Attaching the tablet to a vertical surface with your own hands. Ways to install a tablet holder in a car

Tablets have already firmly taken the place of car GPS navigators. This is convenient and practical, since in addition to navigation software, we also get thousands of additional features that Android or IOS provide us with.

As soon as we started talking about tablets and their functionality, some of you, dear readers, definitely had a thought on the topic - “But it can also be used as a DVR!” This is absolutely true; a good tablet can serve as a quality recorder. Therefore, we will also pay attention to this plus when choosing the most practical car holder.

Variety of car holders

In general, holders for smartphones, tablets or specialized navigators are practically no different. Except for the size, color and perverted ideas of the designer. There are quite a lot of types of holders and when you get into a special store, you can get stuck there for a long time, looking at each one. Of the main and most popular, the following list can be distinguished: universal, frame, branded universal and simply branded holders, as well as holders in the form of various shapes, mats (they are also called nanopad).

If you don’t want to bother too much with choosing the most convenient holder, then feel free to opt for universal ones.

Such holders, already based on their name, make it clear that they have height and width adjustments, so such a holder can fit a tablet of any shape, both vertically and horizontally. But it’s worth knowing that there are both 7-inch and 10-inch tablets. Therefore, choose a holder based on this indicator.

As I wrote above, there are also branded models. However, it is still very rare for a company to release a special one for a regular tablet with a GPS module. holder, only a few have been awarded this. But a universal branded holder is much easier to find; the tablet and the holder will complement each other, so it’s more prestigious, or something.

Where should I attach it?

This is where your imagination will take you. Usually there are only a couple of places for mounting holders, and therefore navigators in a car: on the dashboard, to the left or to the right (on the glass) of the driver. Again, you should look at the dimensions of your tablet, for example, a 4-5” smartphone will look good everywhere, both on the right on the glass and to the left of the driver, or mounted on the ventilation grill using special clothespins. With a tablet things are completely different. If the car is a passenger car and, especially if the tablet is 10 inches.

Let's look at each case separately. 7 inch tablet.
You may find it convenient if it hangs to your left. There are two places where you can place it. The first is the ventilation grille, it is attached there using clothespins, naturally not clothespins. Well, if space allows, in the upper left corner of the windshield, using a holder with suction cups. In my humble opinion, it’s not worth sculpting on door glass, it’s risky, because the door often opens, and sometimes, in the heat of the moment, it slams shut.

To the right of the steering wheel, you can attach it again to the glass, then we also get the opportunity to film, that is, a full-fledged video recorder. You can mount it on a dashboard, you can use an adhesive mat for fastening, it will hold the tablet perfectly, the main thing is that the surface is more or less flat.

With 10 inches, you can forget about mounting on the left side of the steering wheel, unless, of course, your car is of British manufacture. On the right we attach it to the glass using a holder with suction cups or in the same way as the 7” to the dashboard. In turn, a smartphone can be placed anywhere you like, so you can think about using this gadget as a navigator.

Oh, and also, if there are children or a young wife in the cabin who doesn’t like to sit in the front, then the tablet can be used to play movies, then, naturally, it is hung in the middle of the windshield.

We are asking the price for holders

Now I found it necessary to indicate certain companies and models of holders, as well as their cost at the time of writing.

The universal Capdase Tab-X Suction Duo holder is perfect for Apple products.

It can easily hold an iPad of any version, firstly, because iPads themselves are lightweight compared to other tablets, and secondly, because the holder has two powerful suction cups at once. This thing costs from 1500 rubles to 1800 in online stores.

For tablets and smartphones that are not Apple products, there are two leading companies in the production of holders: Gekko and Drobak. Geckos are more specialized in sticky mats, they are of good quality and are not very expensive. For example, Gekko NANO PAD will cost you 170-200 rubles. Naturally, there are models that are more expensive.

Drobak produces mostly conventional or universal car holders. The GlobalHold universal model T01LH costs from 600 rubles.

The familiar Prestigio also produces interesting and reliable holders. For Samsung ES 3rd there is an iGrip car holder Samsung Galaxy S3 (T5-94400), the cost of which is about 800-900 rubles.

Which tablets are most often used as a navigator?

In my opinion, and not only in my opinion, the best option would be an iPad or iPad mini. These are, by far, the most productive and high-quality tablets. Everything about them is of high quality, both the GPS module and the cameras, so you can’t find a better tablet as a DVR. But naturally, their cost is very high for most car owners.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, small and fast, will be an excellent navigator. However, it is also not cheap; you will have to pay from 23,000 to 25,000 rubles for it.

