IDC research vice president Frank Gillett said he could not recall any content company making a successful transition to hardware.īy contrast, a hardware maker like Apple Inc was able to launch music and video services by building on its operating system and existing device relationship with consumers. It launched to mixed reviews, with critics raising privacy concerns. It also disappointed people with its phone that came out in 2013 in partnership with HTC. Meta Platforms Inc's Facebook plans to stop producing a consumer version of a videoconferencing device dubbed Portal, instead focusing on the business market. It announced a new type of Spectacles last year, featuring augmented reality. Snap Inc shelved its original Spectacles, $130 sunglasses that transmitted video directly to the SnapChat app, back in 2017. Spotify was not the first software company to seek to extend its relationship with users into the physical world through devices.Īlphabet Inc's Google was one of the early software companies to venture into hardware experiments with some major failures, including Google Glass - a wearable Android device resembling eyeglasses, which displayed information in the user's field of vision. After unveiling trials in May 2019, Spotify tested the device with a small group of people in April 2021, and then brought it to wider release in February this year. 'So we decided to terminate this program in light of that.'Ĭar Thing was a next-generation stereo designed to stream Spotify's music and podcasts from the user's phone through the car audio system. 'We just can't get it to an attractive economical profile,' Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told Reuters. However, the company said it was unable to sell enough devices at a sufficiently high price to justify the investment. Spotify wrote down a $31 million investment in the device, which was aimed at increasing the number of users who listen to music or podcasts while in the car.

In doing so, Spotify became the latest software technology company to stumble in an attempt to build hardware. The world's leading audio streaming service on Wednesday announced it would discontinue the device just five months after it became available to all users in the United States.

LOS ANGELES/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Spotify Technology SA's Car Thing player is now a thing of the past.

Spotify car player