I wasn’t supposed to need this. In theory, the car has Android Auto. But it’s broken at the moment. (It’s notjust me, and this particular issue will probably be fixed soon, but it’s a huge pain.) And to be honest, the Kia’s implementation of Android Auto kinda sucks, because they really want you to use the paid Kia connect subscription. So maybe i just want a phone mount, and to set up my car to generally work that way.
So… I want something that i can affix to a flat piece of glass above and to the right of the car’s screen, and i don’t want it to stick forward too far, as that’s already a good distance. Ideally, it will hold the phone a little higher than where it affixes, with the bottom of the phone being close to the attachment point. It should be easy to put a phone in, in portrait mode, and should leave the center bottom of the phone clear so i can plug it in.
Does anyone have a mount of that general type? Do you like it?
(I’m currently using a mount that slides into the vents, but the only place that works on this car is uncomfortably to the right of the screen. I’m looking for something i can use on the left.)
In my Android days I was a fan of the Scosche magnetic mounts with a sticky suction cup. I had one with a flexible arm that let me stick the suction cup to the windshield and have the phone either in landscape or portrait mode with enough room to plug in a cable. I used the same mount across several cars and several phones. These days I have an iPhone and I use a Mag-Safe mount, which eliminates the need to plug in a charging cable.
This is the one I finally settled on. (Apparently it’s currently unavailable–sorry.)
I didn’t want something stuck to the windshield as it gets SO hot inside cars here in the summertime, that I assumed no sucking/vacuum process would hold. I wanted gravity on my side. This is a great design. I’ve had it for two years and it still works fine.
I don’t have it on the dashboard, but on the little ledge in front of the control panel.
It’s a teeny bit inconvenient, but this baby really grabs onto my phone and holds it firm. I’m not having great luck with links these days, but if the amazon link does work, there are some other phone holders on the product page that are a similar design.
I routinely use wireless charging, so I don’t want to stick a piece of metal to the back of my phone.
My existing mount can be used either in portrait or landscape, and i use portrait 100% of the time, so I’m only interested in how well mounts with in portrait mode.
And i looked at the somewhat recent thread that popped up.
Some of those might work. But I’m looking for updated recommendation.
I’d prefer to avoid more stuff on the windshield. This car has limited visibility already. And the bottom of the windshield is really far from the driver, at a really shallow angle, so there’s not a lot of space to mount it low on the windshield.
Hmm, there’s a flat horizontal spot on the console that might work. That’s a little lower than ideal, but on the plus side, it’s low enough that it wouldn’t interfere with using the controls. How do you fit a charging cable in there?
This might be an image on the inside of my car (if it works.)
The points marked in green are flat places i might stick a phone mount to. The purple circle highlights where I put my existing vent-mounted holder.
That low spot that you have marked in green is pretty low. If I’m using GPS, I like to be able to see the screen. It might work better for you to put it actually up on top of the dashboard.
As for your other question, I drive so little these days that I don’t need to charge my phone while I’m driving. In the olden days when I lived almost an hour away from town, I spent a lot of time in the car. But nowadays, I can nurse a tank of gas for almost a month. In the past I was filling up every third day. Let’s hear it for retirement!
Yeah, i can’t put anything on the dash. It’s curved and very textured, and that’s just not going to work. Also, i don’t want to block the windshield. Just below, or barely blocking, the windshield is ideal.
That’s why the green space next to the wheel is marked. That’s smooth glass, and next to the touch screen, not covering it.
I’ve had the best luck with a “vehicle specific mount”. In my case, the dash trim pops off, then the mount uses an existing bolt to attach, and then the trim goes back on. Once installed there is a very secure place that is ready to accept a phone mount or other accessory.
This is a bit more expensive than a general purpose mount, because there are multiple pieces: the specific mount for the car; something that attaches to that which has a ball on it; then the actual phone mount which connects to the ball. I cut corners because I picked a cheap ball and phone mount parts instead of getting the more expensive ones sold by the company that made the piece that attached to the car.
