They’re also cribbing from the playbooks of Google and Amazon, who got their respective smart speaker lines, Nest and Alexa, into more homes in part through giveaways, including partnerships with Spotify. With Car Thing, Spotify is making a bet that you will sacrifice your privacy for the sake of convenience. Voice data will also be shared with advertising partners and, according to Spotify’s privacy policy, used to “comply with legal obligations and law enforcement requests” should the need arise. As The Verge reports, there is a digital setting to disable the microphone, though a built-in privacy switch appears to be lacking.
The Spotify app already gives you the option to enable this always-on assistant for your phone, but Car Thing will bring four mics into your car, the place Americans most frequently listen to music outside of home. A patent approved earlier this year outlined how Spotify aims to use its proprietary tech to convert audio from users’ microphones into metadata points like emotional state, gender, age, accent, or even how many people you’re with, in order to serve you “better” (emphasis mine) music recommendations.
The other answer lies in the company’s patent filings. By the looks of it, Car Thing is basically a fancy remote control for an app that you can easily control from your phone, but that you also have to plug in. Unlike other info-tainment dashboard units enabled with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, which give you access to maps and other services, this one only does one thing: Play Spotify. If you’re wondering to yourself how this is any different from just mounting your phone on your dash, you aren’t alone. If it gets a wide release, it will retail for $80. For now, it’s a limited release, available for free to select users who sign up to receive it (and pay for shipping costs). You also need a Spotify Premium account to use Car Thing. You then connect your phone to your car stereo in whichever way you’ve been doing that so far (Bluetooth, aux input, or USB). You power it over USB and connect it to your phone over Bluetooth. It features a four-inch touchscreen, a dial for menu navigation, and most importantly, four microphones, which can be used to issue voice commands. So, what exactly is it? Officially announced today (April 13), Car Thing is a Spotify controller that can be mounted in your car.
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