5 ms·

Spotify's Car Thing, due for bricking, is getting an open source second life

132 points by nickthegreek 2y ago

jauntywundrkind 2y ago
800x480 4" screen is pretty nice. Big giant dial is sweet as heck. Shocking that the Cortex A53 (12 year old core) is still so so ubiquitous, and not just on low end devices. Younger me would never have believed me that this would be the case.
- fsflover 2y ago
  > Shocking that the Cortex A53 ... is still so so ubiquitous I'm sending this from my Librem 5 GNU/Linux phone powered by Cortex A53. And it's good enough to be my daily driver.
parpfish 2y ago
i heard a legend that car thing was supposed to be released much earlier when it may have had more of a market, but production was delayed because all of their real world testing was in sweden and their first model was unable to handle dashboard temps in non-nordic countries. can anybody confirm?
DownrightNifty 2y ago
> Spotify had previously posted the code for its uboot and kernel to GitHub, under the very unassuming name "spsgsb" and with no announcement Interesting. Why not make some tiny announcement about it somewhere?
- norgie 2y ago
  I wonder if open sourcing it might have been a low(er)-level engineering decision, so there wasn't any marketing/PR awareness.
  - belval 2y ago
    That seems like a likely scenario, some engineer started an email thread that ended up in their director's inbox who said "sure why not". In a big company getting PR/Marketing to write an announcement can be a tall order, especially for a discontinued product that did not do very well and is mostly unknown.
  - kllrnohj 2y ago
    This looks more like bare minimum legal compliance. The 4 posted repositories are all for (L)GPL licensed projects, so they're required to make it available.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  Several years ago I had a similar situation: Company was discontinuing a product that sold poorly except with enthusiasts. Some of us wanted to open source it. I don’t know how or why, but after pushing on legal for months the only solution they came up with was for us to post the code on an unattributed GitHub account. If asked about it we were supposed to shrug and imply that it was a leak without saying anything. I do now know why legal came to that conclusion because nobody wanted to ask for details before they changed their mind. This legal department was very conservative on most matters so the decision surprised us.
  - nightfly 2y ago
    Think about how bad the the Winamp open sourcing went. Try and do a favor to the public and all the skeletons in your code come out
  - raxxorraxor 2y ago
    Plausible deniability probably. There is a chance that they would not be allowed to make parts of that code public if it relies on third party dependencies that may have stricter licensing. Even if the unknowns do not prove substantial, legal would likely tread carefully.
skavi 2y ago
What impressed me about this thing is how quickly it booted to an interface that was modern and responsive. It even had some pretty slick animations. I’d be interested in how they achieved that. Looking at the repo it looks like the OS was just Linux. I wonder what the UI was written in.
- ChocolateGod 2y ago
  IIRC it used Qt with QML and WebEngine. Not that surprising given Spotify started as a Qt application before it became a webview.
  - montag 2y ago
    I don’t think Spotify was ever a Qt application. Back in the day, it used a custom cross platform UI framework they called Spider. But it was XML based, similar to QML.
    - ChocolateGod 2y ago
      The early versions definitely used Qt on Linux
  - skavi 2y ago
    Would you happen to recall where you found that?
    - heeen2 2y ago
      not the person you asked, but the spotify deb repository used to contain a spotify-qt package that later became a transitional package to the current package
      - skavi 2y ago
        I assume you’re referring to the desktop app? I’m more interested in what’s running on Car Thing. Is there anything suggesting the old desktop app and the Car Thing app share technology?
quitit 2y ago
From an eWaste perspective this is great news, it just seems to be a pity that Spotify themselves hasn't been leading or endorsing it. (With the EUs continued focus on eWaste it also seems odd that the largest music service could just get away with bricking them all.)
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Honestly, I don't see why a company should be required to expend any resources on something they've given up on and which they don't think is going to be profitable any more, as long as they don't hamper any efforts to reuse that equipment. So if they just make available the code and tools necessary for interested third parties to use it (so it doesn't become bricked e-waste), I think that's sufficient. Perhaps for embedded computer systems like this, there should be an EU requirement for companies sunsetting products to simply make publicly available the tooling necessary to reflash them with new software, along with any other information necessary for hackers to get started.
  - Libcat99 2y ago
    I don't disagree IF they make tooling available for reuse. Of course, I'd prefer they do that all along.
  - imglorp 2y ago
    Apple and others should be forced to unlock its abandoned hardware. If they don't want to deal with it any more that's fine, but it shouldn't be ewaste. I have an old ipad mini that is still super hardware but they won't permit new apps on it. I would love to wipe and put linux or something on but that's not possible. This behavior shows contempt for the customer and the planet.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      I agree, I should have also added that any tools needed to unlock the hardware should be made available.
  - 2y ago
nickthegreek 2y ago
Purchased one of these for $25 when they liquidated them awhile back for this day. Looks like it is best to flash deskthings with a powered usb hub.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  That's a great price. I just looked them up on Ebay and it seems they're all going for $100+ now.
post_break 2y ago
I have one and still waiting on an easy way to flash it on a Mac. So far it's either Windows or Linux. I'm sure it will come but for now it's kind of a chore.
rsingel 2y ago
Love it. I had one of these next to my kitchen sink at eye level and chromecasted to the kitchen stereo. A big volume button was so nice. Can't wait to flash this and resuscitate it
nataz 2y ago
I love the dial interface. I wish more electronics, especially those in car interfaces, used a nice, clickly, big dial.
- heraclius1729 2y ago
  I agree! I love a nice big dial--my car still has them for volume, heat, etc., and I cannot imagine dealing with one that didn't.
- bsimpson 2y ago
  I was at SXSW in ~2009. Got a free ticket to the interactive track. Was my first conference, and I was mostly disappointed that it just seemed to be a way for adults with salaries to get paid to go on a trip and party. I do remember stumbling into the middle of a fascinating session on interface design for cars though, explaining the importance of having something tactile that driver can understand without taking their focus off the road. Nuts to see how the industry eschewed that wisdom in the decades to come.
- dr_kiszonka 2y ago
  +1 If not phones, I wish there were at least phone cases with side buttons and dial or two. (In the health sector, some device manufacturers replaced physical knobs with to touch screens and they suck so much.)
zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
I had the car thing hooked up to a soundbar in my last apartment and it was great. I'm glad I'll be able to continue using it
ogoffart 2y ago
Here is another small project to revive the car thing with a clone of the previous UI written in Rust: https://devpost.com/software/car-thang https://devpost.com/software/car-thang
sippeangelo 2y ago
I've been trying to get my hands on one of these for years, but they were only ever sold in the US and Ebay was either just full of scalpers, and now full of grifters trying to sell a near useless device for ridiculous prices as a collectors object. It's still e-waste.
anshumankmr 2y ago
Hell yes, FOSS FTW!!! Now, I can't wait for someone to run Doom on that thing.
aceix 2y ago
spotify always changes stuff every week
compsciphd 2y ago
I wish facebook did this with the Portals. They are effectively useless for most of what they were intended to be used for and facebook continues to refuse to let them be opened.

