Spotify Car Thing: Spotify gets into hardware with in-car voice-controlled music, podcast player

Music streaming company Spotify has me its foray into hardware. Spotify is about to start testing its own in-car music and podcast player called 'Car Thing.' It's a voice-controlled device that Spotify will use in order to learn more about people's listening habits and preferences. This way, Spotify can create an "unparalleled" experience for users, claims company.

Why is Spotify testing own in-car hardware?

re are so many reasons why it makes sense for Spotify to get into hardware. Spotify is all about music and podcast streaming and it argues that Americans spend 70 billion hours behind wheel every year. So quite obviously, re's a lot of potentials for Spotify to increase its reach. But Spotify says test will be done in US only.

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Spotify is primarily into software. So quite obviously, it doesn't have too many options to expand its footprint into new areas. Just to give you an example, this strategy could be similar to Chromebit portable dongle that lets users carry Google's Chrome OS operating system on--go.

Just a week after Spotify launched its operation in India in February, Spotify racked up over a million users in country. Spotify is pretty new in Indian market and it still has a long way to go in India's overcrowded music streaming segment, especially when re's a tough competition with some of existing players who dominate India's music streaming like JioSaavn, Gaana, etc.

In India, most people still prefer FM rio while driving and how much are y willing to bear ditional cost of a new in-car entertainment device needs to be gauged beforehand. Eventually, we can expect Spotify to conduct similar tests in India as well.

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"While we kw re has been some speculation about our future plans, Car Thing was developed to help us learn more about how people listen to music and podcasts. Our focus remains on becoming world’s number one audio platform—t on creating hardware," Spotify said in its official blog post.

More technical details and specifications of this new Spotify device currently remains hidden. In fact, we don't even kw at moment wher Spotify has concrete plans to make 'Car Thing' commercially available in near future. However, Spotify has me one thing clear. Right w, Spotify isn't planning to make this specific device available to consumers.

 " learnings from our test will dictate how we develop experiences everywhere you listen," Spotify ded.