Our family currently uses two Android smartphones from the Moto E4 and G4 model lines. We may migrate to iPhones in the future, but nothing is planned. We also have an iPad Mini that we get a surprising amount of still-photo and vidcam action out of.
We are concerned about car mounts. We currently use a 2016 Subaru Forester daily grocery-getter and an old Chevy Astro AWD van as a "work truck". The Forester is a lease vehicle, due to be replaced with another lease vehicle in June 2019.
We currently use two kinds of mounts for our phones. We takes these mounts back and forth between the vehicles.
1: A TECHmatte MagGrip CD Slot, bought from Amazon. This mounts in a car's CD player slot, with a magnetic tip on the other end to hold the phone. We are having problems with this device staying attached to a CD slot. It falls out if you hit a bump hard enough, and the magnetic tip's flexible mount is weak enough that the phone can swing about too easily and even fall off the device. And the whole device, phone or no, slides out too easily. Adjusting the device to grip the CD player slot is not effective. The magnetic tip requires a smartphone be equipped with a metal appliqué to bond to the tip. Not metal plate, no grip. Only the E4 has a case with a metal plate inside. The TECHmatte insert was also bulky, so it could get in the way of the radio/backup cam display in the Subaru, especially if there's a dangling USB cable involved.
2: A Kenu Airframe portable car mount. This is a much simpler device. It's one of those mounts that inserts into the slots in a car's dash vents. Inexpensive, it simply requires that you attach it to the phone by hand before you mount it. (And remove it from the phone when you wish to take the phone with you.) One of the limitations is that you can only realistically attach one phone to one vent, so you have to figure out which vents you're going to use or not use a mount at all. This is a small device, so it is much more portable.
I like the Kenu best, it is very limited. It seems it could only work with air vents. It's also tiresome to have to fish in my backpack for a mount to attach, depending on which vehicle is being used, and find a place to attach air least one phone. We usually do not remove the iPad Mini from a backpack during road trips, so it's a foregone conclusion that it be charged before departure. This also means you have to hold it if you use it while on the road.
Charging the phones, especially on longer road trips for business, out-of-town shopping or medical trips, is usually essential especially if one of the phones is being used as a Google Maps GPS. We also need to text and email and sometimes consult the web, which further intensifies the necessity of automotive device charging. Currently, our best automotive charging adaptor is the Anker Powerdrive 2 24-watt cigarette lighter adaptor with 2 USB-A ports. This feeds into Anker USB-A -to- microUSB cables for the Moto phones; we also have Apple and Anker USB-A -to- Lightning cables for the iPad.
As previously stated, we may migrate to newer phones, possibly iPhones, in the future. (Cellular service around here is spotty, so choosing a flagship phone is not a priority in the near-term. We bought relatively inexpensive unlocked Moto phones to use with a pay-as-you-go minutes-based service for the foreseeable future.) It's a forgone conclusion that this may open up the possibility of Qi wireless charging.
We're tired of carrying flimsy unreliable gear from one vehicle to another. We're also concerned about what happens if one or more of us decides to get in someone else's vehicle there are no mounts.
The simplest answer for mounting phones is likely getting at least one more of the flexible Menu mounts for the vents. I'm in favor of this, but then you're limited to where you can mount a phone.
I was wondering if there's some kind of simple mounting device that can be attached to a dash that could be configured and maybe even future-proofed. Here are the issues:
1: Can mount a phone either Portrait and Landscape, for use either way. (Landscape seems best for GPS)
2: A semi-permanent mount could be attached to the Subaru's upper dash above the controls for one phone; there's a smooth hard plastic surface there. Placed properly, this would not obstruct the upper display (clock/temp/miles-in-tank/car status) and make the phone visible and accessible. If it were magnetic, it could allow a metal-plated phone to be attached or removed quickly. If we returned the Forester in 2019, the mount would likely have to go into the next vehicle.
3: The Astro's dash is much more problematic. It is curvy and of rough vinyl. A long-term dash mount is still a good idea for there, well above the climate controls, but we'd have to make sure it would stay attached.
4: The idea of Qi charging is neat, especially if there's a small and simple enough mount that doesn't obstruct anything. We would want to see if there's some technique for attaching the USB cable alone the contours of a vehicle's dash so the cable doesn't go flopping all over the place all the time. Are there vent-based Qi mounts available? And are there low-profile dash-based Qi mounts as well?
