v4.0.2

Changes

Nocturne

• Make voice assistant faster and more accurate
• Mockingbird is now included with lifetime
• Fix fonts for other languages in Mockingbird (Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Greek, Devanagari, Chinese, Japanese, Korean)

Companion

• Duck audio while using voice assistant
• Add Android 12 support
• Fix Kofi/Buy Me a Coffee link flow (Android)
• Fix password reset flow (Android)

Download

Flashing instructions are at https://usenocturne.com/install.

An update to Nocturne Companion is required from https://usenocturne.com/app.

Full Changelog: v4.0.0...v4.0.2

v4.0.1

Yesterday we announced Nocturne 4.0.0 alongside a subscription model. Within an hour it was clear that most of you weren't on board with it. As per the previous pricing change announcement, we acknowledged we were wrong in having only a subscription as an option, and we greatly apologize for the inconvenience we caused. To recap, we announced that we were splitting up access into two tiers: Nocturne Lifetime and Nocturne+.

Nocturne Lifetime is $9.99 one time for the lifetime of Nocturne. You get the full Nocturne experience with the companion app, the move away from Bluetooth tethering, Now Playing from any app, offline support, and everything else in 4.0.0 aside from Mockingbird and voice controls. All current supporters have lifetime access automatically.

Nocturne+ remains the same, and is a subscription service with access to voice controls and Mockingbird. Current supporters: $0.99/mo with 3 months free, as a thank you for believing in Nocturne early. New users: $1.99/mo. The subscription for voice controls helps cover AI infrastructure costs and development. Voice controls, similar to the original Car Thing, have been one of the most requested features in our Discord for a long time, allowing handsfree use in a car. Like every voice assistant, including Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, and the original Car Thing voice assistant built by Spotify, it relies on an AI language model to understand and respond to what you're asking. If there were a viable way to build this without LLMs, we would have. Every request costs us money to process, which is why it can't be covered by a one-time payment. In hindsight, these features should have been optional from day one, and that's the change we're making today.

Nocturne Connector with a Raspberry Pi stays free for standalone desk use. The companion app is the recommended experience for any use case, especially on the road.

We should have structured this better from the start. Nocturne 4.0.0 is the most complex thing we've ever built - years of reverse engineering, debugging, and rebuilding things from scratch on e-waste hardware. The move to a subscription-based model was our attempt to make sure we could keep doing that sustainably, but we moved too fast without explaining the reasoning clearly enough, and without consulting the community first. That's on us and we're grateful you told us so directly rather than walking away. Please feel free to send any feedback/questions our way, we always listen to what you have to say. Nocturne has always been built for this community first. Yesterday just reminded us what that actually means. Thank you for caring enough to push back.

Changes

• Update payment tiers to Nocturne Lifetime and Nocturne+

Download

Flashing instructions are at https://usenocturne.com/install.

An update to Nocturne Companion is required from https://usenocturne.com/app.

Note

Android users must use the APK until our signing key gets approved by Google. If you used social login, you will likely need to use reset password to set a password for your Nocturne account.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/usenocturne/nocturne/commits/v4.0.1

v4.0.0

After spending all of our free time building, reverse engineering, debugging, and testing, we are proud to announce the next generation of Nocturne.

No more Bluetooth tethering

If you've used 3.0.0, you've likely noticed that Bluetooth hotspot is clunky, slow, drains phone battery, and doesn't work on every device/phone plan. We fixed it at the root. Nocturne 4.0.0 communicates with your phone through a companion app, exactly like the original Spotify Car Thing firmware did, instead of relying on a mobile hotspot. The result is a faster, more stable experience with negligible battery impact that unlocks new features that weren't possible before, and even supports non-cellular devices.

Mockingbird (1:1 Spotify UI)

We rebuilt the original Spotify Car Thing UI from scratch. Every screen, every interaction, every animation, recreated and fully functional. If you bought a Car Thing for what it was supposed to be, this is it. Prefer the Nocturne UI you already know? You can switch between both at any time from settings.

