Phone holder in your A6

[cossqwik]

What phone holder works best for A6? I use waze on my iphone, my thoughts are using the centre vents (rightside) but don’t want a crappy rattly thing, not a fan of windscreen holders with cables dangling and sun the sun frying my X (it gets hot enough being a broadband hub on a journey) and the vents do a good job of cooling the phone too.

Show us what you’ve got?

 

[JohnnieWalker]

I have removed the phone cradle in the armrest and rewired the cable and attached a female USB socket to allow me to charge my phone in the top part of the armrest.

I used a 12v to USB power adapter, which I wired up to the rear cigarette lighter wiring, this also gives me an additional USB socket for powering a phone/tablet on the dashboard air vent.

I re-routed the cable under the centre console trim to hide it as much as possible, and used a magnetic charging connector to make it easy to connect/disconnect, and have a simple magnetic mount on the centre air vent.

I find this the 'cleanest' way to mount a phone/tablet, as other mounts were always annoying, and a wireless charging one I tried just never charged the device properly and caused the phone to overheat in the summer.

 

[JohnnieWalker]

Oh, and although the tablet has built in GPS, it doesn't have a sim/data, so I use the app called MacroDroid on my Android phone to automatically enable/disable the wifi hotspot on my phone when it connects to the cars bluetooth.

This means I can use the tablet for google maps navigation and also streaming audio/spotify etc ( I added a bluetooth audio adapter to the DVD Navigation unit in the glovebox), and I as my car has the bluetooth phone connection, I don't even need to take my phone out of my pocket and I can still take/make calls handsfree.

One annoyance is that the tablet is a crappy Huawei 7 inch one, with poor performance, so it's a bit laggy, but other than that it works a treat, and as it was one of my kids old tablets I had it lying around anyway.

Hope this helps

 

[cossqwik]

Like the idea of using the power from the phone cradle in the armrest, need a few USB cables in their ideally, maybe even tap off a few USB chargers for the rest of the tribe, thanks for that idea.

Just had a vent/wireless charger delivered and its too wobbly, I glued a magnetic holder to my old volvo’s vent, might see if I can source another vent to glue it too so I’ve got a good one to slot back in if I make a balls ip of it.

 

[JohnnieWalker]

Yeah, I had no use for the factory fitted phone cradle, as they're probably obsolete now.

The 12V to USB adapter I got was this one: https://cutt.ly/siY9Lvy
The vent mount here: https://cutt.ly/aiY3d6u
It was just a matter of soldering the wires of the 12v/USB adapter to the wiring that goes to the rear cigarette lighter socket.

The vent mount is great, always been a bit dubious of them in the past, but this one at least seems really well made and is really solid, the magnet can easily hold my tablet, and it still allows access to all of the controls and MMI screen.

 

[cossqwik]

Sound, thanks for the links, ordered

 

[JohnnieWalker]

My only concern with fitting the 12v to USB adapter was the constant drain on the battery, as the cigarette lighter has a permanent 12v feed.
I think the system does monitor the battery level though, and if it gets too low it starts to turn off accessories. Also, the current draw on the adapter is very low, and I've had it fitted for a few weeks with no issues, even with minimal use of the car.

 

[cossqwik]

Yeah noticed the constant lives found that a bit odd that, thats going to be an issue for when I fit a dash cam

 

[JohnnieWalker]

I've read that some VAG cars have movable fuses to change the cigarette lighter socket from permanent live to be on with ignition only, but not sure that's possible on the A6 C6?

Maybe there's a change that can be made with VAG com?

 

[cossqwik]

Had a quick search, can’t find anything at the moment, will ask my mate to take a look on his VCDS.

Might have to resort to making up a relay in the boot fusebox and tap off the sidelights to trigger the relay and turn on the front cig lighter, assuming that wont get spotted by the canbus that is.

 

[CupraDine]

The phone holder I use is :Amazon product
It does a good job, I have it using the included pad mounted to the dash, it's angled to have the phone next to the infotainment screen. However after seeing the posts from JohnnieWalker I plan on using the phone cradle for power and running the cable under trim, I like that.

As for the future dashcam, there are a few threads on here. I have a controller which you connect to both constant and switched power, it can turn off at a set voltage or time elapsed.

The car will pick up a parasitic draw and start shutting things off. Most annoying I found is when you unlock the car the lights don't stay on and the interior ones switch off quickly after opening the door.

 

[cossqwik]

Todays the first day I’ve taken it out at night, had it 10 days.

I’m still Finding new features,
foot well lights in the rear, nice,
under door mirror lights, nice
Two red mood lights in the centre also nice

why the hell did I not buy an A6 sooner!

 

[CupraDine]

They are great cars, I love mine and wish I got it sooner. Do you know what spec yours is?

Mine has the lighting package so I have lights on the interior of all the doors, awesome at night!

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[cossqwik]

Do you know what spec yours is?

Mine has the lighting package so I have lights on the interior of all the doors, awesome at night!

Don’t think I saw any on the interior door handles will take a closer look at that, there’s floor lights under the doors when opened.

 

[cossqwik]

Aha there looks to be some bulb holder in the door handle recess but doesn’t appear very bright.

 

[zipp]

Not a bulb holder, there is a semitransparent bar on the top of the door handle recess with a red LED behind it.