Review Cygnett Magmount 360

[PranK]

Review Cygnett Magmount 360

I am extremely fussy when it comes to phone mounts. I don't want my phone mounted on the windshield, its either too far away or its in my line of sight, two things I hate. 

My previous phone mount is the Car Cup Mount by Belkin which is fantastic but my Mazda and Passat have the cup holders down next to the handbrake while my Bora has the cup holders above the stereo. Having to look down next to the handbrake to see Google Maps or change Spotify track is dangerous and when trying to navigate a new place, its a bit stressful. So, while the Belkin is perfect in my Bora I needed something new for the other cars.

Enter the Cygnett Magmount 360. 

As you can see from the site and pictures, this is advertised as either a dash or glass mount. You stick the little chrome ball somewhere and then, using magnets, you stick your phone to it.

The magnets are strong and you can either place a thin one inside your phone case or stick one, using double sided tape, to the back of your phone or phone case. In my scenario I stuck it to the back of the case because I didnt want the inside magnet to scratch the back of my phone.

As soon as I did this, my wireless charging stopped working. Ok, so I can live with that even if it takes some getting used to (i naturally place my phone on the charging mat at work and dont even think about charging it, now I have to keep remembering to plug it in.)

Then it came to mounting the little chrome ball. I was skeptical at first, I know how finicky dashboards are to stick things to (we've all stuck various guages down over the years, we all know how hard this can be.) But I was certain that a product advertised as a sticky dash mount had to work, right? 

Wrong. What a monumental failure. Nice clean dash, found one of the few flat spots, peeled off the cover and pushed it down for 4 minutes or so. As soon as I released my hand it just dropped off. Now the tape was ruined, so I got my hardcore mounting tape (used for various things around my fish tank, takes a prying screwdriver to remove). Same problem. Both the Mazda dash (hard smooth plastic piece) and Bora dash (softer pleather) refused to hold it. 

The fact is, the foot of the little ball is just so small that any weight will start to tilt it over. I simply cannot see how this would stick to ANY dash without the use of Super Glue or Sugru. The design is flawed. The little chrome ball is already quite weighty, its a solid metal ball. It can't even hold its own weight, I never even got the change to stick my phone to it as it already failed.

If you were sticking this to glass, you may have better luck, but the contact patch is far too small to make it a solid fitting. 

All in all, a massive waste of $25 (on special at JB). 

I give this 1 star and strenuously recommend you consider alternatives. 

 

 

[admS15]

I noticed these at Mr Minnit at the local shops asking 54.95. Thanks for the write up. Scratched from my potential list. I feel sorry for people who have forked out Mr Minnit tax on these. LOL.

[PranK]

1 minute ago, admS15 said:

I noticed these at Mr Minnit at the local shops asking 54.95. Thanks for the write up. Scratched from my potential list. I feel sorry for people who have forked out Mr Minnit tax on these. LOL.

Holy smokes! I reckon $30 is borderline for these small mounts. 

I've ordered a good vent mount. Hopefully its better. I'll do a write up when I get it.

[admS15]

Holy smokes! I reckon $30 is borderline for these small mounts. 
I've ordered a good vent mount. Hopefully its better. I'll do a write up when I get it.

Yeah, my jaw dropped when he told me the price. Surprisingly, there was quite a few missing from the display he had, so some poor suckers got taken for a ride.

[Sophie from Cygnett]

Hi Prank, I just saw your post. I'm from Cygnett and I wanted to find out a bit more about what surface the car mount was stuck to? It sounds like the surface is resistant to anything adhesive given you have tested it with another adhesive.  I mounted my MagMount 360 on the right of my steering wheel over a smooth plastic part (no doubt that's covering what would be a functional button if it was sold OS) and it's solid as a rock. 

Perhaps the MagMount Vent Car Mount would better suit? https://www.cygnett.com/products/magmount-magnetic-vent-car-mount 

[PranK]

Hi Sophie, thanks for joining the conversation.

The mount was tested in two cars and on two very different dashboards and dashboard angles (one very flat and hard plastic). The weight of the phone and ball were just too much for the base and it pulled it off every time. Using mounting tape as well it simply wouldn't stay put. My opinion is that the foot is too small for any weight (your experiences contradict this though.)

If you'd like to send me the vent mount to test I would happily, but at this stage I wont be buying another Cygnett product. 

Thanks again for posting. 

[Sophie from Cygnett]

Thanks Prank, nice to be here  I'm puzzled as to why it didn't stick on the flat hard surface  That 3M stuff is super strong! I'm actually not sure how I would remove it if I wanted to and mine is just about vertical. I'll take a pic for you. 

Sure - how can I get your address? I'd like to challenge your dislike of Cygnett stuff though. We have some seriously good stuff. 

Have a good weekend! 

 

[KiwiRS4T]

I was an Uber driver for six months (in a Prius of course, not an RB) and tried every phone mount I could find. Ideally I needed a long arm windscreen mount as nowhere on the dash was suitable but  all broke or failed in some way. Uber requires a lot of operating the touch screen so that gives it a hard work - out. Vent mounts were not stable enough but I ended up getting a vent mount and screwing it to the vent (not an ideal scenario!!).