Features

• Full intelligent voice control powered by LLMs
• Full 1:1 Spotify UI recreation (Mockingbird)
• Control Now Playing from any app on your phone
• No more Bluetooth tethering (!!)
• Update to beta software directly from your device
• Spotify login no longer required for Now Playing
• Now Playing works on poor or no network connection
• Plenty of bug fixes
• + MUCH more

Pricing

To fulfill our promise of keeping Nocturne supported and as open as possible, we're introducing 2 tiers, lifetime and subscription, and taking care of the people who made it possible first.

Nocturne Lifetime is $9.99 and gives you every feature except for voice controls and Mockingbird. All previous supporters have lifetime access automatically.

Nocturne+ is a subscription service with access to voice controls and Mockingbird. Current supporters: $0.99/mo with 3 months free, as a thank you for believing in Nocturne early. New users: $1.99/mo. The subscription for voice controls helps cover AI infrastructure costs.

Nocturne Connector with a Raspberry Pi stays free for standalone desk use. The companion app is the recommended experience for any use case, especially on the road.

The shift to Nocturne being partially paid allows us to cover development costs and the personal time it takes to keep Nocturne alive and improving without compromising on what we've built or how open we keep it.

Open Source

Introducing a subscription model doesn't change our commitment to keeping Nocturne as open as possible. The vast majority of Nocturne's codebase remains open source - Nocturne OS for Car Thing, Nocturne UI, Nocturne Connector, nocturned, and the Apple device Bluetooth protocol Rust crate are all staying open source. The only closed pieces are the mobile apps and backend worker, which is where the subscription infrastructure lives. Anyone is free to read, modify, and build parts of the Nocturne software, as long as you abide by the licenses.

Note: The legacy supporter discount and free trial apply to current supporters only and will not apply to new subscribers after this announcement.

Flashing

The full setup guide is in the README.

We hope Nocturne 4.0.0 is everything you've been waiting for - enjoy!

v3.0.0

Warning

Spotify has broken authentication for Nocturne 3.0.0, rendering it unusable. The changes are currently too complex to maintain in v3.0.0. You can join v4.0.0 beta by donating and sending your receipt in our Discord, or wait for a public release soon.

After a year of working on Nocturne 3.0.0, it is finally ready for release. It has been tested thoroughly, thanks to our supporters, and we are proud to say that we have the most advanced Car Thing custom firmware, and the only one that supports almost everything that Spotify's firmware had.

Changes from v2

• Bluetooth tethering for car use (no more Raspberry Pi in the car)
• Full graphics acceleration
• Native Spotify login (no more client ID/secret)
• Start DJ from the Car Thing
• Podcast support
• Gesture control
• New settings
• Boot to Now Playing
• Spotify Connect device switcher
• Support for Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Devanagari, Hebrew, Bengali, Tamil, Thai, Cyrillic, Vietnamese, and Greek
• Full knob control support
• Local file support
• Preset button support
• Status bar on home (shows time & Bluetooth/Wi-Fi)
• Auto brightness
• Hold settings button for power menu
• Lock screen showing time full screen (press settings button)
• DJ preset binding (hold preset button while DJ is playing in Now Playing)
• Spotify mixes in Radio tab (Discover Weekly, daily mixes, etc.)
• OTA updates
• + MUCH more (this is just the important stuff!)

Flashing

A guide to flashing Nocturne 3.0.0 is in the README. Bluetooth will work out of the box, or choose an alternative in the Setting up Network section. Hotspot capability from your phone and plan are required for Bluetooth.

File	Link
Flashable Image	nocturne_image_v3.0.0.zip

Notes

This wouldn’t be possible without our donors and the rest of the Nocturne Team. We hope you’ll enjoy it, as we've spent thousands of hours working on it!

Consider buying the team a coffee if you can ❤️ https://usenocturne.com/support

v2.0-beta 2024-11-11

• public beta release

v1.0-alpha 2024-10-09

• initial release