075 - Teleporting All Over The Timeline

Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast · 2 Aug 2025 · 1h 34m · Episode 75

What this episode covers

Nathan Emerick, creator of the open-source project DeskThing, explains how he reverse-engineered Spotify's discontinued CarThing hardware to keep it functional after Spotify bricked the device. He details the technical journey from discovering the Amlogic chip and ADB access to building a web-based flashing tool and a desktop app that turns the CarThing into a versatile desktop controller. Emerick also discusses the challenges of dealing with Spotify's MFi Bluetooth restrictions, the sudden viral growth of the project, and his current struggles in the software engineering job market.

Mentioned

Companies
Thing Labs, I Fix It
Products
Spotify CarThing, DeskThing, Chromecast
Chips
Amlogic
Tools
Zadig, ADB, VS Code, Tailwind, React, TypeScript
Also
Teardown Conference

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The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.