Magnetic phone mounts offroad.

Has anyone used a magnetic phone mount in their car? I'm thinking about buying one which is also a wireless fast charger for my new phone. https://www.scosche.com/collections/...phone-chargers - the air vent mounted version.

The main things I am interested in are how well (or otherwise) they hold the phone when off road. They look so much more user friendly than many of the non magnetic offerings, but would be about as useful as t*ts on a bull if the phone is likely to fall off on anything rougher than smooth bitumen.

Not sure about the new ‘Magic Mount’ brand version Cuppa but do know our Glamping neighbours in their motorhome have tried many latest expensive magnetic holders to no avail so far unfortunately mate!
I did have somewhat good success years back with commercial grade ‘Velcro’ until McGoogle maps came along and super heated phone batteries turning adhesives to goo I found :-(




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I've had one for a while ...I have the type where a small metal plate goes under a phone cover of my choice and unless I accidentally knocked it off with my hand , it stayed clamped to the holder !
It's been on some rather rough high country tracks with me and it held up honestly.
The weak link is the suction mount ... It dries up and falls off ... But I take it off and wet it weekly and it does the job.
Mines not a wireless charging version. I don't subscribe to that technology yet after seeing how hot the batteries get from it.

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Originally Posted by Hodge

I've had one for a while ...I have the type where a small metal plate goes under a phone cover of my choice and unless I accidentally knocked it off with my hand , it stayed clamped to the holder !
It's been on some rather rough high country tracks with me and it held up honestly.
The weak link is the suction mount ... It dries up and falls off ... But I take it off and wet it weekly and it does the job.
Mines not a wireless charging version. I don't subscribe to that technology yet after seeing how hot the batteries get from it.

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The 'holding ' part of your reply is encouraging, the heating up part less so.

I haven't actually experienced the wireless charging yet Hodge, & there seem to be mixed reviews about the batteries getting hot. So they do actually get pretty hot then? Hmmmm.

On my old phone (iphone SE) & my wife's Ipad we have had problems with the 'Lightning connectors' on both & google reveals we are far from alone. Our phone is essential to us as we travel, & the new one (iphone XS) has the same cable connection so I was thinking that a second means of charging might be good to have. The idea of an easy to use holder appeals just to give the phone a home in cab. We don't really use the phone whilst driving (no bluetooth radio for hands free), & our Hema navigator serves us well, so no need to use the phone as a GPS, just want it somewhere safe, not banging around in the glovebox or down the side of a seat. So a kill 2 birds with one stone approach. I doubt I'd leave the charger plugged in all the time. Was thinking the air vent mount as I too have had issues with suction mounts in the heat, & if the phone gets hot I can use the aircon to help cool it if need be......& to be honest I don't want to obscure my vision through the windscreen any more than it already is with the Hema, & definitely don't want to attract some young Mr Plod's attention by having it 'on display' with the new phone laws just recently introduced in Qld.

Don't know much about the magnetic holder side of things aside from playing with one in a shop somewhere.. I remember being sceptical and then pleasantly surprised with how it held a phone. Still, it obviously didn't impress me enough to commit it to memory haha.

Also, maybe I've just been unlucky.. But I've never found a vent mount anything that held on or sat properly. Everyone on here put me onto the Ram mount stuff. They're simple and strong (but a little bit exxy) and have a bunch of mounting options.

Cuppa, I use a Quadlock holder with fast wireless charging. It requires their case to be used on the phone which looks fairly bulky in the pics online but in reality is barely noticeable.
I highly recommend, use it in my daily driver and on a 2 week offroad tassie holiday with no complaints at all.

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Originally Posted by Winnie

Cuppa, I use a Quadlock holder with fast wireless charging. It requires their case to be used on the phone which looks fairly bulky in the pics online but in reality is barely noticeable.
I highly recommend, use it in my daily driver and on a 2 week offroad tassie holiday with no complaints at all.

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Thanks Winnie, I hadn't seen those before, they really do look the business. Shame they don't seem to have a air vent mount. I'll have to wait until we get back to Cairns in a few weeks to suss out where in the cab I might mount one (Car is in storage in Cairns ATM). I'd really prefer not to have anything else on the windscreen or up on the dash to obscure my view. Do you have yours with an iphone? Have you found it gets ecessively hot when charging?

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

Thanks Winnie, I hadn't seen those before, they really do look the business. Shame they don't seem to have a air vent mount. I'll have to wait until we get back to Cairns in a few weeks to suss out where in the cab I might mount one (Car is in storage in Cairns ATM). I'd really prefer not to have anything else on the windscreen or up on the dash to obscure my view. Do you have yours with an iphone? Have you found it gets ecessively hot when charging?

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I have a Samsung phone. I wouldn't say excessively hot, definitely gets warm though especially when the sun is on the windscreen.
The phone does stop accepting a charge when it thinks the temp may be getting too hot. When that happens it will usually cool down for 5 mins then accept a charge again.

