Car Thing users upset because Spotify Bricks is a hardware first

• Spotify is promoting Car Thing, its first hardware launch.
• The company does not offer replacements for the $80 devices and told users to throw them away.
• Some abandoned customers want the devices to continue working and demand a refund.

Spotify is abandoning its first foray into hardware, and early adopters feel left to fend for themselves.

This is because as of December 9, the Car Thing service on the streaming platform was disabled and stopped working.

Car Thing is a small touchscreen device designed for owners of older cars without infotainment systems. It connects to smartphones and car speakers, allowing drivers to control Spotify using voice recognition and buttons. It launched in 2021 for $80.

Now the device will be completely disabled and will stop working, Spotify announced.

“This decision was not made lightly,” Spotify wrote on its website, adding that it was discontinuing Car Thing to “improve our product offering.”

Spotify does not offer a replacement option and advises users to factory reset their devices before trashing them, in line with local e-waste guidelines.

On the Spotify community forum and Reddit, Car Thing owners were not happy.

Many people wondered why the devices wouldn’t work even after production ended, and some threatened to switch to competing subscription services.

“If you don’t fix this and my car stops working in December, we will switch to Apple music,” wrote one user on the Spotify forum, receiving 539 replies.

Some asked for compensation and others asked for Spotify to unlock the devices so developers could create their own software.

“It feels like we are being punished for supporting them,” one Redditor wrote. “It discourages me from buying anything Spotify releases in the future.”

Spotify did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.