Abandoned Spotify Car Thing revived by free firmware that restores original functionality and then some

The Spotify Car Thing has been discontinued since December 2024, and since then, a number of projects have popped up hoping to make use of the otherwise abandoned hardware. One such project is Nocturne, a new firmware developed for the Car Thing that hopes to give the device a "second chapter."

Brandon Saldan recently announced on X that Nocturne V3 has been released as "the most advanced Car Thing firmware ever," bringing back everything from Bluetooth tethering and native Spotify login to support for OTA updates and gesture control, and even adding local file playback. 

Nocturne is an open-source project, and the firmware can be downloaded from the project's GitHub repository. V3 is the first non-beta release for Nocturne, and the developers say they have spent the last year polishing it and implementing features that would make it a proper replacement for the stock firmware, which was dependent on a connection to Spotify's network for functionality. Fully offline functionality is one of the major features that Car Thing users will likely be happy to have, since it avoids the pitfalls of the original Car Thing's firmware and the potential for the device to turn into an expensive paperweight again if support ends — the Nocturne project accepts donations on its home page to help avoid this eventuality.

Main Nocturne V3 feature updates: 

• Bluetooth tethering for car use (no more Raspberry Pi in the car)
• Full graphics acceleration
• Native Spotify login (no more client ID/secret)
• Start DJ from the Car Thing
• Podcast support
• Gesture control
• New settings
• Boot to Now Playing
• Spotify Connect device switcher
• Support for Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Devanagari, Hebrew, Bengali, Tamil, Thai, Cyrillic, Vietnamese, and Greek
• Full knob control support
• Local file support
• Preset button support
• Status bar on home (shows time & Bluetooth/Wi-Fi)
• Auto brightness
• Hold settings button for power menu
• Lock screen showing time full screen (press settings button)
• DJ preset binding (hold preset button while DJ is playing in Now Playing)
• Spotify mixes in Radio tab (Discover Weekly, daily mixes, etc.)
• OTA updates

The installation instructions seem fairly simple, and it takes place in a browser-based app called Terbium, which means it should be platform-agnostic — as long as you are using a desktop OS and a Chromium web browser. When Spotify pulled the plug on Car Thing, after a measly three years of support, no less, it effectively told consumers to dispose of their hardware. It was only after severe backlash and the threat of potential legal repercussions that Spotify issued refunds to customers and handed the necessary tools over to the open-source community so that projects like Nocturne could be possible.