R.I.P. to Car Thing, the Bluetooth dashboard accent from Spotify that required you to make use of your smartphone alongside it, however didn’t do something your telephone couldn’t do already by itself.

Spotify will cease manufacturing Car Thing(s), in a transfer that was introduced within the firm’s 2022 second quarterly earnings report on Wednesday. By Spotify’s personal estimate, the choice to discontinue the product is costing the streamer €31 million (about $31.4 million).

A Spotify spokesperson told Tech Crunch that, “the goal of Spotify’s Car Thing exploration was to better understand in-car listening, and bring audio to a wider range of users and vehicles.” On the discontinuation of the gadget, the spokesperson additional mentioned the next:

Based on a number of components, together with product demand and provide chain points, now we have determined to cease additional manufacturing of Car Thing items. Existing gadgets will carry out as meant. This initiative has unlocked useful learnings, and we stay centered on the automotive as an necessary place for audio.

In each title and goal, Car Thing has been obscure and foolish from the start. The dashboard accent was meant to enable a “seamless and personalized in-car listening experience” for Spotify’s music and podcast streaming prospects. But all it does is sit on the sidelines, hogging the one valuable energy port, whereas a smartphone performs content material from Spotify over a automotive stereo through AUX or Bluetooth.

The gadget was first hinted at in 2019, through a Spotify press release. Then, the corporate launched Car Thing in a restricted, invite-only launch in April 2021. Finally, in February 2022, the dashboard accent grew to become obtainable for normal sale within the U.S.. Now, simply 5 months later, the Thing is now not in manufacturing (although you possibly can nonetheless buy it on the Spotify web site for now, at 50% off.)

Car Thing is/was a contact display, plus dial, plus voice-command-enabled device that displays a model of the Spotify App. Users mount it on the dashboard, plug it right into a automotive’s 12V energy, join it to a smartphone through Bluetooth, after which join that very same telephone to the automotive stereo.

Once all of the that set-up is out of the best way, customers are then in a position to navigate between songs or podcast episodes through Car Thing by giving verbal instructions with the “Hey Spotify…” immediate, or by utilizing the gadget’s dial, contact display, or one in all 4 click on buttons. Except: a smartphone actually already enables you to navigate Spotify with a touchscreen, or buttons, and even voice instructions (ex: “Hey Siri…”).

You may even mount a smartphone on a dashboard (stunning, I do know). And, if you’d like to have the ability to pull up navigation help whereas utilizing Car Thing, you’ll must—as a result of there isn’t any GPS app on the Spotify gadget! Even after a set of additives and updates, Car Thing nonetheless remained successfully ineffective.

So, finally it’s not stunning that Spotify’s foray into {hardware} value the corporate cash. But the streaming big itself appears to be doing OK by its personal metrics. The firm reported a 19% improve in month-to-month lively customers between this quarter and a yr in the past, in addition to extra premium subscribers. Its gross revenue additionally appears to have gone up prior to now yr.

Granted, Spotify is working at a loss for the second quarter in a row, after a brief uptick that indicated the corporate would possibly lastly develop into routinely worthwhile. Yet profitability doesn’t seem to be the streamer’s precedence. Pour one out for Car Thing, however don’t fear about Spotify simply but.