- #Spotify car thing drivers#
- #Spotify car thing update#
- #Spotify car thing software#
- #Spotify car thing code#
Hints about Spotify making hardware for the car soon trickled out. "People think, 'Hey, you can't name it like that,'" Cedborg said. The name was funny, very literal and a bit childish, said Andreas Cedborg, Spotify's head of hardware product.
#Spotify car thing code#
First proposed over dinner among a handful of Spotify hardware designers and brand agents, Car Thing was a semi-serious placeholder that the design team adopted for a code name. The concept for something like Car Thing had been percolating at Spotify for a while, but the device's date of conception might be marked in 2018, when it got its name. "That's what everyone's salivating at the prospect of." "Full autonomy is probably the most elusive goal of all, but the dream is: You get into your car and all the windows turn into displays," said Edward Sanchez, a senior automotive analyst at Strategy Analytics.
With sales opening in the US on Tuesday, Spotify is about to start learning: Is Car Thing tapping into a caravan of unmet need for millions of drivers? Or is it driving headlong toward a dead end?īut as vehicles steer toward a future of being more autonomous, anything Spotify can do to solidify itself as the must-have music service in the car may pay dividends down the road. "Streaming services are battling for market share over this relatively small demographic," Cirisano said.
Just 22% of US consumers stream music in the car. Gustav Söderström, Spotify chief research and development officerīroadening Car Thing may be wise, because those 140 million cars may be a more niche market than it seems, according to Tatiana Cirisano, a music industry analyst and consultant at researcher MIDiA. While Spotify wouldn't elaborate on future partnerships, a Car Thing that could toggle between Spotify and Google Maps or Waze would give it the one-two punch of both music navigation and, well, literal navigation. That openness could, eventually, extend to "deeper integrations with potential partners" if Car Thing takes off, he added. "We want to be an open platform," he said.
#Spotify car thing update#
The update will even allow Car Thing to work for services that are Spotify's direct competitors. If you love Audible, Car Thing will be able to play, pause, skip and adjust volume for your audio books.
#Spotify car thing software#
Its software is on track for an update in "a few weeks" that will unlock it to control other audio apps, Söderström said. So Car Thing is only for Spotify - but only for now. Its standard subscription is $10 a month, though it comes as cheap as $5 a month for students. That means on top of the $90 you pay for the hardware, you also must pay for a Spotify membership.
#Spotify car thing drivers#
To Spotify, that meant drivers in roughly 140 million cars might stream Spotify more - or start paying for it if they don't already - if a device could replicate Apple's Car Play or Android Auto for them.Ĭurrently, Car Thing works only with Spotify's premium tier. But while roughly 50% to 70% of cars on US roads may be able to connect to a phone, they're not so fresh-off-the-line as to have an entertainment display that easily streams tunes and podcasts. He says Americans spent an "insane" 70 billion hours a year on the road pre-pandemic. Spotify's main listening location is the home, but the car is a close second, said Gustav Söderström, Spotify's chief research and development officer. But getting the device and using it - you can understand more the problem they're going after."
"I was just interested in seeing Spotify's take on actually building their own hardware," said Suda, a 26-year-old student in Houston, who drives a 2012 Honda. But Spotify is betting that Suda and about 140 million of you have something in common: Your car doesn't have a fancy infotainment system to rival a Tesla's. Unlike him, you probably didn't spend more time streaming music than sleeping last year. Suda was one of the earliest customers to get his hands on an invite-only release of Car Thing, Spotify's first-ever hardware device, which goes on sale Tuesday. Matt Suda spent 206,989 of them - more than a third of last year - listening to Spotify.
0 kommentar(er)
