Spotify’s ‘Car View’ Is Going Away, Here Are Your Other Options

Spotify‘s Car View is going away with no replacement in sight. The feature lets users with older cars without media controls on the steering wheel control audio directly from their smartphones. It took the Spotify Now Playing user interface and supersized it, making it easier to tap buttons while staying focused on driving.

While likely not related, Spotify also began selling Car Thing earlier this year, a piece of hardware that attaches to a car’s vent mount that makes it easier to control Spotify while driving. Of course, that’ll run a person $80 and is a dedicated piece of hardware that’s solely designed to be used with Spotify and nothing else. The hardware is probably really nice, but it’s hinged on Spotify supporting it for the long-term future. Otherwise, it becomes an expensive brick.

But now that the Car View is officially going away, those relying on the feature will need to look at other options. The best, albeit most expensive route, is simply upgrading the car’s head unit to one that supports either CarPlay or Android Auto. Options range as low as $99 and can go up to a few hundred dollars for a decent unit. With Android Auto or CarPlay, a user will be able to directly control music in their car through the screen, in addition, to having native navigation, phone control and access to various other third-party music or podcast players.

Are There Other Options?

But if the car doesn’t support Android Auto or CarPlay, but does support Bluetooth audio (or Bluetooth over 3.5mm or cassette adapter). In that case, users can also control Spotify hands-free via Google Assistant or Siri, depending on which phone they are using. The user can say, “Hey Siri, shuffle my library on Spotify,” or “OK Google, skip the track on Spotify.” It’s an excellent option for those who don’t want to spend money and then install a new head unit.

In any case, it’s a crappy situation that Spotify is removing a feature that works just fine for so may without a proper replacement. The company says it is “actively exploring” other solutions to listening to audio in the car. But again, why get rid of a useful feature if there’s not an immediate replacement in tow? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The only logical explanation seems to be that Spotify is discontinuing the feature because it sees Car Thing as a better solution to using the streaming service in the car.

Source: Spotify Community forum

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