Droid 2 Global and Rapid Car Charger on Garmin Friction Mount

Being both a long time GPS development engineer (now retired) as well as a commercial GPS user, I've used the Garmin Friction (or "bean bag") mount in my car for many years. It's reliable, easy to move out of sight and great for moving to an alternate vehicle whenever that need arises. Additionally, for California driving in particular, using the bean bag mount is a good alternative to mounting the GPS device to the windshield--illegal in that state.

With the advent of smart phones and their very useful, somewhat sophisticated GPS navigation capabilities, I finally did buy one ... a Droid 2 Global. The GPS driven goal of using this phone was to be able to attach it to my Garmin friction mount, for the reasons given above.

Some online research led me to the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger device for the Droid 2. This product works as is for the Droid 2 Global and there are different models for other phones (such as Droid X). So I had part of my answer but hadn't yet found a connection device that would let me hook it up to the bean bag mount.

Enter ProClipUSA and their "2 Prong (Dual T) Adapter Plate with Tilt Swivel" (P/N 215199). Coupled with their P/N 215049, the "Angled extension plate for use with the Garmin Friction mount", I felt that I finally had the answer I was looking for. In the process of researching and exchanging emails to get to this point, however, I became aware that there were concerns and issues with mounting the phone into the Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger while the phone was still in its case. Most of the comments ended in hints that the only case(s) that would fit were produced by Motorola (big surprise, eh?). But my new phone was already fitted with a Seidio Innocase. I like this case because it gives the phone a great feel, it is very easy to "get a grip" on and, bottom line, I'm loath to give it up. But moving forward on the "GPS mounted in the car" front might mean I'd have to give the case up ... if it just totally wouldn't work. Time would tell the story and I'll show you what I did and how all the parts go together in the rest of this article.


This is the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger--the installation of which is the subject of this article. Note the phone power (micro-USB) connector extending up from near the bottom, just left of center. The phone must insert smoothly over this power connector.


This picture shows the rear view of the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger (which I'll call the "Car Mount" from this point on). Note the micro-USB power connect plugin on the lower left. This is where power from the (included) 12V car "cigarette lighter" cable is received by the car mount. The center section contains the dual "T" mounting slots and this is what must be adapted to the Garmin Friction mount.


Here is the ProClipUSA dual "T" adapter (P/N 215199) already attached to the Angled Extension plate (P/N 215049). In this configuration, it is capable of swiveling, turning and it is ready to install directly into the Garmin Friction mount. Note the dual tabs and, returning to the previous picture, it's easy to see how they fit into the Car Mount.


Note the closeup detail here of the left interior corner of the Car Mount. In particular, notice the small lip that extends in from the inner edge. The purpose of this lip is to provide "in and out" horizontal support to keep the mounted phone in place on the Car Mount. We'll go into more detail later on why this is an issue for phone cases.


This is the Droid 2 "insert" for the car mount. Being a well designed device, the Car Mount allows for the Droid 2 (or Droid 2 Global) to be inserted with or without having a case attached. This insert uses up the extra space that a case would normally use just "in case" you'd like to use your phone without the case. If the insert was not present the phone would not be stable in the mount and would essentially be held in place by the power connector only. That would be a non-workable design. Just pop in the insert and the phone fits perfectly.


This shows the "no case" adapter insert being slid into place on the car mount.


And, finally, this shows the Car Mount with the Droid 2 insert adapter fully installed. The difference with and without the insert is subtle but can easily be seen by comparing this to the 1st picture of this article (which shows the Car Mount *without* the Droid 2 insert). Note that the Car Mount comes with the insert installed so it must be removed to work with a phone that remains in its case. Also, there is a second insert supplied that allows using the original Droid phone (although I cannot comment on how it works as I don't have that phone to test it with). For this project, we are not interested in using the Droid 2 insert since it's best to mount the phone while it remains in its regular case, so we remove it.