132 points by nickthegreek 2y ago

800x480 4" screen is pretty nice. Big giant dial is sweet as heck. Shocking that the Cortex A53 (12 year old core) is still so so ubiquitous, and not just on low end devices. Younger me would never have believed me that this would be the case.

fsflover 2y ago
> Shocking that the Cortex A53 ... is still so so ubiquitous I'm sending this from my Librem 5 GNU/Linux phone powered by Cortex A53. And it's good enough to be my daily driver.

parpfish 2y ago

i heard a legend that car thing was supposed to be released much earlier when it may have had more of a market, but production was delayed because all of their real world testing was in sweden and their first model was unable to handle dashboard temps in non-nordic countries. can anybody confirm?

DownrightNifty 2y ago

> Spotify had previously posted the code for its uboot and kernel to GitHub, under the very unassuming name "spsgsb" and with no announcement Interesting. Why not make some tiny announcement about it somewhere?

norgie 2y ago
I wonder if open sourcing it might have been a low(er)-level engineering decision, so there wasn't any marketing/PR awareness.
- belval 2y ago
  That seems like a likely scenario, some engineer started an email thread that ended up in their director's inbox who said "sure why not". In a big company getting PR/Marketing to write an announcement can be a tall order, especially for a discontinued product that did not do very well and is mostly unknown.
- kllrnohj 2y ago
  This looks more like bare minimum legal compliance. The 4 posted repositories are all for (L)GPL licensed projects, so they're required to make it available.
Aurornis 2y ago
Several years ago I had a similar situation: Company was discontinuing a product that sold poorly except with enthusiasts. Some of us wanted to open source it. I don’t know how or why, but after pushing on legal for months the only solution they came up with was for us to post the code on an unattributed GitHub account. If asked about it we were supposed to shrug and imply that it was a leak without saying anything. I do now know why legal came to that conclusion because nobody wanted to ask for details before they changed their mind. This legal department was very conservative on most matters so the decision surprised us.
- nightfly 2y ago
  Think about how bad the the Winamp open sourcing went. Try and do a favor to the public and all the skeletons in your code come out
- raxxorraxor 2y ago
  Plausible deniability probably. There is a chance that they would not be allowed to make parts of that code public if it relies on third party dependencies that may have stricter licensing. Even if the unknowns do not prove substantial, legal would likely tread carefully.

skavi 2y ago

What impressed me about this thing is how quickly it booted to an interface that was modern and responsive. It even had some pretty slick animations. I’d be interested in how they achieved that. Looking at the repo it looks like the OS was just Linux. I wonder what the UI was written in.

