Someone converted the discontinued, bricked Spotify Car Thing into an open-source…

Brief

A DIY project repurposes the discontinued Spotify Car Thing into an open-source, Bluetooth-powered hardware HUD for Claude Code. The desk device displays a scrolling grid of sessions (state, model, activity, context fill), animated mascots, a dial-driven approve/deny queue with a 10-minute timeout, Mac integration (raise terminals, auto-type answers), and retains Spotify controls.

Why it matters

Someone converted the discontinued, bricked Spotify Car Thing into an open-source hardware control panel for Claude Code; the device is Bluetooth-only (needs only a power cable), can run off a powerbank, still acts as a Spotify controller, and is reportedly cheaper than a Raspberry Pi on Facebook Marketplace.

Key details

The UI is a scrolling grid of every session with tiles that show session state, model, activity, and context-window fullness; each tile has an animated Claude mascot, tapping a tile raises the session's terminal on a Mac, and multiple-choice answers can be focused on the Mac and typed automatically.

Requests go into a queued approval flow controlled by the device dial while a daemon holds the hook; nothing auto-denies—if no one answers within ten minutes the prompt is handed back to the terminal untouched—and the project includes an emulator that boots the device's real firmware at its native resolution.

SOMEONE TURNED A DISCONTINUED SPOTIFY CAR THING INTO A FULL HARDWARE CONTROL PANEL FOR CLAUDE CODE

spotify killed this device and bricked them, but now theyre cheaper than a raspberry pi on facebook marketplace

this guy turned one into a physical claude code hud that sits on your desk

> a scrolling grid of every session youre running, each tile showing its state, its model, what its doing, and how full its context window is
> an animated claude mascot on each tile acting out what that session is currently up to
> a queue of everything waiting on you, and you approve or deny permissions right from the dial. thats the actual decision, the daemon holds the hook open until you answer
> for multiple choice questions it focuses that session on your mac and types the answer for you
> live usage bars for your session and weekly limits with reset times
> tap any session tile and it raises that terminal window on your mac
> nothing ever auto denies, if nobody answers in ten minutes it hands the prompt back to the terminal untouched

its fully bluetooth and only needs a cable for power, so you can run it off a powerbank and carry it around anywhere

and it still works as a spotify controller. hold two buttons and it swaps back to music mode

its open source, and theres even an emulator that boots the real firmware at the devices actual resolution if you dont have one

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