing you need to be logged in to a Spotify Premium or Premium Family account on your phone."
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
Good human
Thank you, fellow human 🤖
Hi transcript gpt
Hello Android 009.
Take a look at rooting it, maybe you can find some way to use it to stop it from just being e-waste. https://npjohnson.github.io/Spotify-Car-Thing-Root/
I betcha someone in the piracy groups can help you jailbreak that thing so it will continue to function.
Edit: Yep someone in the comments linked you a GitHub project that should work
Wait, so let me get this straight.
You purchased a device that presumably has no local storage and are upset that it needs you to login to a server that can then stream you the music?
Or is this an issue of not having a paid account?
I guess Spotify didn't realize someone who didn't pay for Spotify would be likely to pay 100 bucks for a device to stream Spotify, and in most cases I'd say they're probably right.
That makes total sense else I'd be getting a lifetime Spotify sub for $100 and a $100 device thrown in as an unrelated bonus.
Wait till they put Denuvo in the car, for you montly driving plan.
I don't use Spotify, but I selected a song on someone else's phone recently. The first time opening it in years and it opens up to an ad saying "buy our tshirts".
I couldn't help but think times must be hard 😅
You paid $100 to play music that you didn't own. It feels mean to put it that way, but it was never a foolproof plan if we're being honest.
You'd be shocked to hear that people purchase radios for over $100 to listen to music they don't own.
Yes, and after the 100$, they can listen to the radio. Op has a brick unless he pays more every month.
This is my point. The person I replied to said OP shouldn't expect more than what they got. I pointed out this same business model has worked for decades so OP shouldn't have expected the outcome of a bricked device.
Oh, I get you. My bad.
Purchase? Present tense?
Yep
Under a rock question here, but do you know of any sites that map out radio stations so you can preview them or note them to check out when traveling about?
I mostly listen to my own music when traveling because I don't know any radio stations that might click with me, and don't really feel like or sometimes have the time to scan for them.
Oh, to clarify, when I said my own music, I meant my local files. I'm a weirdo that buys music & syncs it across devices.
That said, I did a little searching after asking this and found a cool little site called Radio.garden that helps find some radio stations around you, and found some cool stations I might give more of a listen to.
I'd be shocked if you can explain why that's the same as owning a walled garden front-end that turns into e-waste the second your wallet closes.
There's a difference between purchasing a product and paying for a service.
Paying for Spotify would be the latter.
You’re right. They paid $100 for a remote control for Spotify.
One wonders why but each to their own, I guess.
Water is a liquid. The human body can only breathe gases. When you breathe a liquid, that is called drowning.
Boom.
🫳
🎤
I agree, smugly stating the obvious is fun. I didn't think it would be, but you won me over.
Actually, they've developed breathable liquid like from The Abyss. It's been a thing since the 90s.
If you want to smugly state the obvious, at least be accurate.
I don't understand the point of this device. Why not buy a replacement radio for the car instead? I bought a Pioneer one and it was a nice upgrade to my 2012 Mazda3 since I can plug in my phone to use Android Auto and get the screen to show Google Maps + pretty much any music app on my phone.
There's plenty of 2010-2015ish cars with dogshit radios that are hard to find, expensive to get or literally impossible to find good replacements for, thanks to vehicle manufacturers killing of the DIN system.
A lot of aftermarket radio installation kits come with adapters to make up for the odd sizes. Of course, there may not be kits for every car.
My 2012 Mazda 3 has an adapter available to fit a standard double DIN radio into their weird shape. I imagine those are available for lots of cars.
Because buying a double DIN or even a single DIN radio can require buying a replacement bezel, disassembling your dash and often your center console as well, wiring in a steering wheel media control adapter, correctly wiring in the stereo, and having the knowledge to make adjustments when things don’t quite fit or go right.
“[just] buy a replacement radio” is not how it works at all.
Best Buy does this all for you for $80, assuming the person is in the US. I expect this is available most places for similar prices though. You can get anything from a BT only unit for $20 online to a much nicer unit with Android Auto/iOS's thing. While the initial cost might be higher the opportunity cost of your thing being disabled is almost certainly much higher, as this thread's existence seems to support. $150-$200 well worth it in the long run to do a head unit upgrade.
And then after I spend over $100 on a decent stereo, $50 for an adapter for my car, and the $80 to have some kid install it for me I'll be $250 in the hole and still paying for a Spotify subscription so I can listen to music that's not shit. Or for $100 I could buy a cheap ass tablet and shove it into my air vent.
