My favorite spot for mounting a cell phone is also the safest, which is right behind your steering wheel. Fortunately the Bronco has a little indent in the dash, with just enough room for your cell phone to mount. This is a perfect little honey-spot, there's enough clearance for your hands while driving, yet still close enough where you can use your phone with your hands still on the steering wheel...how cool is that!!
I know it sounds weird to say, but I feel operating your phone like this is actually safer than using your radio or even looking at your gauge cluster. As you're driving, your eyes are on the road, right? Well with the phone here, just behind the steering wheel, your eyes have to move further away from the road to see your gauges, and even further still to look down at your radio infotainment center. It puts your phone adjacent to the line of sight while driving, yet doesn't actually block any view of the road. Plus you can reach the phone with your fingers while your hand stays on the wheel.
Unfortunately there's not a good surface right there for a universal phone mount to go there...the bronco dash surface just doesn't hold adhesive well. But fortunately, the Bronco included an Accessory Ready mount, and we've got the perfect solution.
The first option is to get a Full Shebang BYOD Rail and a Small Economy extension arm. This little arm is sized just right for the perfect placement right where you need it, and it's got a low profile, so it doesn't impede your view. It is an economy arm made from plastic, so it does have some wiggle, but it's fairly minimal and does not affect any performance, even if you're taking video footage with your phone, you won't notice it. You can use any of our phone mounts, the small, large, or MagSafe, although it's intended to only hold the phone in portrait mode, depending on your phone you may be able to put it in landscape mode.
The other option is to get the Extended Gimbal Arm, which would work with the Full Shebang or Slingshot BYOD Dash rail. The advantage of this is it gives you a bit more flexibility in exactly where to put your phone, getting a little bit closer/further from you, higher/lower, or getting the angle to your preference, and makes landscape mode super easy. The extended gimbal arm is all aluminum and very robust, and allows for any configuration you need, although it is slightly bulkier than the plastic arm.
Some Off-Road trail map apps don't link up to your infotainment screen, so if you look to a configuration like this you can keep your trail maps right there keeping track of everything. I suppose you could also pull up a movie on your phone while driving, but I'm not sure I'd condone that.
What do you think, is this safer than using the radio? Or should you keep your phone down and just drive? Either way you choose, be safe out there!
