Spotify Car Thing's Bootloader was Unlocked by Two People — But How?

Drivers can easily blast music in their cars using Spotify. All they have to do is connect their phone via Spotify Connect, Bluetooth, USB, or AUX cords. However, Spotify Car Thing has a different idea altogether. It is that drivers can mount on their dashboard to provide easy control for streaming music while driving.

Recently, some people found a way to unlock the device's bootloader. Nolen Johnson and Frédéric Basse managed to unlock the Car Thing which runs on an Android fork, according to Android Police.

Unlocking the Spotify Car Thing

The two managed to unlock the device car gadget using a newly-surfaced exploit. This grants root access and ADB on the device, which can be used for other modifications such as installing new firmware.

To do so, you must connect your Car Thing to a 64-bit Linux-powered PC with lib sub-dev installed, using a USB cable. Even if the possibilities with mods are endless, it is important to note that the Spotify Car Thing only runs on 500 MB of RAM.

If 1 GB is no longer advisable for Android devices since 2013, you can only imagine how it will run on 500 MB. The minimum recommended RAM for Android devices now is 2 GB for them to run smoothly.

Should You Buy It?

You may want to, but you can't. After having spent $32 million on Car Thing, it simply did not pan out the way the company had hoped. A spokesperson told Tech Crunch that based on several factors, including product demand and supply chain issues, the company decided to stop manufacturing Car Thing. Existing devices will still work as intended.

The tech flop might have been because of its lack of use. The main system of the car is already capable of providing music content to its drivers, and also with the same process of connecting the phone to an outside system.

The Car Thing, on the other hand, has nothing else to offer but a control panel for Spotify Premium users, and a few features that make it less of a hassle to navigate through the music app.

Spotify Car Thing

In its initial release, it was priced at $90, but since stocks have gotten way down, the price was reduced to $30. It has three mounting options and you can activate the device by saying "Hey Spotify." You do, however, need Spotify Premium to use it.

You can select, play, pause, and browse through your music library using the dial on the right side of the device. It has a screen so you'll be able to see what you're browsing through. Also, it has four preset buttons to give its users shortcuts to playlists, favorite artists, stations, and podcasts.

To set it up, you have to connect the Car Thing to a 12V power outlet using a cable and power adapter. Then, you can connect your phone that has Spotify Premium to the device, and then connect the Car Thing to the car stereo.