Design of Spotify's "Home Thing" smart speaker leaked

Way back in May last year we learned that Spotify was working on some own-brand hardware to work with their music service.

They were sending a mall selection of Spotify Premium users in the USA a Car Thing, which was a voice-controlled music and podcast device that plugs into your cigarette lighter in the car and is connected to your account, allowing you to playback playlists and make Hello Spotify requests via voice.

At the time we also heard about a Home Thing and a Voice Thing, but did not know what they looked like.

Now reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong has uncovered a picture of the Home Thing embedded in Spotify’s app.

Not sure if Spotify is still testing “Home Thing”, but this is what it looks like pic.twitter.com/bV8cC1BBQF

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) January 11, 2020

The Spotify Home Thing appears to be a square smart speaker with two volume buttons, a microphone button and what is presumably an on and off button.

Unlike the Car Thing it does not appear to have a screen.

As Jane notes, it is unclear if Spotify is still pursuing this project, and competing directly with Amazon and Google in the Smart Speaker market may threaten the availability of the service on the large installed base of smart home assistants.

Last year Spotify said they do not have any current plans to make this specific device available to consumers, but the learnings from the test will dictate how they develop experiences for everywhere we listen.

Would our readers be interested in a dedicated Spotify smart speaker? Let us know below.