bridgething
bridgething is the bridge layer that lets the thing remain itself while
opening up to anything you build for it. It runs on a fully custom Linux
distro designed specifically for the Car Thing and replaces Spotify's
stock qt-superbird-app with a Rust daemon, a kiosk web runtime, and a
phone-side gateway, so the Car Thing keeps being a Car Thing on your
own terms.
Install
Install from bridgething.com over USB. Updates
after that come over the air through your phone, which is also where
pairing, settings, and new apps live.
What's in here
| path | what it is |
|---|
crates/lib | libbridgething - the wire-protocol crate. DTOs, codec, framing. |
crates/core | bridgething - the daemon |
crates/client-rs | Rust client of libbridgething. |
crates/mfi, crates/mfi-proxy | iAP2 / MFi link layer |
crates/swupdate-sys | FFI to libswupdate for in-band system OTA |
crates/delivery, crates/companion | The shared phone-side core in Rust, plus its wasm/napi bindings |
packages/companion | Swift + Kotlin platform shells over that core |
packages/{client-ts,browser} | The webapp TS SDK, and the delivery core for browsers |
desktop/ | Tauri shell over the shared core |
packages/webapps/builtin | Webapps delivered with the daemon (hub, browser) |
packages/webapps/catalog | Webapps published to the app catalog |
packages/create-bridgething | bun create bridgething |
mobile/ | Phone-side app |
docs/protocol.md | Wire-protocol reference |
Dataflow
webapp daemon gateway
┌─────────────────┐ ws ┌──────────────┐ bt ┌──────────────┐
│ hub / stock / │◄────────►│ bridgething │◄───────►│ phone + │
│ your own app │ ws,asset │ │ msgpack │ companion │
└─────────────────┘ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘
device kiosk the thing phone-side
The webapp talks to the daemon over a local WebSocket on 127.0.0.1:8891.
The daemon talks to the phone-side gateway over Bluetooth RFCOMM, with
an iAP2 link layer for iOS. The gateway sources playback, streams audio
out, and proxies arbitrary HTTP/WS via the Tunnel surface. Everything
that crosses a boundary is typed in libbridgething; the TS SDKs and the
Rust surface facades are generated from those types, and the phone side
reaches them through the shared Rust core.
Build a webapp
bun create bridgething
Creates a Vite + React + Tailwind project wired to the bridgething
client. The manifest schema is in crates/lib/src/shared/webapp.rs;
permissions, config primitives, and the KV namespace are documented in
crates/core/src/state/webapps.rs and docs/protocol.md.
On-device dev
The image, OTA pipeline, and BSP live in
yocto-superbird.
Webapps push with bun run push from each webapp package.
bun create bridgething comes with scripts for pushing to the device.
For host-side dev, the daemon expects chromium --remote-debugging-port=9222
running and a Bluetooth adapter with class 0x7c0000
(sudo hciconfig hci0 class 0x7c0000). Override the port with
BRIDGETHING_CHROME_PORT.
On a device, chromium's DevTools endpoint is served at bridgething.local:9222.
