

Selecting requires looking at the screen. Use the dial to browse, select, play, pause, and discover.”īrowsing requires looking at the screen.

“You can also browse deeper, curating the perfect soundtrack to wherever you’re headed. “Try the dial for a hands-on way to steer to the audio you love,” Spotify says. And a massively flawed design choice at the same time.īecause while you can reach for the knob and grab it without looking - unlike a screen - the knob’s actual functionality includes almost nothing that you don’t still need your eyes for. Spotifyīut that’s also the Achilles heel of the product. We don’t know what it looks like at the moment.Spotify's Car Thing product in action.

However, the updated design, FCC filings, and now the in-app renders all point to the product having a future. So far, there’s no official product name, release date, or other specifics showing whether this will ever leave Spotify’s testing lab and into a consumer’s vehicle. The Car Thing was unveiled in 2019 as a test product to help Spotify better understand users’ listening habits while on the go, and the company’s February event, where it outlined its latest Hi-Fi streaming tier, came and went without any new details on the device. There’s no way of knowing when or even whether Spotify will officially introduce the product. The screen and a potential interface design and various mount designs for connecting the device to various parts of the dashboard are seen in these new renders. Spotify’s nature has since shifted far closer to that of a smart display, which makes sense given that it now looks more like a miniature infotainment screen found in a modern car.

The official company renders from when the product was first launched in 2019 revealed a much smaller screen. The evolved Spotify Car Thing design, which includes a big knob on the right, a color screen, and four buttons on top, is much cleaner thanks to these renders. These renderings closely match with photographs of the real mockups sent to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as part of filings. The popular music streaming platform Spotify’s much-anticipated in-car gadget, a voice-controlled music player known as the Car Thing, has just surfaced in a handful of in-app renders discovered by MacRumors contributor Mr.
