Stay Connected on the Water: Boat Phone Storage

Boat Cell Phone Storage

Andrew 00:08
So a category that's growing in popularity is your different cell phone storage on your boat. And it makes sense, right? Because more and more, you're able to do you know, you know, more controlling your boat and controlling elements of your experience in trip, you know, on your phone.

Matt 00:23
Right, right, right. Yeah, I know, there's a lot of functionality you can get, I think you can control your power pole, your trolling motor, I think some GPS as you can cast like your sonar image too. it’s almost like having a second screen in some cases.

Luke 00:35
Yeah, the additional screen is super helpful, you know. And, like, even for me, a lot of times what I'll do the night before I go fishing, I'm up until like, 2.a.m on my phone on the Navionics app, just going and finding waypoints, places I want to fish and not having to go out and like plug those into my boat GPS, and just have them right here. You know, and right on the dash right next to my sonar or my, you know, all my other things. But the other thing, that's a pretty good drain on the battery too when you're doing that with…

Matt 01:06
For sure if you're using it screen on all the time.

Luke 01:09
But there’s a solution.

Andrew 01:10
Yeah, no, I mean, so for sure. You know, I mean, you get why when it has so much utility, now, you really want it to be something that's, that's visible, if you're going to treat it like a screen and almost needs to be mounted on the dash like a screen, right. So, you know, when it comes to different phone holders, you know, I would probably separate it by you know the ones that are just your storage, right, which we do, we have the puck mounting versions that you can mount either via fasteners or via a suction cup. And it really is just a seat. A seat for your phone, holds with a bungee. It's accessible, you're able to use it. But then a variety of versions that introduce your charging via your wired charging via cord or even inductive charging.

Matt 01:51
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, and a lot of that is going to come down to like the decision that you're making on which one to go with is going to come down to the space you have available on the dash or around the console. Right? A lot of times you want it to be visible, you want it to be there so that you can reach out, you can change something on it, move it around. But you know, if you have the dash space, it's nice to go with something that's flush mount, it’s right there. Sometimes you don't have that space and you want, you know, you might only have a couple square inches, maybe four square inches or so you can put a mount down. And we have, you know, an inductive charger that mounts like that you can change the viewing angle on it. So it really is really is nice your phone's constantly on. It's constantly charging, not worried about the power drain there. And it's accessible.

Luke 02:34
Yeah, the angle thing is a good point too, because I know we're all wearing polarized shades when you are fishing.

Matt 02:39
Oh yeah you turn your head a little bit.

Luke 02:41
Yeah you can't see your phone screen. So being able to have that little tilt, you know, or making sure it's at the right angle when you install can make a big difference for sure. Stability. Yeah,

Andrew 02:50
Yeah, in many cases, you're limited by your dash space. And then the angle on which that dash space is right. So like you're taking the Rokk wireless, which are there inductive, charging, just comparing the flush mount version versus the standoff version. That's the big trade off is the other space and the angle, beyond those, which are probably those are the two most popular charging,

Matt 03:10
I'd say, I'd say yeah, the most popular charging

Andrew 03:12
Charging versions, because I think the most popular is, you know, I just wanted a place to set my phone, you know, the acrylic version. But so beyond those, you know, I know that they have a kind of just a pad for the top of your dash, right that has the extra charging built in, so you can drop it in there. And then they use

Matt 03:28
And they have the little puck too.

Andrew 03:29
Right. So you can mount that just use it. That's just a single pole drop in flush mount. I mean, it's a little bit proud, but it's super thin, right?

Matt 03:38
It's got a nice little traction pad on it. So it helps keep the phone in place. And that's going to put it on top of a console, you can mount it inside a glove box if you want it.

Luke 03:45
And that's what I was going to say to like a lot of times, like, I've got a bass boat, and it's like there's no flat surface of fiberglass on that boat anywhere, right? But there is like a little glove box where you put your phone, wallet keys, boom, be able to wire that in. And that's slick and your phone sits right there.

Matt 04:02
You can be streaming music something like that all day and you're not worried about it dying.

Luke 04:05
Stealing your buddies fishing spots on the Navionics app.

Andrew 04:10
So the inductive charging stuff, is that pretty cross compatible? I know modern Apple, Apple didn't have it for a long time. Right. But I think in the last two, three years, no new iPhones have it. What do you what do we know? I mean, we sell a lot of them.

Matt 04:24
I know that a lot of the new phones that are coming out are built in with the capability of inductive charging. Sure. And from what I know, all of the Scanstrut, Rokk Products that we have, are capable of working with the phones that are on the market today.

Andrew 04:38
Gotcha. How about tying in your electrical system? How big of a project is that? I mean,

Matt 04:43
You know, in all honesty, its two wires. You know, if you have an open spot on a switch or even, you know, just wiring directly to you know, with a fusing line, of course, but you could go directly to the battery if you wanted to.

Luke 04:56
And if you've done your fish finder, you can do this.

Matt 04:59
Yes, it’s far more similar. Yeah.

Andrew 05:02
Anything else you think of related to?

Luke 05:05
If you don't want to drill a hole, you can always go the suction cup route, which pretty good, you know, easy way to go. It's always nice. Now if you're going 80 mph might not and three foot waves, you might want to go with the Scanstrut, one that clamps in. But if you're just cruising on your, you know, wakeset or boat or on your pontoon boat, suction cups going to be good. And we've been really impressed with how well those have held up. I mean, we've tested those out, and they do a really good job of holding..

Andrew 05:34
I was nervous when we first when we first prototype that I thought, oh, man, I hope those suction cups now there's four of them. I hope those suction cups will hold up, but we sell a lot of them. And yeah, Matt, you take calls all day long, I think you really have never heard about

Matt 05:47
I haven't had anybody come back and say, hey, my phone charger keeps falling off my dash or my phone charger fell and broke my phone or I haven't got a single call about that.

Andrew 05:56
It that is a real good gift option too. You know, we talked about how boaters or boaters are difficult to shop for because everyone spends their time on the water a little bit different, you know, and certainly we talked about customizing your boat. That's a pretty big ask. But you know, with suction cups, it's a plug and play set in place. So it's pretty good gift option.

Matt 06:15
And that's a good, that's a good option for passengers on the boat. I mean, you can put them up on the bow, you can mount them pretty much anywhere you want. So someone has a place to set it.

Andrew 06:22
Which is good point. I mean, you think about families, a lot of times now you've got four or five, six phones, right? You ever to figure out what to do,

Matt 06:28
Right? It's like I'm the captain, my phone goes on the dash, you guys figure out what you want to do. Now the only other thing that I can really say about the phone holders, the ones that I really like are like the Rokk Minis, because they have different styles of interchangeable bases for the same phone or iPad mount. So you can have one that's screwed in down in the cabin of your trawler, and you can mount your iPad you've got you know, like a TV screen there. Essentially you can watch Netflix, whatever you can take that off that mount, go up to the rail mount on the bridge, strap it in, plug in your charger and pull up the Navionics app and use it as a second screen. And just the versatility of those mounts I've been really impressed with and they are solid mounts. Yeah, they hold very well.

Luke 07:09
That's one of those things too. You go to the sandbar and you want to have a cool part on your boat. Inductive charging phone holder. That's just a cool upgrade that everybody likes. Yeah.