Looking for Cell Phone Holder

I have this one installed on the passenger side of the vent in the center console. Since the molding around the stereo comes off so easily i routed a 10' microUSB cable from the charger to this charger. I've had mine for nearly a year now and it works great now that Apple finally has 7.5W charging with the iPhone 11.

 

I do use the CD player on occasion, but I will look into it. Thinking about an MPOW rig.

 

Ooh. I threw out my entire CD collection about 10 years ago.

 

Picked up an Anker wireless charger/holder to mount on the left side.

Now I need to get power to it... was considering installing a USB charging port on the small panel holding the dashlight brightness buttons, but then I found hardwiring kits for dashcams/etc.

Of course, these are all mini- or micro-USB connectors and the Anker is USB-C

With that in mind, I may just steal the one out of the other vehicle, which is a micro-USB, and mount it to the little triangle window on the door, and route the power wire through the door (how tough is it to pop the door paneling, I wonder...).

 

I tried 3 air-vent mounts, and the one that I finally chose was the $10 Mpow:

It has a lever that tightens the clamp onto the air vent vane/louver. It is also, therefore, easy to loosen the clamp and remove the mount. Similarly, the side pieces that clamp the phone can easily be released by pressing a button in the back. The side clamps can be positioned even wider than the 3 1/4" width of my Google Nexus 6, and they are padded so that they do not depress the volume button on the right edge of the phone. The bottom hooks allow a charging cable in between.

The phone is in good position for checking a map. It does block off the idiot-light-cluster at the right end of the Prius display.

I've ridden with it 180 miles so far. Planning a 3000-mile road trip next month, so I can update this post.

 

I finally routed a wire to my charger, but it's been intermittently failing lately: first the auto-clamp failed and wouldn't open or close, then the charger went out. Verified that it wasn't a power-related issue, and MPOW refunded me the cost of the unit under warranty

The replacement has arrived, so I will switch it out and do a little surgery on the old (all of six months) one.

 

I have been through a lot of different mounts. The one I like currently and that has lasted more than a year (many others haven't lasted nearly so long) is the iOttie I insisted on a Qi charging unit making it harder. A lot of Qi units don't actually charge at the level they state so your phone will not charge fast enough to charge and merely drain slower while using maps, streaming music, etc. I took the dash off, it snaps off very easily, and ran the cable from the power outlet to the dock inside of the dash, only a small part of the cable is seen where it connects to the mount.

 

My CD-player mount is still doing great 14,000 miles in. I've seen damage done to air vent louvers from things that attach to them, but I guess everything is replaceable.