Bobine iPhone dock review
The Bobine is a flexible charging cable that’s rigid enough to hold your iPhone upright and act as a pretty good tripod for filming videos or using Facetime.
I gave the Bobine to one of my many bosses to test with, as the Apple products I have currently have the wrong connectors or are too heavy to work with the Bobine. Also, having a desktop computer with USB ports 4 & 1/2 inches from the ground rendered the usefulness of the Bobine to a minimum.
The Bobine works best when the USB port is really close to the surface you’re going to stand off of. It also works a lot better if you coil the Bobine up and then place the phone in as opposed to doing what we did which ended up plonking the employer’s iPhone onto the floor.
The Bobine brings to mind the Mountie in terms of usefulness. The ability to get the phone in the same plane as your laptop is and position it so you don’t have to look forward, then look down to focus.
I believe the best use scenario for the Bobine requires a laptop, a coffee shop, and a group of people who aren’t afraid of something that looks like a mechanical King Cobra. It’s good for scenarios where you want to stream or watch something on the phone while charging, or to film a video, but you’ll notice movement the higher up the phone is.
While it does an OK job of holding an iPhone, once you’ve got the base set up properly (remember, do that first, don’t be like me), it doesn’t appear grip down on the phone in any significant way. As such if your table gets whacked in the coffee shop scenario by someone afraid of mechanical King Cobras, there’s a good chance your iPhone is going to be headed toward the floor.
They also warn that some cases may need to be removed. This could make the mechanical King Cobra fear a greater risk to your iPhone.
Overall though, if you’re looking for a multi-use tripod or some way to work with your iPhone next to a laptop, it does well. It’s also armored against gerbil attacks.
The Bobine works with iPhones 5 on and is MFI certified, and it seems pretty well built.
The Bobine by Fuse Chicken is available from Amazon for $34.95.