ChocolateGod 2y ago
IIRC it used Qt with QML and WebEngine. Not that surprising given Spotify started as a Qt application before it became a webview.
- montag 2y ago
  I don’t think Spotify was ever a Qt application. Back in the day, it used a custom cross platform UI framework they called Spider. But it was XML based, similar to QML.
  - ChocolateGod 2y ago
    The early versions definitely used Qt on Linux
- skavi 2y ago
  Would you happen to recall where you found that?
  - heeen2 2y ago
    not the person you asked, but the spotify deb repository used to contain a spotify-qt package that later became a transitional package to the current package
    - skavi 2y ago
      I assume you’re referring to the desktop app? I’m more interested in what’s running on Car Thing. Is there anything suggesting the old desktop app and the Car Thing app share technology?

quitit 2y ago

From an eWaste perspective this is great news, it just seems to be a pity that Spotify themselves hasn't been leading or endorsing it. (With the EUs continued focus on eWaste it also seems odd that the largest music service could just get away with bricking them all.)

shiroiushi 2y ago
Honestly, I don't see why a company should be required to expend any resources on something they've given up on and which they don't think is going to be profitable any more, as long as they don't hamper any efforts to reuse that equipment. So if they just make available the code and tools necessary for interested third parties to use it (so it doesn't become bricked e-waste), I think that's sufficient. Perhaps for embedded computer systems like this, there should be an EU requirement for companies sunsetting products to simply make publicly available the tooling necessary to reflash them with new software, along with any other information necessary for hackers to get started.
- Libcat99 2y ago
  I don't disagree IF they make tooling available for reuse. Of course, I'd prefer they do that all along.
- imglorp 2y ago
  Apple and others should be forced to unlock its abandoned hardware. If they don't want to deal with it any more that's fine, but it shouldn't be ewaste. I have an old ipad mini that is still super hardware but they won't permit new apps on it. I would love to wipe and put linux or something on but that's not possible. This behavior shows contempt for the customer and the planet.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    I agree, I should have also added that any tools needed to unlock the hardware should be made available.
- 2y ago

nickthegreek 2y ago

Purchased one of these for $25 when they liquidated them awhile back for this day. Looks like it is best to flash deskthings with a powered usb hub.

shiroiushi 2y ago
That's a great price. I just looked them up on Ebay and it seems they're all going for $100+ now.

post_break 2y ago

I have one and still waiting on an easy way to flash it on a Mac. So far it's either Windows or Linux. I'm sure it will come but for now it's kind of a chore.

rsingel 2y ago

Love it. I had one of these next to my kitchen sink at eye level and chromecasted to the kitchen stereo. A big volume button was so nice. Can't wait to flash this and resuscitate it

nataz 2y ago

I love the dial interface. I wish more electronics, especially those in car interfaces, used a nice, clickly, big dial.

heraclius1729 2y ago
I agree! I love a nice big dial--my car still has them for volume, heat, etc., and I cannot imagine dealing with one that didn't.
bsimpson 2y ago
I was at SXSW in ~2009. Got a free ticket to the interactive track. Was my first conference, and I was mostly disappointed that it just seemed to be a way for adults with salaries to get paid to go on a trip and party. I do remember stumbling into the middle of a fascinating session on interface design for cars though, explaining the importance of having something tactile that driver can understand without taking their focus off the road. Nuts to see how the industry eschewed that wisdom in the decades to come.
dr_kiszonka 2y ago
+1 If not phones, I wish there were at least phone cases with side buttons and dial or two. (In the health sector, some device manufacturers replaced physical knobs with to touch screens and they suck so much.)

zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago

I had the car thing hooked up to a soundbar in my last apartment and it was great. I'm glad I'll be able to continue using it

ogoffart 2y ago

Here is another small project to revive the car thing with a clone of the previous UI written in Rust: https://devpost.com/software/car-thang https://devpost.com/software/car-thang

sippeangelo 2y ago

I've been trying to get my hands on one of these for years, but they were only ever sold in the US and Ebay was either just full of scalpers, and now full of grifters trying to sell a near useless device for ridiculous prices as a collectors object. It's still e-waste.

anshumankmr 2y ago

Hell yes, FOSS FTW!!! Now, I can't wait for someone to run Doom on that thing.

aceix 2y ago

spotify always changes stuff every week

compsciphd 2y ago

I wish facebook did this with the Portals. They are effectively useless for most of what they were intended to be used for and facebook continues to refuse to let them be opened.