Spotify’s Car Thing might never be a modern Android head unit despite mods
Spotify’sCar Thingis (or, rather, was) a peculiar device. It’s a dash-mounted device that lets you control your streaming experience easily while you’re cruising along, but that’s separate from your existing head unit and, at least at first, had a hefty $90 price point that made it a difficult purchase for many people. It’scheaper than everthese days with stock dwindling down, but besides that, the killer thing about it is that it’s surprisingly moddable. And it’s even moreso now because some clever people found a way to unlock the Car Thing’s bootloader.
Sign up forfree
Forgot your password?
Create an account
*Required: 8 chars, 1 capital letter, 1 number
By continuing, you agree to thePrivacy PolicyandTerms of Use.You also agree to receive our newsletters, you can opt-out any time.
All you need is a Car Thing, a USB cable, and a 64-bit Linux-powered PC with libusb-dev installed. Oh, two parts guts to one part wit as well.
The fact that this weirdo device is unlockable and, thus, moddable is pretty cool seeing as buyers will logically want to keep it alive for as long as they possibly can beyondwhen official support sunsets.
Whether you’ll be able to install full-fat Android on it, though, is unlikely, at least for modern Android. The device comes equipped with just ~500MB of RAM, which hasn’t been an acceptable amount for Android machines since at least 2013 — and while the minimum RAM spec for the lightweight Android 10 Go edition istechnicallypegged at 512MB, devices with double the memory aren’t so breezy to deal with, either. ForAndroid 13 Go edition, Google is requiring phone makers for at least 2GB of RAM.
All that said, this development will likely open up the doors for other mods and we’re definitely excited to see what can be done to the Car Thing over the coming months.
From faster storage to better speakers
Google’s made several improvements over the years
Spotify AI is the reason I keep pressing play
Tidal is the best app for streaming music
App exclusive, at least for now
You can now learn languages too
