It’s not a good idea to hold your smartphone in your hand while driving. It’s better to have some sort of heads-up mount where you can quickly look at items on the screen without taking your eyes off the road. While there are tons of mounts on the market, most of the ones I’ve seen are difficult to install, or cause irreversible changes to your car or mobile gadget, or are inconvenient to attach devices to. Not so with iOMounts‘ iOauto Pro mounting kit.
Its adjustable bracket installs to your car in seconds, without any need to drill holes or screw anything in place. iOauto mounts use a heavy-duty magnet to hold your device in place, which means installing and removing your gadgets takes just a second. It’s strong enough to hold all smartphones (with or without cases), GPS units, or small tablets.
This is achieved by attaching a small adhesive metal disc to the back of your mobile device. The kit includes two of these discs, which are held in place with a very strong adhesive. The disc itself is very unobtrusive and about the thickness of a credit card.
You have the choice of attaching the disc directly to your gadget, though I opted for first sticking on one of iOmount’s removable vinyl stickers on the back of my iPhone’s Mophie battery case – just in case I ever want to remove it.
Each iOauto Pro comes with a car-friendly mounting bracket from ProClip. These are custom-made to fit individual makes, models and years of cars. In my case, the bracket attached neatly to a gap in the dashboard on the bottom edge, and hooked into the A/C vent on the top. Fitting the mount to the car takes seconds. There’s a small adhesive strip on each end of the bracket to help hold it in place, but it doesn’t leave any permanent marks.
Once in place in your car, attaching your device is just a matter of holding it in front of the iOauto until it clicks in place. This creates an unbelievably stable and strong grip for your gadget. With my iOauto mount in place, I took a couple of long road trips – at high speeds and with the top down on my convertible, and the bracket didn’t flinch. Not even Chicago’s most evil speed bumps or potholes made my phone move.
Perhaps my favorite thing about the iOauto Pro is its clever magnetic ball-joint style design. This allows you to position your device at whatever angle you want, or switch from landscape to portrait modes without detaching your gadget.
It works quite brilliantly. And if you’re wondering if magnets can damage your gadget, nope. As long as your device doesn’t contain a magnetic hard drive, you’re all good. Since 99% of today’s mobile devices use solid state storage, you should be fine.
The iOauto Pro is available now for $80(USD), including a ProClip mount for your vehicle of choice. There’s also a less expensive version that forgoes the angle control, but I think the extra $10 for the Pro mount is worth it, so you can angle your gadgets exactly how you like.
