One constant irritation with mobile technology is battery life. No device ever seems to have enough of it.
Nothing is worse than running out of juice when you least expect it and it’s often your own fault. Forgetting to plug a device in or misplacing the cable are the root of hair-pulling frustration.
Talk about first world problems. How did our ancestors survive?
A different approach
It’s always recommended to stay plugged into a power source when running apps like BigRoad, so we gave the Mountr smartphone mount a try to see if it was a convenient solution to power on the go. This powered mount uses a magnetic connection and comes in two parts:.
- Case or back cover for your phone
- Charger mount bases
First, you need to put the case or cover on your phone as this will now act as the phone’s charging port. The charger part is then mounted in your vehicle and is plugged into the DC power socket.
Now when entering your vehicle, simply place your device on the charger mount. Magnets align the phone and hold it in place. Your phone is now mounted and receiving power without fiddling around on the floor for the cable.
I really like the thinking and design behind this product. The magnetic base made mounting easy and the magnets are aligned in such a way that it snaps easily between landscape or portrait mode. However, Mountr is not without it’s limitations.
Magnets, how do they work?
The unit I received for testing was for the iPhone 5/5S and while driving the phone never separated from the magnetic charger. The magnets seem strong enough, but I did knock it off the mount a couple of times when switching between portrait and landscape modes.
My main concern with this magnetic system is how it handles vibration. A number of times while driving, I experienced a momentary loss of power to the phone. Then the phone would prompt me that the connected device was not a registered Apple device.
This leads me to believe the pins in the magnetic base were unable to maintain a perfect connection with the post in the case. If this is the case I can’t see this mount standing up to the heavy vibrations inside a truck.
However, this might be a problem inherent with the iPhone model, as iPhones do not support wireless charging. The models designed for Samsung Galaxy models may not suffer from this problem as they can be wirelessly charged.