Or for $5 you can use Velcro strips to stick your phone to something in your car, or for $0 you can just balance the phone on your dashboard.
The cheap tablet or phone mount works well, but a nice radio is a lot cleaner and IMO is worth the expense.
Oh yeah, you nailed it. Clearly worked for the OP... I also didn't put a value on said opportunity cost. Perhaps it's greater than $250 depending on the individual. Subjective as opportunity cost can sometimes be. Not trying to ascertain or consider it is at best just short sighted, or perhaps at worst ignorant. Cheap junk, effectively rented according to the EULA, subject to the whims of the rights holders, is never the way.
I did it all by myself with no experience - wired up the wiring harness properly, installed the bezel, connected some sort of adapter so the car alert tones and steering wheel controls still work, etc. I bought the radio from Crutchfield who have lifetime phone support to assist with any issues (I didn't need it though). I just followed the instructions they provided.
Good for you.
Car radios have become much more entrenched. My 13 Fusion has an external amp. Shit, my 96 Taurus did too. Plus if you have any phone, steering wheel, or other peripheral integration, you often lose those features. OP probably has integrated hvac buttons. Sometimes you can get adapters, sometimes the signals are buried in canbus lines
My 2012 Mazda3 has an external amp under the front passenger seat. I bought my Pioneer radio from Crutchfield and they included an adapter to make everything work. The amp works fine (most radios have a preamp output for this purpose), and the steering wheel controls work fine too.
My car just had a basic radio though. I guess it might be harder in newer cars with fancier radios. People that mount their phone or use things like this Spotify... thing usually have older cars/radios though. The newer ones just have Android Auto and Apple Carplay built in.
Manufacturers at removing away from auto/carplay just as fast as it came in. They want you back in their ecosystems
But weird, an android auto upgrade kit for my car would cost me 160. The Spotify thing is so not a good deal.
FYI, those are known to be full of malware if you buy the random branded ones off Amazon. It’s Highly recommend that people go with known reputable brands.
What's one of the reputable brands? All the ones I've looked at have really poor English in their descriptions so I don't trust them
Some you can reflash yourself.
They heavily discounted them and then stopped selling them altogether. Spotify has a huge track record of doing that kind of thing with features, much like Google. I’m surprised they still work at all.
Weird. Last I looked into an Android Auto update or something like this for my car, it was like $2000-3000. These cheapo units don't seem to replace the functions my current dash screen properly.
I wonder if it's because my dashboard already has a screen so it's more difficult to upgrade. It would need to integrate with the features that already involve the screen like the back up camera, climate controls, Bluetooth controls, etc.
But I mean I just put my phone in a $15 phone mount instead.
You literally can’t buy them anymore! Spotify quietly canned the project. Support pages are still up but I can’t find a purchase option anywhere.
I bought one pretty early into launch and even then they were already heavily discounted. It was a weird choice for a peripheral, but personally I really wish they had tried a bit harder instead of giving up outright
This type of shit is why I just want a vehicle with a CD player that can hold multiple discs. Then I could just burn my favorite music onto a few discs and not have to worry about not having paid to have access to the music I want and don't have to worry about a song I dislike popping up randomly.
Have you looked up jailbreaks? Quick search and I found a subreddit devoted to it and this.
I will go back to cassettes and 8-track before I give these greedy ass companies any money.
Sell it and buy an Android Auto/CarPlay head unit. Then use Spotify in that. In my opinion, it's a much better experience.
I just use a Bluetooth -> aux adapter and my phone on a mount. Never wanted a screen on my dash.
Which Bluetooth audio code are you referring to? I doubt those would be "much better"
Even USB-C is lacking as far as volume is concerned. I recently had to upgrade my 8-year-old phone to a new model that only has USB-C and no audio jack. My car has an aux-in plug and I got an adapter for the new phone, but the max volume is only about half what the old phone was. How the fuck am I supposed to destroy my hearing with USB-C?
When playing music from USB-C the audio precessing is happening in the adapter, not the phone. You may want to get a different/better adapter and that should solve your problem with low volume.
This one from Amazon sounds good, gets crazy loud, and is very inexpensive:
USB Type C to 3.5mm Female Headphone Jack Adapter https://a.co/d/40sa5qF
The limitation on volume is mildly irritating, but I only notice it every once in a while.
Then they should build an adapter that doesn't need a UI. I'd use it. Maybe I'll build it.. WPS makes one button wifi connections an option.