This is the Garmin Friction mount. It has a bit of heft to it and is coupled with a non-skid bottom surface so that it does a very good job of staying wherever it is placed on your dash. While this unit is specifically from Garmin, similar (and compatible) mounts may be purchased from 3rd party vendors at such stores as Target.


Here is the ProClip mount (pictured earlier) attached to the Garmin Friction mount. It is now clear that all we need to accomplish is to successfully attach the Car Mount to the "dual T" mounting tabs on the ProClip and we'll be most of the way there.


And so we have it. All the critical components (sans power) together in one spot with the exception of the Droid 2 Global phone itself. At this point, it's probably best if I elaborate on an earlier comment regarding concerns about using "whatever case" one would like to use on the phone, and not having to remove that case just to mount the phone in the Car Mount. Alas, I found, at first blush, that my Seidio Innocase would not "fit" into the car mount. The next picture, however, illustrates my solution to this problem.


This is a picture of the backside portion of my Seidio Innocase. For orientation purposes, the right (near vertical) edge is the bottom of the case. So the corner seen here is the lower right, looking from the front. What I did is quite simple and I think most people should have an easy time repeating it. Look closely and you can see that the edge at the top (which is the right-hand side of the case) looks fairly rough ... like it has been filed down. And so it has. After using a small, fine file to take out about 1/2 inch on both the lower right and lower left vertical sections of the case, it was able to slip past the "holding tabs" in the Car Mount and let the phone mate perfectly with the power connector. Check below for more detail pictures.


Here is a closeup of the Seidio Innocase, filed down per the previous paragraph. Note how the minor bit of filing allows it to slide down behind the Car Mount's "hold in" tabs. This is the only trick to getting this case to work and I suspect the same technique will be just as effective for other cases that might not fit the Car Mount when first tried.


And here is a picture of the Seidio Innocase for the Droid 2 Global successfully installed in the Car Mount. The small amount of filing done was in two spots that did not involve the case's "hold on" tabs for the phone and it had absolutely no functional effect on the case. The filing is also virtually impossible to see with the case attached to the phone. And, of course, it works!


Here is a closeup from the right rear of the Car Mount showing the connected power cord (from the vehicle power adapter).


Here is the completed project with the Droid 2 Global phone in the Car Mount and displaying the Motorola supplied application that automatically runs when the phone senses that it is connected to the Car Mount. The sharp eyed amongst you may notice that the hold down arm at the top of the mount has not yet been pushed down onto the phone (but see the next, and final, picture for that).


This final picture shows the completed project with phone installed and ready to be taken out to the car and plugged in. And it works well.

To summarize, the parts for this are available at ProClipUSA.com (P/N 215199 and 215049) and, among other places, Amazon.com for the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger. The Garmin Friction mount is available at numerous locations online and locally at stores like Target, WalMart, etc. This project specifically involved installation of the Droid 2 Global with a Seidio Innocase but it also works for the Droid 2. I strongly suspect that it will work for the Droid X (given the proper Car Mount model) and the corresponding Seidio Innocase but perhaps someone who actually implements this for the Droid X would be willing to comment on the success of their effort. I'm also confident that other cases will be able to be made to work but you have to look at them to see what specifically blocks them from mounting in order to determine that. And, of course, there appear to be one or more Motorola cases that are designed to work with this setup without additional modification.

I hope this has been useful to you and feel free to comment. Thanks!

Garmin Streetpilot 2820 Settings

Having resolved an interesting issue with my Garmin 2820 in the past 10 days or so, I thought I'd publish a few notes here on my observations, problems and steps taken to resolve them. This unit is one I've had for a few years now and I've been very happy with it, overall. While I'd like to say I bought it because my older (Garmin Streetpilot 2610, now discontinued) receiver was "adopted" by my (then) girlfriend, I confess that I also wanted Bluetooth phone capability and, well, it's always fun to play with new toys, eh? Plus I was making good money as a systems engineer and so the price wasn't a big factor ... enter the Streetpilot 2820.