Explay Onliner 1 will be a good budget option. Like a tablet, quite weak by today's standards, but immediately equipped with Navitel and fasteners. Its cost is 6-7 thousand rubles.

Digma iDnD7 8Gb 3G, similar to Xplay Online. They practically do not differ from each other, both in characteristics and in price. True, Digma is not so easy to get today.

The Goclever TAB T76 GPS TV tablet will be an interesting discovery for you, since, among other things, it also has a built-in TV with an antenna. Yes, and the price is reasonable.

Acer Iconia Tab B1-A71, costing about 4 thousand, will perfectly play the role of a navigator. And compact, and quite powerful, stylish.

Bottom line

You can choose any tablet, the main condition is the presence of GPS. For Yandex traffic, it is also desirable to have 3G, but you can also communicate through a phone in your pocket. Well, if anyone wants to have an “All in One”, that is, also a DVR, then you need a tablet with a camera of 5 or more megapixels.
As for the fastenings, it’s all individual. As was said, if you want something simple, take a universal mount. If you want something exclusive, unique, then you’ll have to search and pay more.

Option 1. Mounting using a holder (store bought)

With this holder you can easily and quickly secure the tablet with your own hands. The kit includes a suction cup for glass and adjustable holding legs. You can mount it on the glass, or on the dashboard.

Don't want to go on glass? Using double-sided tape and self-tapping screws, you can firmly and securely attach the holder to the panel.

Option 2. Homemade wire fastening

This fastening is very easy to make from a piece of stainless wire or knitting needles. The tablet must be in a book-type case.

First you need to drill two holes in the panel with a diameter slightly larger than the thickness of the wire so that it fits tightly there. Then the frame bends. The book cover opens and simply hangs on this frame.

Option 3. Using a U-shaped profile

This is already semi-professional work. The U-shaped profile is actually used to create a shelf in which the tablet stands. An arc with screws bends from a thick strip of duralumin, which will serve for fastening to the panel.

Option 4. The cheapest

Everything is simple here. You need a lanyard with a lock. These are often used in clothing. And such a lace is threaded through the book cover. All. Oh yes, a phone holder, for example, must be firmly fixed to the panel. It will serve as a hook on which the tablet will hang.

With the advent of smartphones and tablets with GPS chips, the era of navigators has come to an end. If a few years ago, car navigation was the prerogative of navigators from TomTom or Garmin, now almost every budget smartphone can show you the way to the nearest city. The ability to easily update maps and more accurate navigation thanks to data from the Internet, a multimedia complex in the form of Internet access, watching videos and listening to music make smartphones and tablets universal devices, relieving the car owner of unnecessary devices. The cost of budget tablets makes it easy to replace a car's navigator, and, if desired, a multimedia system. Where and how to secure the tablet in the car?

Depending on the diagonal size of the tablet screen, the methods for placing it in the cabin may vary. If the display diagonal is 7 inches and the weight does not exceed 400-500 grams, then it is much easier to place the tablet on a special stand with a suction cup. Holders are most often used to mount navigators.

This mounting method allows you to place the tablet in the car at any desired angle thanks to the bendable leg and rotating mechanism. But tablet PCs with a large display diagonal (8.9-10 inches), alas, cannot be placed using a cradle.

However, on sale there are cradle with a suction cup and a slightly modified method of attachment. In addition to the fulcrum on the windshield, the bracket has adjustable legs that touch the car's dashboard. Thus, the lower part of the tablet literally “lies” parallel to the center console of the car.

Many car enthusiasts, wondering how to secure a tablet in a car, sometimes forget about simple folk methods. So, most motorists use a book cover and a piece of wire for fastening, the ends of which are inserted into the slots of the torpedo air ducts.

If we are talking about placing a tablet for rear passengers, then, as a rule, special holders are used that are attached to the headrests of the front seats.

But when using a tablet in a car, do not forget about driving safety. Remember that driving safety comes first. The tablet should not block the driver’s view or distract him from the flow of traffic.

March 4, 2014 at 10:41 pm

Attaching a tablet to a vertical surface with your own hands

COOLRF Blog

Let's dream a little and draw a portrait of a “smart switch” in our imagination. This is something flat, hanging on the wall, or even built into it. Instead of the usual push-button switch. Something with a bright, responsive touch screen. Which is turned off in idle mode, but begins to glow at half power when a person approaches and lights up at full power when you bring your hand to the screen, displaying in all its glory the local controls of engineering systems. Using the built-in wi-fi, the “switch” can communicate both with the Internet and with other “switches” scattered along the walls of the smart home. The “switch” contains a microphone and speaker, understands voice commands in different languages and can say something in response.