How do you watch porn then?
In my car?
Where else would you watch it? 🧐
Doing this
Do you have any suggestions on which one of those to get? There are so many choices but they all have very bad English in their descriptions or spam Instagram ads so I don't trust them
But a Sony, rca, jvc, boss, kenwood, pioneer, jbl.
Am I missing something, or why would you assume or expect that a Spotify peripheral could be used without a Spotify subscription? What even is this thing?
If you use anything by the monopolist assholes, you can totally expect to get enshitified. I swtiched over to Tidal a while back. They support artists, not hate speech. And the audio quality is better.
Can I have it? I'd never buy one but I use Spotify constantly in my cab. It'd be nice to have it not attached to my phone.
That's not just mildly infuriating. It's bloody exasperating.
Wait, why would you buy that? Do you not have a phone?
I am sitting here, remembering buying a deck for satellite radio which also required a subscription to use. Definitely not new but definitely stupid in this day and age.
Fuck spotify, I use http://radio.garden
As I'm known for saying in my friend group....
Yay capitalism
Oof. I managed to dodge a bullet on this one. I preordered it,but never received it / was never charged.
I picked one up for like $5 when they were fire selling them. I've used it like 4 times.
My wife and I use ours (I bought 2) all the time. We like the voice activation from the unit and we like the interface for seeing what's playing better than we do our entertainment systems (we have used cars). It's not a slam dunk but it's good for what it does.
I wanted it to let back seat people control Spotify without touching my actual phone, and for that it works well.
I bought one too, I think for $75 pre-lauch. Very underwhelming interface... it's barely usable. I think they discontinued them already.
Makes me really love how gorgeous and functional CarPlay is.
That sounds like a Subaru problem, on my Chevy the carplay and Android Auto interface are the same exact size and take up the whole info screen.
My old Subaru wasn't like that either.
Lol why did you buy something without reading the fine print. Now suffer and keep complaining. Never buy anything that has a subscription model. If you paid $100 , that thing is yours ans you should be able to use it the way you want. Checkout YouTube Louis Rossman videos for some education.
I think you don't watch him or you are troll(or both) because first thing you is started to blame the customer
Yes because some people are really dumb. Like sometimes you'll question how the fuck they made it so far in life.
in my 1998 car i just put in an Bluetooth capable radio with good speakers and a subwoofer and nobody can disable anything because it's not connecting to anything except for a Bluetooth device. i'm never gonna by anything newer just because i can repair this cars myself and i really don't want the mechanics in my area to fix it because i can't trust them to fix it and not make it worse
About a year ago, maybe two years ago? Spotify started sending me feedback requests about the “Car Thing.” I was super confused about why anyone would buy something they could just use their phone for, and I finally caved and sent some feedback saying “I already have my phone, I don’t want more devices in my car. This is a bad idea.” And the requests stopped.
Guess they went through with it. Makes no sense to me. I use Spotify everyday, often for most of the day, I really have no issue with what I’m paying for, but that “Car Thing” just seemed like the most braindread venture.
Just my $.02
I think it's selling point is supposed to be voice commands and haptic controls (actual knob and what not). The interface does look like it'd be superior to the phone (at least a non-android auto or whatever Apple's is called) though I dunno if it's $100 superior.
Apple carplay btw.
But my car has a volume knob
Pretty odd to think that's only for volume.
Your phone has a speaker, just use that to listen to music in the car.
Honestly, what else did you expect? Lifetime Spotify Premium for $100? It was a shit product ever since it was launched. You bought it, it's on you.
Ah, yes. You are at fault, not the corporate greed.
Both consumer and corporate were greedy
I would have expected that the ad supported Spotify would have still worked. There is still a free tier.
I guess that's a fair expectation.
yeah, it's just access to a website. it's not like they pay artists shit
That’s painful. Chargeback on credit card if Spotify doesn’t take that back.
Although why would you need something like this if you have a phone + aux cord + adapter/dongle?
Nice second Gen Prius (2009?). Needs dusting.
2006 and it needs to be detailed
Looks like my dash, but the better trim, I don't have sat button.
That's so sad I really wanted one of these, shame man. I hope you can flip it or return it or something. Don't listen to the people telling you it's stupid, it's a cool idea I had my eye on it as well. Thanks for the warning
Holy fucking shit, more importantly clean your car
Flash it
Google spotify premium mod apk and don't use gmail to make an account, it should work
Spotify is a terrible option to use in 2023. I highly recommend Tidal for anyone with good headphones, speakers, Dac's, etc.