[PranK]

3 hours ago, Sophie from Cygnett said:

Thanks Prank, nice to be here  I'm puzzled as to why it didn't stick on the flat hard surface  That 3M stuff is super strong! I'm actually not sure how I would remove it if I wanted to and mine is just about vertical. I'll take a pic for you. 

Sure - how can I get your address? I'd like to challenge your dislike of Cygnett stuff though. We have some seriously good stuff. 

Have a good weekend! 

 

Sophie, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong. I have no problems eating my own words and I'd love to give it a try. I'll PM you my address. In the meantime I'd love to see your's mounted (not calling you a liar, just interested to see).

1 hour ago, KiwiRS4T said:

I was an Uber driver for six months (in a Prius of course, not an RB) and tried every phone mount I could find. Ideally I needed a long arm windscreen mount as nowhere on the dash was suitable but  all broke or failed in some way. Uber requires a lot of operating the touch screen so that gives it a hard work - out. Vent mounts were not stable enough but I ended up getting a vent mount and screwing it to the vent (not an ideal scenario!!).

I can imagine how this would be a prob. Most taxi drivers have some hideous bolt-on solution or they hold their phone which is not ideal. 

[V28VX37]

Not to hijack the thread but I bought a Ram Mount based on the recommendation on the Harry's LapTimer site. It has a very sturdy adjustable arm and I use the X-grip end in normal daily use with an iPhone (with a case on). For track I have the moulded iPhone mount that holds the phone very well. I've been happy with the setup and have yet to have the arm fall off once, unlike the cheapie one that I had before. The only issues are the need to have different ends for a phone with/without case, and the fact that you need two hands two put phone in or pull it out of either holder.

[Sophie from Cygnett]

Hi Prank,

I have the photo for you  Please excuse the bizarre choice of string, that's all I could find. I also have a video if you'd like to see that, but we're not talking quality production. I was trying to think of how to visually show you how strong the hold is, while walking around the supermarket, so I grabbed what I saw... a 1 kg box of flour. So I think it might be about the surface it's stuck onto - what do you think? 

Cheers, Sophie

[Sophie from Cygnett]

here it is from the side... 

btw, apologies for the filthy floor! 

[Daleo]

I'm using a Scosche Magic mount setup in 3 of my cars; best phone mount I've ever used.

Works perfectly through a variety of different cases.

http://www.scosche.net.au/about-magic-mount.html

[Yo-Yo]

On 9/29/2016 at 5:43 PM, Sophie from Cygnett said:

I'd like to challenge your dislike of Cygnett stuff though. We have some seriously good stuff. 

Have a good weekend! 

 

Hi Sophie, I currently have an irrational dislike of Cygnett & I'd like to challenge you to provide some free samples to myself and a few of my fellow forum members so that we can indeed determine if Cygnett has some "good stuff" 

[Daleo]

11 hours ago, Yo-Yo said:

Hi Sophie, I currently have an irrational dislike of Cygnett & I'd like to challenge you to provide some free samples to myself and a few of my fellow forum members so that we can indeed determine if Cygnett has some "good stuff" 

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that "Sophie from Cygnett" has a vested interest, and that her opinion may be a tiny bit biased.

[z00key]

Have subbed for info on this. I currently am using a very similar product to this called a steelie. When I 1st mounted it and put my phone on it within 5 mins fell off thought was no good then read the manual and states install steel ball on dash and allow tape to cure for min 12hrs before use so retried and has beeñ on solid since. Will put pic up later.

[PranK]

So, unfortunately, my replacement from @Sophie from Cygnett did the same thing as the first one.

I cleaned all surfaces before this. I didn't clean with anything oily like Armour All. I tried it ONLY in my Mazda as the dash is all hard plastic (as opposed to my VW's that have leather/pleather dashboards). Even the very smooth dash plastic on the Mazda would not stick to the mount. I held the mount in place for over a minute on each one (and changed the sticky pad between tests) and neither provided much stability at all. 

The top of the dash held the best but I couldn't remove my phone from the mount without pulling it off. I reckon it'd work if I used some Sugru, but then it'd be hard to get Sugru off the plastic. 

@Sophie from Cygnett I just do not understand how you got yours to be as strong as that. I just had no indication of it being even remotely stable during these tests.

Note that the air vent mount was properly good and I'll write that review shortly.

[Daleo]

9 minutes ago, PranK said:

So, unfortunately, my replacement from @Sophie from Cygnett did the same thing as the first one.

I cleaned all surfaces before this. I didn't clean with anything oily like Armour All. I tried it ONLY in my Mazda as the dash is all hard plastic (as opposed to my VW's that have leather/pleather dashboards). Even the very smooth dash plastic on the Mazda would not stick to the mount. I held the mount in place for over a minute on each one (and changed the sticky pad between tests) and neither provided much stability at all. 

The top of the dash held the best but I couldn't remove my phone from the mount without pulling it off. I reckon it'd work if I used some Sugru, but then it'd be hard to get Sugru off the plastic. 

@Sophie from Cygnett I just do not understand how you got yours to be as strong as that. I just had no indication of it being even remotely stable during these tests.

Note that the air vent mount was properly good and I'll write that review shortly.

What a shock.

Magic Mount FTW.

[z00key]

This is my mount works really well called a steelie

[PranK]

Thats what the Cygnett one looks like. But, it refuses to stick on anything.

Hopefully @Sophie from Cygnett has some insight.