bridgething

u1 - open firmware for the spotify car thing

bridgething

a full system image, daemon, and companion app to restore your thing to its former glory

install release notes

connect your phone, run the stock ui, or make your own apps

d1 - what you get

as many apps as you want from the app store

  • stock ui

    stock ui

  • launcher

    launcher

  • calendar

    calendar

  • home assistant

    home assistant

  • weather

    weather

  • settings

    settings

nvram - the story

/var/log/superbird

[ 2022 ] spotify ships the car thing

[ 2022 ] spotify discontinues the car thing

[ 2024 ] shutdown scheduled. devices told to brick themselves

[ ERR  ] spotify inc. has left the chat

[ 2025 ] the community refuses. hardware gets opened up

[ 2026 ] mainline linux boots

[  OK  ] bridgething ships

 

u2-u4 - the system

your phone bluetooth the thing
u2 - image
a real linux system
mainline linux 7.0.2, mainline u-boot, chrome 147, mesa + panfrost graphics for full acceleration
u3 - daemon
a rust daemon runs the show
connects to the companion app and runs both the stock webapp and ones you create
u4 - companion
an app for ios and android
rfcomm on android and iap2 on ios for the best possible performance

f1-f4 - firsts

what status why it matters
mainline linux 7.0.2 first on superbird 17 patches bring the whole board to stock parity
mainline u-boot first on superbird an open, signed boot chain you won't even notice
chrome 147 first on superbird stop running vite-plugin-legacy
panfrost gpu acceleration first on superbird open mesa drivers for the mali g31

m1-m3 - measured

interaction speed
2.1×

faster than spotify's stock build

(touch-to-interaction latency on stock ui)

system image
481mb

for the whole os

peak speed
1.5mbps

over bluetooth

j1 - expansion

build your own webapp with 19 typed surfaces and internet access tunneled through your phone

media
player, queue, lyrics, text-to-speech, earcons.
phone
calls, notifications, contacts, all proxied over bluetooth.
world
geolocation, plus http + websockets tunneled through your phone.
system
voice intents, config, key-value storage, asset cache.

shipping today

  • hub
  • stock ui
  • calendar
  • browser
  • weather
  • home assistant
  • yours goes here

$ bun create bridgething

a typescript sdk and tooling to build your own webapps and share them

sw1 - channel select

stable

(somewhat) tested. recommended.

install stable

dev

extra tools for system development. slower.

install dev