Honestly, I hate to say it, but even Apple music is a MUCH better solution right now.
Yeah, nah.
Spotify is fine. Apple Music is just the same but with worse music recommendations.
Looking into Tidal and it seems like a huge problem, who the fuck wants content exclusivity of songs? Its bad on consoles and it’s a fucking terrible idea with audio too. Can’t recommend anyone goes with them for such anti-consumer practices.
Just tried switching to apple music for the 10th time. Spotify is just so much better for recommendations and while spatial audio is neat the only way to find out if something is available in it is through the promoted playlists or playing the song and seeing if it says Dolby.
I have car thing and while it's better than pulling out your phone I still wish I had carplay. Have you tried "hey Spotify" on car thing? It hasn't heard me correctly a single time even parked with the AC off.
Genuinely curious why you think Apple Music is better. When I got my first iPad in years last year, I decided to try to go "all-in" on Apple services partly to consolidate and partly to save some money. After about 14-21 days, the only service left standing was Apple News+ (and only because the only other option was NewsReader which is 3x the price and I just generally didn't love the UI and the way it worked overall).
Apple Music seemed to have slightly less of the music I searched for (I don't have specifics, it was a year ago) and also seemed to be slower/shittier overall than Spotify. It was just generally unpleasant to use - this, coming from a guy who has plenty of gripes with Spotify's user experience.
I'm all for ditching Spotify (I have all kinds of issues with their general business practices and how they stiff artists, among other things), but like @[email protected] mentioned elsewhere in these comments: "every bit of competition is even more incompetent and greedy than they are." I'm not going to say Apple is more greedy in this case, but they felt less competent.
I like having a family Spotify account, it’s a convenient and cheap way for 5 people to listen to music. Why are they terrible?
Because people here like to shit on things that are popular.
They’re successful
Spotify uses 320kbps ogg vorbis when on max quality, I would be really surprised if people could tell a difference compared to lossless.
The audible difference between Tidal and Spotify is way overblown even with audiophile quality gear.
Apple Music does sometimes sound better by comparison, but that's more to do with the fact that they tend to curate their music library with better sounding master recordings than it does with what codec/bitrate they use.
The downsides of AM is that it can be a pain if you aren't already in Apple ecosystem, and its suggestion algorithm often isn't as good.
Yep I've tried them both and can pick between Tidal and Spotify when flicking between the same song but if played a random song on 1 service and not the other I can't pick it, Spotify is definitely good enough for me.
Yup, and even when doing quick A-B testing, it's usually a slight volume disparity that makes it possible to tell them apart.
The idea that Tidal sounds noticeably better because it offers FLAC instead of a lossy codec is pretty much a myth.
Much like movies and tv shows, I've just started downloading my music again and putting it in Plex. I stream it to any device that I can put Plex/Plexamp on (or connect my phone to). Not great for music discovery, of course, since it's only playing music you've added to your library.
Nah. Tidal's collection is nothing compared to Spotify's and I, like most people, don't have the equipment to actually benefit Tidal's higher bitrate. I don't even have any wish to upgrade, I'm happy with Spotify's quality. I listen to mostly non-English songs and let me tell you, Spotify is miles ahead of Apple Music there. For English music, I find them mostly comparable. But Spotify has a nice Linux app, so they get my money.
Seconding Tidal even without hi-fi because they pay artists significantly better than most services but honestly I just buy my music individually like a caveman and self-host it.
I have to ask, what is your issue with Spotify?
Yeah, when they announced this thing I saw this coming a mile away. Sucks for all the people that they scammed with it though. Unless you're somewhat paranoid like me you probably would've thought it was neat, especially if you had an older car without an infotainment system.
Tryb XManager Spotify its on github
That's a shame on you my friend
One more reason I hate sp0tify
Wait, you paid for it? For awhile they were giving them out for free to anyone with Premium.
Sucks but that's what happens when you support capitalism. 🏴☠️🦜⛵
Thus makes me kind of glad I still use pandora premium instead. I debated getting Spotify premium again but f that.
This does? Did you have a Car Thing?
Spotify to me is a far, far superior product. Sure Pandora paved the way, but it's Chrome to Netscape Navigator at this point.
I've always had a better experience with pandora anyways. It's a matter of preference too. Not saying people can't enjoy Spotify, I just don't.
Oh boo giving hoo. You bought a product that requires a subscription and has since the start.