Would like to hear how all of these pieces could come together, if possible...
Any thoughts?
We are concerned about car mounts. We currently use a 2016 Subaru Forester daily grocery-getter and an old Chevy Astro AWD van as a "work truck". The Forester is a lease vehicle, due to be replaced with another lease vehicle in June 2019.
We currently use two kinds of mounts for our phones. We takes these mounts back and forth between the vehicles.
1: A TECHmatte MagGrip CD Slot, bought from Amazon. This mounts in a car's CD player slot, with a magnetic tip on the other end to hold the phone. We are having problems with this device staying attached to a CD slot. It falls out if you hit a bump hard enough, and the magnetic tip's flexible mount is weak enough that the phone can swing about too easily and even fall off the device. And the whole device, phone or no, slides out too easily. Adjusting the device to grip the CD player slot is not effective. The magnetic tip requires a smartphone be equipped with a metal appliqué to bond to the tip. Not metal plate, no grip. Only the E4 has a case with a metal plate inside. The TECHmatte insert was also bulky, so it could get in the way of the radio/backup cam display in the Subaru, especially if there's a dangling USB cable involved.
2: A Kenu Airframe portable car mount. This is a much simpler device. It's one of those mounts that inserts into the slots in a car's dash vents. Inexpensive, it simply requires that you attach it to the phone by hand before you mount it. (And remove it from the phone when you wish to take the phone with you.) One of the limitations is that you can only realistically attach one phone to one vent, so you have to figure out which vents you're going to use or not use a mount at all. This is a small device, so it is much more portable.
I like the Kenu best, it is very limited. It seems it could only work with air vents. It's also tiresome to have to fish in my backpack for a mount to attach, depending on which vehicle is being used, and find a place to attach air least one phone. We usually do not remove the iPad Mini from a backpack during road trips, so it's a foregone conclusion that it be charged before departure. This also means you have to hold it if you use it while on the road.
Charging the phones, especially on longer road trips for business, out-of-town shopping or medical trips, is usually essential especially if one of the phones is being used as a Google Maps GPS. We also need to text and email and sometimes consult the web, which further intensifies the necessity of automotive device charging. Currently, our best automotive charging adaptor is the Anker Powerdrive 2 24-watt cigarette lighter adaptor with 2 USB-A ports. This feeds into Anker USB-A -to- microUSB cables for the Moto phones; we also have Apple and Anker USB-A -to- Lightning cables for the iPad.
As previously stated, we may migrate to newer phones, possibly iPhones, in the future. (Cellular service around here is spotty, so choosing a flagship phone is not a priority in the near-term. We bought relatively inexpensive unlocked Moto phones to use with a pay-as-you-go minutes-based service for the foreseeable future.) It's a forgone conclusion that this may open up the possibility of Qi wireless charging.
We're tired of carrying flimsy unreliable gear from one vehicle to another. We're also concerned about what happens if one or more of us decides to get in someone else's vehicle there are no mounts.
The simplest answer for mounting phones is likely getting at least one more of the flexible Menu mounts for the vents. I'm in favor of this, but then you're limited to where you can mount a phone.
I was wondering if there's some kind of simple mounting device that can be attached to a dash that could be configured and maybe even future-proofed. Here are the issues:
1: Can mount a phone either Portrait and Landscape, for use either way. (Landscape seems best for GPS)
2: A semi-permanent mount could be attached to the Subaru's upper dash above the controls for one phone; there's a smooth hard plastic surface there. Placed properly, this would not obstruct the upper display (clock/temp/miles-in-tank/car status) and make the phone visible and accessible. If it were magnetic, it could allow a metal-plated phone to be attached or removed quickly. If we returned the Forester in 2019, the mount would likely have to go into the next vehicle.
3: The Astro's dash is much more problematic. It is curvy and of rough vinyl. A long-term dash mount is still a good idea for there, well above the climate controls, but we'd have to make sure it would stay attached.
4: The idea of Qi charging is neat, especially if there's a small and simple enough mount that doesn't obstruct anything. We would want to see if there's some technique for attaching the USB cable alone the contours of a vehicle's dash so the cable doesn't go flopping all over the place all the time. Are there vent-based Qi mounts available? And are there low-profile dash-based Qi mounts as well?
Would like to hear how all of these pieces could come together, if possible...
Any thoughts?
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