The “switch” has a standard wall mounting scheme, runs on a built-in battery and is charged from a wireless charger mounted inside the wall. Any “switch” can be removed from its “seat” and moved to another, for example, from a corridor to a large room. In this case, the function will automatically change - it will control the room chandelier, and not the corridor lamp. When unhooked from the wall, the “switch” also automatically switches to the wireless remote control mode for all engineering systems of the house.

“Utopia” - you will say and you will be wrong. Today, most Chinese inexpensive tablets already have all the necessary hardware capabilities to implement such a scenario. All that remains is to learn how to properly mount them on the walls, charge them with wireless chargers (by the way, also already widely available and relatively inexpensive) and write the required software. The road ahead is long, but you can start walking it today.

Below the cut is a small experiment with attaching a 7" tablet to a vertical surface with magnets.

Requisites

The first experiment will be performed on a wooden surface. To carry out the plan, a specially prepared board was purchased from a hardware store, and the favorite, albeit very dangerous, toy “daddy’s screwdriver” was temporarily taken away from the three-year-old son with a scandal:

We will attach the device to three points. For the experiment, six pairs of magnets of two sizes were purchased - with a diameter of 10 and 14 mm. In each pair, one of the magnets is a thin disk (for fastening with double-sided tape to the back side of the tablet), the second is a thick disk with a central hole for a self-tapping screw with a countersunk head (the so-called magnetic ring, for fastening to a vertical surface, in our experiment it was a wooden board). This is what a 14mm magnetic ring looks like:

We also purchased the necessary consumables for drilling and screwing:

Two types of self-tapping screws were purchased, since it was not clear which ones would fit better into the magnets. It turned out that 12x3.0mm fit perfectly, smaller ones were not needed. There are two types of drills for two standard sizes of magnets - 10mm and 14mm.

Selecting a tablet

We didn’t have an extra tablet, so for the purposes of the experiment we specially ordered an inexpensive Chinese 7-inch Larude tablet. This is a 7" tablet with a regular TFT screen, a fairly fast processor, a large amount of built-in memory (1GB RAM + 8GB flash), a fairly responsive touchpad, rubbery plastic to the touch and a non-removable battery (and a non-opening back cover, respectively).

The ideal “wall tablet” should have the following characteristics:

Have an IPS screen so that information can be easily read regardless of the height of the owner of the smart home;
Have a flat back wall to securely mount flat magnets or metal plates;
Have a regular plastic or metal back surface, without “rubberization”, for high-quality fastening of double-sided tape;
Support wireless charging function, or have a removable back cover for installing a separately sold wireless charging receiver;

Looking at the list of requirements, it's clear that we didn't think much when ordering our first tablet. It is small, fits comfortably in your hands, handles interface transitions very smoothly, but is poorly suited for wall placement. Well, let's use it in this experiment, and then we'll give it to a three-year-old child to be torn to pieces. Fortunately, a bunch of children's programs are already installed on it from the factory.

Magnet placement

We need to place the magnets as perfectly as possible on both the “wall” and the device. Without relying on our eye, we used the full power of modern technology and printed several identical templates. One of them was posted on the board:

Marked holes:

After drilling, it turned out that the thickness of the board was not enough. It is not possible to secure magnets with self-tapping screws:

Nevertheless, the magnets entered the drilled holes “with a creak”; the insufficient thickness of the board could not ruin our experiment:

We cut another copy of the template along the contour of the rectangle and attach it to the back wall with a magnet (it turned out that, although not strongly, the magnets “stick” to the tablet itself):

We put the magnets in their places, aligning them with the contours on the piece of paper, and carefully trace them with a pencil. We get the following contours in the right places:

We prepare the reciprocal parts of the magnets for gluing to the tablet:

It is important not to confuse the polarity, otherwise you will get the opposite effect - the tablet will bounce off the “wall” rather than be attracted. It is also important to choose the right tape. After gluing we get:

Experiment

The result of combining the board and tablet is visible in the title photo. Our goal was to test the strength of such a connection. Agree, it would be a shame to find your even inexpensive “wall-mounted” tablet falling off and broken due to weak magnets. In this video you can see what “loads” this mount can withstand:

Thus, the magnetic mount provides a more than stable attachment of the tablet to a vertical surface. Let's be honest, our fastener later fell off when trying to disengage. But it fell apart at the place where it was attached with adhesive tape, which was not at all optimal (on a soft substrate) and was glued to an inappropriate surface. Therefore, this post-peel-off cannot be considered a failure of the experiment.

The next step (which most likely will not happen soon) will be an experiment with mounting on a real wall and wireless charging placed in a standard glass from a regular switch.