Wireless Qi charging appears to be the future for smartphones; even the latest iPhones include wireless charging. But some of us haven’t yet upgraded to the latest wirelessly-charged iPhones yet, and further, some of might prefer not to. ElevationLab has been designing and building well-engineered, durable and aesthetically pleasing smartphone accessories for years, going back to their original ElevationDock (which I owned and really liked). Their latest product, the CordDock, is a bit of a transformer in that it, “combines the flexibility of a cord, with the benefits of a dock, in one ultra-compact design.” Here’s how it works: Pull up to undock your iPhone one-handed like normal, or rotate forward to take the cord with you! Simple. Made from machined stainless steel and polymer components with a matte finish, it includes a micro-suction underside to help it stay put on smooth surfaces, and it can even be adjusted to be used with cases of different thicknesses. The price tag is very reasonable at $39.00. Visit ElevationLab for more info or to order.
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I ordered one a week ago and it should be here shortly. I’ll post more info once I try it out. I’m a long time fan of Elevation having purchased a number of their original solid aluminum iPhone docks.
This one has great potential. I’ve been using an induction charging dock for my iPhone X and haven’t been very pleased. It’s difficult to hit the spot for induction to start – I’ve woken up a couple of times and found that my phone had not charged.
Of course you also can’t use the phone while you’re using an induction charger so this is the best of both worlds. And the micro suction (gecko) base if it’s the same as they’ve been using really sticks to the table without adhesive.
My only issue is that since it’s using a dedicated Lightning cable will it hold up and be long enough.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Thanks for visiting and commenting here, Alan!
I agree with all of your comments (though I’ve not yet tried an induction charger, since I don’t yet have an iPhone that is capable of it).
I was looking at that Lightning cable as well, and I can’t tell if its actually a dedicated cable, or if it has some type of right-angled “L” adapter that can be put onto any Lightning cable.
Let us know how it goes!
It’s a 6′, braided dedicated cable that comes with the dock. It has a 90 degree end and it’s MFi certified.
I just sent their support a note to see how much replacement cables will cost and if they’re going to sell different length ones.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Good call on that, Alan. I was thinking the same thing about replacement cables!
So I got my Corddock yesterday and only used it one day. It’s kind of a shock how small it is. I’m used to ElevationLab iPhone docks machined from an aluminum block – this is just a little spindly thing. They do tout the small footprint as a selling feature – I’m not so sure.
In any case the Dock comes with a dedicated 6′ high quality Lightning cable with a proprietary 90 degree Lightning connector. I say proprietary because of the locking mechanism. The docks has 2 small steel balls backed by springs which detent into corresponding round divots in the cable. You can’t possibly use a generic cable.
The detents keep the cable secure – there’s no play when you pull your iPhone off of the connector. However if you tip your phone towards you the balls retract and the cable pops off the dock leaving you free to carry it around. You have to press the connector back onto the dock and the balls lock it back in.
This is actually scary to me. The force of the iPhone is all being directed to the Lighting connector as you tip the phone. I hope Elevation has done a lot of testing on this. I also wonder if this will eventually cause the Lighting port to become less tight and thereby less reliable? Who knows?
The docks has adjustable screws with a large surface area to provide support to the rear of your iPhone. These have a large travel so you can connect pretty much any iPhone with any size case. The base of the dock has removable pads so that you can adjust the height of the base as it comes in contact with the bottom of the case. The dock includes a thick set of pads and a thin set – they attach magnetically. I do wish they had some sort of storage spot on the dock – they’re going to be lost just when someone needs them.
The other feature is that the dock has a pad of Gecko tape (micro-suction) which is designed to stick without adhesive to smooth, clean surfaces. Sadly I have not been able to give this much of a test as my nightstand surface isn’t smooth enough. I’m trying to figure out a work around. At work however my desk is very smooth and it sticks like no body’s business.
It definitely makes the CordDock a 1 handed dock. You have to pry the dock up with something very thin to break the suction before you can more it. The CordDock has a film over the gecko tape with a perforation so you can peel off 1/4 or the whole surface depending on how much suction you need.
It’s really cool stuff – you can purchase a sheet at Amazon to play around with.
Anyways it’s a nice dock and you have the advance of max speed charging for your new phones and a high amp charger – faster than any induction charger could go. Once I figure out how to get it to stick to my night stand I can give it a good try out vs my current cheap induction charging stand.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Wow, great info, Alan! Thank you!
I’ve read that Apple poorly implemented the Qi charge by connecting it to the battery instead of the phone connector. Thus, wireless charging runs more battery cycles.
Huh? Anything like a source?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-x8-wireless-charging-will-wear-out-the-battery-faster-than-cable-charging/