The long-awaited vehicular gadget from Spotify, a voice-controlled music player known colloquially as Car Thing, has just appeared in a handful of in-app renderings discovered by MacRumors contributor Steve Moser, who found the images in the Spotify app code. These renderings correspond very closely to the real deal photos sent as part of the files to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which The Verge reported in January.
Thanks to these renderers, we have a much cleaner look in the design of Spotify Car Thing, which includes a large button on the right, a color screen and four buttons at the top. Previously, the official renderings were from the time when the product was formally announced in 2019 and displayed a much smaller screen.
However, Spotify’s design has since come very close to an intelligent display style, which makes sense considering that it now looks more like a miniature infotainment screen than you would find in a modern vehicle. These new renderers show the screen and a possible interface design, as well as several mounting designs to connect the device to different parts of the panel.
There is no way to say when or even if Spotify plans to formally launch the product. The company’s February event, where it detailed its new level of Hi-Fi streaming, came and went without any new information about Car Thing, and the device was announced in 2019 as just a test product to help Spotify understand better listening habits of users while on the move.
Therefore, there is no formal product name, potential release date, or any other information indicating whether this will leave the Spotify test lab and enter the consumer’s car. But the updated design and FCC files – and now in-app renderings – suggest that the product may have a future. We just don’t know how it is now.