Always ready
Your desk, at a glance.
Time, local weather, and what is playing—clear enough to read without opening another window.
Now Playing
Music stays tactile.
Real artwork, progress, queue, seeking, and ten-step volume control built around the dial.
Your playlists
Pick the next atmosphere.
Artwork-led playlists stay close enough to browse and start without reaching for another screen.
On-device dictation
Say it. Clean it up.
Hold Home, speak naturally, and let your Mac turn a rough thought into text that is ready to paste.
Today
Your day, without the detour.
Upcoming events and reminders arrive as a calm, glanceable agenda for the day ahead.
Local weather
Know what is outside.
Current conditions, the next several hours, and a four-day outlook in one bounded view.
Nearby transit
Leave at the right moment.
See the next departures in both directions, with live arrival times and the nearest stop already selected.
Focus timer
Give the work a boundary.
A deadline-based Pomodoro stays accurate while you move through music, weather, and the rest of your day.
Codex
Keep an eye on the work.
See agent activity, recent output, and reasoning controls without leaving your current task.
System
The whole setup, visible.
CPU, GPU, memory, energy, temperature, and uptime stay visible in one focused system view.
Car Thing, reimagined.
Music controls, local weather, private on-Mac dictation, live transit, timers, and coding status—built for the screen and dial already on your desk.
Always ready
Your desk, at a glance.
Time, local weather, and what is playing—clear enough to read without opening another window.
What you can do
Your Car Thing, upgraded.
Everything essential, organized into six glanceable capabilities.
Music and podcasts
Control Spotify or Apple Music with artwork, progress, seeking, shuffle, repeat, and ten-step volume. Spotify also supports podcasts and optional account features.
Private Mac dictation
Hold Home, speak, and release. English (US) recognition stays on your Mac, with optional cleanup off by default and no Carthios account required.
Transit and weather
Check nearby departures across supported agencies, then see current conditions, hourly changes, and a four-day outlook. Hold preset 4 to open Weather.
Plan your day
See calendar events and reminders, complete due items, follow a Mac-synchronized clock, or run a Pomodoro with offline fallback.
Coding and system status
Monitor Claude Code or Codex activity, usage, Mac health, and Car Thing temperature and uptime without opening another window.
Connect and control
Carthios prefers verified USB and keeps paired Bluetooth available until that cable connection is actually usable. Then manage brightness, sleep and lock behavior, settings, screenshots, and signed updates.
See the complete feature guide for every physical control, connection mode, permission, and device utility.
Update log
What’s new in 2.1.15.
A concise record of improvements you can see and feel.
2.1.15
Current releaseAugust 28, 2026- • Choose a dimmed clock or a completely dark Car Thing whenever the connected Mac sleeps or locks.
- • Completely Dark turns the backlight fully off, then restores the saved brightness and auto-brightness setting after wake and unlock.
2.1.14
August 20, 2026- • Preserves every dictated utterance across long pauses during one Home-button hold, in the original spoken order.
- • Keeps the live transcript updating after a long pause instead of stopping at the words spoken before it.
- • Prevents a dropped Bluetooth connection from leaving Car Thing stuck on a stale Mac locked screen and requests fresh privacy state after reconnect.
2.1.13
August 10, 2026- • Makes Spotify playback controls and now-playing updates respond locally when Spotify is playing on this Mac, while account features such as Liked Songs, Queue, Connect, and playlists remain available.
- • Makes playback follow Spotify transfers to another device correctly, including transfers that continue playing the same track.
- • Hardens USB tooling by pinning the reviewed Google Platform Tools archive and rechecking the bundled Android Debug Bridge before every device command.
Up next
Being explored—not shipped yet.
These are active feature requests, not promises in the current download.
Layout & Controls
A first-party editor for page order, visibility, start page, presets, and safe button actions. It remains gated until its physical-device release pass.
Bluetooth dictation
Exploring microphone capture without the USB data cable while keeping push-to-talk responsive.
See the maintained feature-status log for the full shipped, researching, and deferred list.
Get started
Set up in three steps.
- 1Install the Mac app
Open the notarized DMG, drag Carthios to Applications, and launch it from there.
- 2Connect Car Thing over USB
Use a data-capable cable. Carthios detects the device, installs the matching dashboard automatically, and repairs version drift on future USB connections.
- 3Pick the features you want
Use the Mac menu to switch directly between Spotify and Apple Music. Weather, Transit, Bluetooth, advanced Spotify features, and dictation are optional.
What you need
- • macOS 13 Ventura or newer
- • Apple Silicon Mac
- • Spotify Car Thing
- • USB-C data cable for setup
- • Spotify Desktop or Apple Music signed in for music controls
Privacy by default
Carthios has no user account. Optional Mac diagnostics are off until you explicitly enable them, use only coarse allowlisted events, and can be disabled at any time. This website separately uses privacy-conscious Vercel Analytics to count page visits and download clicks. Credentials stay in Keychain. Dictated text or audio, music metadata or history, Calendar or Reminder content, paths, and device identifiers are never included.
Permissions, advanced features, and hardware notes
Bluetooth Beta
Used to reconnect and communicate with Car Thing wirelessly after initial USB setup. Carthios automatically gives a verified USB data connection priority while preserving Bluetooth until USB is ready. Firmware/dashboard updates and microphone audio still require USB data.
Location, Weather, and Transit
Used on the Mac to request a local forecast and find nearby stops for MTA, MBTA, WMATA, BART/511, CTA, SEPTA, and TriMet coverage. Forecast requests send coordinates rounded to four decimals to MET Norway over HTTPS. Some transit providers, including MTA buses, require a free developer key saved in Keychain.
Calendar and Reminders
Agenda is opt-in and uses macOS Calendar and Reminders permissions to show upcoming events, due items, and complete reminders from Car Thing.
Dictation and Accessibility
Apple’s local English (US) recognizer on the Mac turns USB microphone audio into text. Accessibility allows direct insertion into the active app; if declined, Carthios keeps the transcript on the clipboard instead.
Music app
Switch directly between Spotify and Apple Music from the Carthios menu. macOS may ask for Automation permission the first time Carthios controls the selected desktop app.
Advanced Spotify
Core playback uses Spotify Desktop with no extra Carthios login. Optional account connection unlocks likes, queue, playlists, and Spotify Connect where Spotify supports them.
Unofficial firmware
Carthios is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Spotify. Repurposing discontinued hardware involves unofficial software and is performed at your own risk.
Carthios is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Spotify. Spotify and Car Thing are trademarks of Spotify. Carthios is provided “as is,” without warranty.Privacy · Questions or feedback: workingzian@gmail.com.