All that said, my experience with commercial GPS receivers is that they are usually quite user friendly but there are settings in the units that sometimes result in receiver outputs that are unexpected and/or difficult to understand. By the way, one of the most useful settings (to me, anyway) is found by going to the Settings>Navigation 2nd page. There you will find "Off-Route Recalculation:" and in a great step towards eliminating unnecessary noise in the cockpit, you can set it to "Auto (Silent)". Without doing this, anytime you are navigating a route and make a turn that is not "correct", according to the Garmin, it announces "Off route, recalculating", repeating it ad nauseam until you "return to the path". By setting it to "Auto (Silent)", two things are accomplished simultaneously: anytime you leave the route a recalculation automatically starts and the voice announcing the recalculation process is (mercifully) silent. In a recent examination of a (newer receiver) Garmin Nuvi 750, I did not see a similar setting, so perhaps that's one thing that they've missed the boat on (although I didn't examine all the Nuvi settings in detail, so maybe it is there ... somewhere).

Back to the main point of this article ... on the same page, Settings>Navigation 2nd page, there is a setting called "Avoidance Setup". On its 3 pages of options, entries are made to do one of three things, Prefer, Avoid, Don't Avoid, for various road conditions. The settings are applicable to driving situations you may find yourself in, including 9 preset categories and a 10th called "Custom Avoids". The 9 preset categories for Avoidance setup are (in order): Major Roads, Medium Roads, Minor Roads, Traffic, Unpaved Roads, U-Turns, Toll Roads, Carpool Lanes and Ferries. Then, under "Custom Avoids", there are two subcategories: "Add New Avoid Area" and "Add New Avoid Road".

To touch briefly on Custom Avoids, this is a nice feature for (primarily) local operation but also, for example, if you are traveling to another city and are made aware that there are specific neighborhoods or streets that are to be preferred or avoided. The two subcategories allow the user to make selections by generating a 4 point "blocked off" area or simply by selecting beginning and ending points of a specific street. This is done directly off a map display. I have not used this feature but mention because it could easily be overlooked and it is pretty cool.

The original problem I ran into involved the first 3 settings identified above. For Major Roads, Medium Roads and Minor Roads, I had set Prefer, Prefer and Avoid, respectively. The reasoning being that I'd like to be on "better" roads than not and "Minor" roads felt like they would not be as good as the other two types. Additionally (although not related directly to this problem as far as I can tell), in deference to my motorcycle's performance and preference for dust/rocks/dirt avoidance, I had set "Unpaved Roads" to "Avoid". I do not know what the internal (to the receiver) definition is for these various road types but I have had multiple times where the Garmin would try to direct me in crazy directions and I never really suspected the road preference settings. Usually, as I now recall, the issues did involve minor vs. major roads and that should have tweaked me ... alas, live and (finally) learn is all I can say. Anyway, I had been again given the runaround as I tried to get to a somewhat "out in the country" address. The 2820 wanted me to go around an extra 1.5 miles or so when I was only .5 miles away via (what I would call) a "minor" road. Having finally had enough, I resolved to pull over and check out my preference settings. In the process, I changed "Minor Roads" to "Prefer" so that it now agreed with the other two (Major and Medium) road settings. To my surprise, it recalculated the route correctly, making me a happy camper (er, driver).

The point here is that the Avoidance settings may have unintended consequences and if you find yourself regularly routed down non-optimal roads, take a look at them and see if some changes might be in order. Perhaps "Minor" road avoidance might be important for, say, a large Recreational Vehicle. But it really was not a problem for my Camry or motorcycle. I am glad that there are categories for both Minor and Unpaved roads, however, as I do want to avoid Unpaved roads, if possible. Again, the "human in the loop" often has a better idea of the correct road to pick than the GPS receiver ... so don't hesitate to use your instincts from time to time. After all, GPS can always "rescue" you if you do get lost somewhere. And that can be a part of the adventure of it too. Happy navigating!