4 ms·

I wonder if there's licensing issues with them doing so? Like I assume they didn't make all the hardware and firmware involved. Kind of a shame when companies

I wonder if there's licensing issues with them doing so? Like I assume they didn't make all the hardware and firmware involved. Kind of a shame when companies do this. I also wonder how long till the hacker community starts hacking these things any way? Seems like a worthy device to hack, though I can't imagine there's millions of these out there. I'd love to buy a 2nd hand one and install custom software on it if someone builds said firmware. Hell, if Spotify had open sourced this and still sold them, I might have bought a first hand one. I would just be streaming my Apple music to it instead. ;)

2f0ja 2y ago
fairly certain they used this: https://w.dspconcepts.com/ https://w.dspconcepts.com/, they used to have Spotify listed a a client. I'm guessing they cannot open source for this reason (it's not their code to open source)
dylan604 2y ago
The count down to an HN post of Car Thing runs Doom has now started
- ihuman 2y ago
  Someone already did that https://x.com/justmaku/status/1584442208203087872 https://x.com/justmaku/status/1584442208203087872
  - zztop44 2y ago
    There must be a rule of that. If you think someone will probably make it run DOOM someday, someone already has.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    ...and of course they did! I didn't actually expect it to be playable with the knob control like that, so I'm actually even more impressed. I was just expecting it to compile and run, but not necessarily play.
hoherd 2y ago
Spotify almost certainly developed Car Thing using license encumbered software, and this illustrates how encumbered licenses are anti-freedom and are causes of unnecessary e-waste. Thankfully folks have started organizing to reverse engineer the device: - https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineering https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineer... - https://hackaday.com/2024/05/30/old-spotify-car-thing-hacks-gain-new-attention https://hackaday.com/2024/05/30/old-spotify-car-thing-hacks-...
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - xp84 2y ago
    That is hard to hear, given how unacceptable it seems to us to waste this hardware, but it's frustratingly true. Lots of devices have been made and EOLd which had reusability potential after that happened, devices which nobody went to much trouble to lock down, and yet we all know 99% of them went in the landfill anyway. Even the ones 'hacked' will probably go in the landfill anyway, just a couple years later. Unless we really believe that those of us nerds who reflash them, are truly using those devices as a substitute for some new gadget we would have purchased. Somehow I doubt this is usually true. As an example, how many old hacked Wii consoles are being actively used today in a way that makes us genuinely believe that someone is using it as a substitute for a new gaming console? And that sucker, by the time all of its official support ended, was so simple to hack that I think it's equivalent to an officially unlocked bootloader.
  - mariusor 2y ago
    The possibility to root the device would give non-nerd owners the possibility to sell their devices to some nerds that want to play with it instead of binning it directly.
- kube-system 2y ago
  Even if there isn’t third party licensed software in this Thing, it still can take significant work to open-source an internal project that wasn’t intended to be public from the start. And given the price of tech labor, most businesses are going to want to put their engineers on active projects.
nkozyra 2y ago
> Seems like a worthy device to hack I haven't opened mine up yet but there's not a lot there that an ESP32, a screen, and an encoder couldn't replace. I'll probably disassemble mine for the encoder knob and see if I can't repurpose the screen. The actual hardware isn't particularly compelling otherwise.

2f0ja 2y ago

fairly certain they used this: https://w.dspconcepts.com/ https://w.dspconcepts.com/, they used to have Spotify listed a a client. I'm guessing they cannot open source for this reason (it's not their code to open source)

dylan604 2y ago

The count down to an HN post of Car Thing runs Doom has now started

ihuman 2y ago
Someone already did that https://x.com/justmaku/status/1584442208203087872 https://x.com/justmaku/status/1584442208203087872
- zztop44 2y ago
  There must be a rule of that. If you think someone will probably make it run DOOM someday, someone already has.
- dylan604 2y ago
  ...and of course they did! I didn't actually expect it to be playable with the knob control like that, so I'm actually even more impressed. I was just expecting it to compile and run, but not necessarily play.

hoherd 2y ago

Spotify almost certainly developed Car Thing using license encumbered software, and this illustrates how encumbered licenses are anti-freedom and are causes of unnecessary e-waste. Thankfully folks have started organizing to reverse engineer the device: - https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineering https://github.com/err4o4/spotify-car-thing-reverse-engineer... - https://hackaday.com/2024/05/30/old-spotify-car-thing-hacks-gain-new-attention https://hackaday.com/2024/05/30/old-spotify-car-thing-hacks-...

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
[flagged]
- xp84 2y ago
  That is hard to hear, given how unacceptable it seems to us to waste this hardware, but it's frustratingly true. Lots of devices have been made and EOLd which had reusability potential after that happened, devices which nobody went to much trouble to lock down, and yet we all know 99% of them went in the landfill anyway. Even the ones 'hacked' will probably go in the landfill anyway, just a couple years later. Unless we really believe that those of us nerds who reflash them, are truly using those devices as a substitute for some new gadget we would have purchased. Somehow I doubt this is usually true. As an example, how many old hacked Wii consoles are being actively used today in a way that makes us genuinely believe that someone is using it as a substitute for a new gaming console? And that sucker, by the time all of its official support ended, was so simple to hack that I think it's equivalent to an officially unlocked bootloader.
- mariusor 2y ago
  The possibility to root the device would give non-nerd owners the possibility to sell their devices to some nerds that want to play with it instead of binning it directly.
kube-system 2y ago
Even if there isn’t third party licensed software in this Thing, it still can take significant work to open-source an internal project that wasn’t intended to be public from the start. And given the price of tech labor, most businesses are going to want to put their engineers on active projects.

nkozyra 2y ago

> Seems like a worthy device to hack I haven't opened mine up yet but there's not a lot there that an ESP32, a screen, and an encoder couldn't replace. I'll probably disassemble mine for the encoder knob and see if I can't repurpose the screen. The actual hardware isn't particularly compelling otherwise.