Issue: Car Thing stuck on setup (continue in the app)

[MattSuda]

I first got my Car Thing in early May. When I was first setting it up, I followed all of the directions correctly and I ran into an issue. The Car Thing said continue in the Spotify app or something similar to that. I already had the app open and my phone bluetooth was paired to the Car Thing bluetooth. After just leaving the app open and Car Thing turned on for 2-3 minutes it finally showed the home screen and stuff on the screen and started working.

I asked 2 other Car Thing users (one of them being @Billy-J) and one of them being a commenter on my video here, and they had a similar poor setup experience. The video commenter said they tried 2-3 times waiting several minutes, and it finally worked after reinstalling the Spotify app on their phone and a Car Thing factory reset by clicking the settings button on Car Thing and scrolling down to restart and then choosing factory reset.

It works pretty great for me now, but the user is left wondering why it's taking so long or if their Car Thing is defective when they first set it up. My thinking is that it is updating the firmware for the first time and that is why it takes so long for something to actually show up and happen. I was setting it up at home in the car in the driveway and connected to strong WiFi so I have no idea what's going on. I'm reporting this so other users can reply and say if they are having the same issue. I also wasn't able to reproduce this issue by factory reseting Car Thing and trying the setup process again. The setup process worked smooth after a factory reset. So my thinking is that it's updating on first boot because I saw some old UI elements at first and then it updated and looked slightly different.

So if you are currently frustrated when setting it up for the first time my advice is to just be patient and keep trying. Make sure WiFi or cellular connection is good and that you followed all of the directions and just give it some time to do it's thing and it should start working.

[Billy-J]

Hey! 

Just jumping here to share my experience with Car Thing. As @MattSuda explained, the on-screen instructions on the Car Thing say to continue in the Spotify app even though the app was already opened. It did take a few minutes before everything was finally done (I guess maybe the Car Thing didn't recognize that the app was open). 

It was a bit frustrating since I closed out of the app and restarted the app and the same thing still happened. 

[seanlaw27]

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reinstalling the Spotify app on their phone and a Car Thing factory reset

 This should not be acceptable experience. I myself am unable to go beyond the connect to adaptor with out clicking home and settings. 

Currently stuck at this. Even after 2 hour long drives, 3 factory resets, the device still will not connect. 

[Kiril]

Hey @seanlaw27,

Thanks for your post on the subject! Apologies for the delayed response, we just came across this post. 

We understand you experience connectivity issues with your Car Thing, and we can see how this could be frustrating. In this case, we suggest reaching out to our Support team through any of these channels so they can take a closer look at your case and give you personalized help with this.

Hope it gets sorted out soon. If you need anything else, the Community is here for you.

[Blinkinmyface]

Same issues here. Incredibly unsatisfactory experience. This device is absolutely not ready for the market. If Spotify needed beta testers for this POS they shouldn’t of charged us all 100 dollars for a beta unit. 

[jv04]

I had trouble at set up too, turns out that the connect to the device part (I think it's this step) was hidden, like it glitched out for me. I tapped randomly in the blank area and the screen refreshed with the button correctly showing.

[seanlaw27]

The only solution is to uninstall and reinstall the spotifiy app...

[jv04]

So I had to factory reset my car thing and I encountered my problem again, only then I realized what was going on, it's the font style and color that you can't see the device you want to set up. I'll attach an image.

You can barely make out the car thing right under the message: choose a device to be managed by Spotify.

[Walker333]

Exactly my experience! It would spin out the go blank. After I saw your post, I clicked randomly and boom. Instantly connected. Thanks!

[museickmike]

I ran into the problem of not being able to connect the phone during setup. I solved it by giving Spotify permission to my camera and microphone. Quite annoying since I spent over an hour earlier trying to get it to connect and would always hang up at the pairing step or just after.