Earlier this week, Spotify announced that the Car Thing plater has been discontinued, after only a few months on the market. The company released the device last year but interested customers had to be invited to be allowed to purchase it. Then, in February this year the device became generally available for anyone to purchase.
However, after a short time on sale, Spotify has now pulled the plug on the Car Thing. Existing inventory will still be sold at a heavily discounted price. Down from $90 to $50 currently. Existing devices will still function has intended and won’t go offline or become bricks.
The Car Thing definitely targeting a niche in the market. It was aimed at customers who had an older car but wanted to stream audio from Spotify, but not mount their phone on the dash. When the majority of new cars have Android Auto or Apple CarPlay integrated the target market might have been pretty small.
Spotify says the reason for the discontinuation is due to low customer demand and supply chain problems.
