Spotify begins testing of its first US gadget: a car wizard

THE Spotify will start testing this week with your first physical product, a little car accessory called Car thing (literally "thing for cars"). The gadget is a smart assistant that syncs Spotify account and can be activated by voice commands or the buttons on its side.

The Car Thing, as might be expected, plugs into the outlet where most car's cigarette lighter is and can be synchronized to the smartphone and the car itself, where they have smart functions. The user can then activate the player by saying "Hey Spotify", and then give the commands to play a song or one of their playlists.

This does not mean, however, that Spotify will start making and selling gadgets. In fact, the company made a point of clarifying that Car Thing is a testing device and its main purpose with it is to gather data on people's listening habits while driving. This is why the device will be distributed free of charge to only select US users.

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The device appeared in platform ads

Even not wanting to work directly with hardware, one source of the The verge, where the news comes from, reports that Spotify has also registered names for two other possible gadgets: Voice thing (thing for voice) and Home thing (home thing). This suggests that the company can create at least one more smart speaker-style device that so many other companies have.

And this, in fact, is the real reason Spotify was forced to create a gadget and so many companies are making their own smart speakers: information. If people only use other devices, even if it's for Spotify, the company behind the music service doesn't have access to all of its customers' usage habits data. That is why they have forced themselves to create Car Thing and may be preparing yet another gadget for the house, to gather this information and try to offer targeted services. so also that giants like Google, Apple and Amazon They are giving so much importance to their market, not for selling speakers, but for information about the routines and lives of their users.

Source: The Verge (tagsToTranslate) spotify (t) car thing (t) gadget (t) music (t) streaming (t) smart assistant (t) cars (t) voice thing (t) home thing