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Think these are the ones Winnie mentioned. (pic below) These are the best on the market. Well, they certainly look so. @Cuppa
I've been looking into cases with magnetic charging for a while now. Thought I'd mention, different phones will heat up differently, depending on type of battery in it, amount of charging, battery status, ambient temps (e.g. windscreen in the sun), etc...
The phone itself can handle the heat cycles from charging,as they have a thermal cut-off, but you're reducing your battery life span greatly. The tiny Li-ion batteries cramped into a smart phone these days, very much don't like to be under heat stress , especially from inductive couplling.



http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forum...id=80161&stc=1

I'll second the quad lock, they are a bloody great holder, though I do notice when I am using the wireless charger with the windscreen mount and the heat from the windscreen is glaring in, the phone can get too hot and shutdown, particularly if you're using google maps or something similar at the same time. My solution is to turn on the windscreen aircon vents, this does the trick nicely.
I've had mine for about 12 months and it has only come off once, when I got it caught in a thread from a windscreen visor as I removed it. The car sits in full sun in WA all day, it handles severe corrugations no problems, which surpised me a bit, as I've never found any other mount that works this well. Best windscreen phone mount I've ever used.

I use this alligator style phone holder. It's supposed to stick to the dash with 3M double sided tape but I just added some stick on Velcro to the base and it holds well to the dash mat.
It does rock sideways / vibrate a bit on corrugations but it holds firm.
Only $7.50 delivered!
I previously had a magnetic mount on the air vent but I didn't like it covering the air con/heater or the hazard lights switch!http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forum...2020/02/63.jpghttp://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forum...2020/02/64.jpg

Well we have been giving this a lot more thought today as well as a great deal of googling/comparing etc, & believe we have reached a compromise which will work for us. There is no doubt in my mind that the Quadlock which Winnie has is the bees knees ...... except for one thing - it's stuck on the window where up here in the north it will get a damn sight hotter than down in Vic or Tassie. Add to that it would decrease my vision.

My compromise is to give up on the idea of wireless charging for now, (but may reconsider in the future if we have any more cable/connection problems). I have taken note of some of the concerns both online & from Hodge about reduced battery life resulting from getting hot, both whilst charging wirelessly & generally in hot environments. Some of you with long memories might recall I built a second glovebox in our car, an ideal place to to keep a phone when not in use. Well it is not so ideal after all, it gets very hot in there, like a little oven almost & I believe it was the heat in there which prematurely killed the battery in my previous phone at just 18 months old.

MrsTea & I have also clarified that we don't need to have the phone in view when driving. We don't need it as a GPS - the Hema HX1 does that. We also only get a small number of calls, don't have bluetooth/handsfree, & reckon there is no call urgent enough to require an instant response. They can all wait until we find somewhere to safely pull over within a half hour or so.

So what is required are three things. A 'home' for the phone in the cab where it wont get too hot, wont get jostled around with other stuff risking damage & where it can be charged whilst driving. Our compromise is to continue charging with the standard charge cable for now, & to buy a non charging version of the Quadlock mount, the simplest one they have which just sticks onto a flat surface with adhesive, & a corresponding part to stick onto my existing phone cover. We'll have to wait until we are back in Cairns with the car again, but I suspect sticking the a Quadlock mount on the rear window of the cab between the two seats will probably work ok, & another in the Tvan somewhere (they come in twin packs for $25).

Have you considered a vent mount qi charger? I have one, it's fantastic. Can't fall off like the suction ones do and wireless charging all day is great.

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Originally Posted by rusty_nail

Have you considered a vent mount qi charger? I have one, it's fantastic. Can't fall off like the suction ones do and wireless charging all day is great.

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You're taking me around in a circle Nick. :wink: That is what I was considering initially, then thought about window mounted, but have ended up coming back to not needing wireless(qi) charging for now. It may become a consideration again if the standard cable charging becomes problematic as has occurred on my old phone & on my wife's old ipad. Based on this & many other similar articles, we are now careful to ensure we always plug the cable into the phone before we connect/disconnect it from power.

Shove the shit guilty thing in the Glovebox Mate!
You have to date perfectly engineered dead set true appreciation of surroundings to teach us all [emoji106][emoji106]


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Originally Posted by Cuppa

Has anyone used a magnetic phone mount in their car? I'm thinking about buying one which is also a wireless fast charger for my new phone. https://www.scosche.com/collections/...phone-chargers - the air vent mounted version.

The main things I am interested in are how well (or otherwise) they hold the phone when off road. They look so much more user friendly than many of the non magnetic offerings, but would be about as useful as t*ts on a bull if the phone is likely to fall off on anything rougher than smooth bitumen.

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Can't speak about this particular model, but I can say that I've used those magnetic ball mounts on my phone for a while. I found that they were very secure, but effected the battery life of the phone, so I stopped using it.