Unfortunately I can’t find the exact brand that I used, but “vehicle specific mount” seems to be the search term to find them.
Anyway, this mount setup works much better than the various vent and windshield ones I’d tried before.
Same… these work DRAMATICALLY better than the generic ones. I’ve tried like 10-20 different storebought mounts of all kinds before stumbling on one of these, and it made a HUGE difference. You can also get wireless-charging compatible magnetic mounts too, that work landscape or portrait and charge it while docked. They’re sturdy enough to stay magnetically connected even during moderate off-roading or high-speed turns.
@puzzlegal What kind of car do you have? (year/make/model)
Note that it doesn’t grab the vanes like most holders of this type do, but rather it’s custom-fit to “expand” into the top and bottom of the vent for a much more secure fit.
Hmm. The mount puts the phone in a bad place (where i have it now, really, it’s too far to the right. And no, i can’t use the left vents, that covers important parts of the touch screen.) But some 3M adhesive pads might attached their phone holder MagicMount 25W Charge Pro Wireless Phone Holder | ProClip USA to the glass on my car.
It’s pricey, and also wants me to stick a chunk of metal to my phone. They imply it will still charge. I think I’ll try one of the vacuum -attached mounts, first. They are a lot cheaper and won’t damage either the car or the phone.
I think you can stick it anywhere along the entire vent opening… nowhere along that 12 or so inches would work?
The 3M mounts are not going to work great for attaching to curved windshield glass. Flat touchscreen glass, yeah, maybe, but are you sure that won’t interfere with the touchscreen functionality / conductivity? (I’m not actually sure about that). The lower console glass, yeah, it might work there but it would be hella awkward I think.
Re: the charger: I think you can use any Pixelsnap or Magsafe charger you like (it’s the same thing). The magsafe ones will be a lot cheaper generally speaking because there are so many more of them. I use them with my Pixel all the time. You don’t need specialized metal in the phone case if you go with a Magsafe one; the Pixelsnap ring does the same thing.
The additional metal is for the off-brand “fake” magnetic mounts. With an iPhone or Pixel with Pixelsnap, you can use any “real” Magsafe or Pixelsnap compatible charger or off-brand one that uses the regular magnet locations.
The ProClip web pages aren’t good and their info is a bit confusing/outdated (but their products are quite excellent despite that… don’t judge a car mount by its website, I guess)
I thought pixelsnap was introduced with the pixel 10. I have a pixel 9. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have embedded magnets. Also, i don’t use a case. I just have a thin sticker (leather) on the back of the phone so i can hold it. Glass it’s too slippery.
The dash mount you’ve pictured would work. There’s a moderately large piece of glass to the left of the touch screen that isn’t part of the screen, and neither displays anything nor appears to be touch sensitive.
The entire vent, except at the extreme right, is too close to the touch screen, and putting the phone there would be in the way. And if the phone descends at all below the vent, it blocks the (also touch screen) dash controls. You know, the ones that let you select the radio or change the temperature. That space is definitely not available. I’m sure that’s why they show the vent mount on the extreme right. It’s really the only available part.
Personally speaking, I’ve tried dozens of those kinds of options and found none of them satisfactorily stable or secure. In the end I still opted for the ProClip semi-permanent mount even though it blocked some things… I found that I was using my phone a lot more than the other car functions anyway, so having to reach behind the mount on occasion wasn’t as big a deal as having a crappy phone mount. YMMV, of course, and your priorities may be different.
Best of luck… it’s not an easy thing to find MagicMount is one of the more reputable brands (and they have a lot of choices), but there are a lot of other ones too.
You might try a Kia or Niro-specific forum and see if any owners there have specific advice. That’s how I found the ProClip (for a different car) that I loved so much. Perhaps there’s something better that another Niro owner has tried already.
MagicMount is one of the more reputable brands (and they have a lot of choices), but there are a lot of other ones too.