This is my time to shine! I went with a very DIY solution, but it worked out great. I had two requirements going into this project:
- A quick disconnect wireless charging solution
- Wireless Android Auto
I tried a lot of different charging solutions with the RAM tough track that I ordered, and I was generally disappointed with all of them. Magnetic chargers didn't have a strong enough grasp to hold the phone in place off road, wireless chargers like the first party RAM solutions were way too bulky and ended up being distracting because of the amount of my field of view they consumed. What I ended up settling on was
this cheapo charger from Amazon. It's relatively small, does a somewhat decent job of charging my phone and when I put my phone into place, it automatically clamps it in so that it doesn't bounce around. Mounting it was the fun part. I ended up removing the base that it came with entirely and 3d printing an adapter for the ball mount that it shipped with. A little time in Fusion360 and I was off to the races, and the end result is pictured below.
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I hate visible wires, so getting power to it was another problem. I ended up buying a
12v adapter and wiring the cable up and behind my dash screen like so.
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Lighting in the garage was fun today. Don't mind my hand blocking the sunlight coming through the windows in the pic above.
The last piece for me, wireless Android Auto, has been the most frustrating. I've been using Carsifi for a few months now, and while it works, the experience is incredibly frustrating as my device constantly tries connecting to it even while my car is powered off. I currently have it in my center console and I've been considering mucking about in my fuse box so that I can kill power to that USB port when the car is off to put an end to that nonsense. I can't recommend Carsifi to anyone else. I've faced a lot of issues with disconnects on long car rides, and there's some high voltage lines that cross the highway near where I live and it constantly disconnects when I drive underneath them. There are a lot of other wireless Android Auto/CarPlay adapters out there, so give those a shot first if you can. Carsifi has a beta option to try to resolve this issue by only connecting when you're also connected via bluetooth to Uconnect, but it's dodgy and only really works 50% of the time.
At the end of the day though, I'm incredibly happy with my solution. It holds my phone very securely even on the bumpiest of trails. I can hop into my car, drop my phone in the mount and just forget about it. For the most part, it just works.
If you're obsessive about cable management, have access to a 3D printer and you have more free time than you do common sense, I recommend it. I think my solution is better than any off the shelf product I've seen so far. Happy to share the .stl as well if anyone wants to do this themselves.