The arm itself can be rotated through 360° in 10° increments, and the head, which mounts on the other end, can also be spun in the same way. There’s no pitch adjustment in the head, but you can of course rotate the bar clamp to suit. Is it the bike’s engine vibration that’s causing the issue when it happens, or vibration from the road? Both versions of the mount come with two sets of expanding spacers, but the Pro’s are a different design with a slightly larger range of 12.4mm to 25.4mm. For either to work, the tube must be smooth internally with a minimum depth of 45mm – if there’s any lip inside it won’t fit. This is an issue with the Google phone, rather than the case, and it does seem to need a lot of power to wirelessly charge effectively.

The issue is attributed to the vibrations generated by the bike's engine, rather than the vibrations from the road. This is evidenced by the absence of any vibration issues occurring to phones when riding a bicycle on and off road. These issues seem to be predominantly with iPhones, and when I spoke to SP Connect, they confirmed that the vast majority of problems they’d come across were with Apple devices, and of these they were mainly the iPhone X, 11 and 12 series, but not the 12 Pro Max, which has Sensor-Shift OIS. They told me that issues with the iPhone 13 are very rare, with none reported on the 14, both of which use Sensor-Shift. They also pointed out that unlike on Apple devices, the OIS on Samsung is deactivated when the camera’s not being used.

Wrap Up

There are lots of mounts around, ranging from super cheap to super expensive. However, there are several key aspects to bear in mind. One is weather protection; some smartphones, such as later iPhones, purport to be water-resistant but frankly, are you going to risk it? I’m not. Designed to fix in place of the screws that hold the lid on many motorcycle and scooter brake / clutch reservoirs, this mount is a very clever design that opens up even more options. Two screws are used to fit the base, with a pair of 16mm and 18mm-long M4s supplied to replace the ones fitted to your bike. Make sure you use the right length, and don’t force them if they seem to be bottoming out.

Generally speaking, the more advanced the camera technology is, the more sensitive it is to high-frequency vibrations. Although there were occasional reports of issues in earlier versions, our team began to identify the major impacts of motorcycle frequencies on phones starting from the iPhone X model and onwards. The effects of frequency in earlier versions were relatively lower compared to subsequent models. Peak Design has a small selection of motorcycle mounts for its range of phone cases, though some of the prices are quite high.With the amount of tech built into modern smartphones, many riders only need them on their bikes instead of standalone sat navs, for example. I’m one of those – I use Google Maps or an app called Waze to navigate by (both are free) and regularly stop to take photos of the route or sights and listen to music fairly constantly. So access to my phone on the bike is essential. Ultimately, vibration damage seems to depend very much on the model of phone and the bike’s engine. Those few I know of who’ve had problems – using any mounting system– have all been using older generation iPhones, and have had them repaired under the Apple warranty.

The advantage here is that if the weather is a bit dodgy, you can keep your phone on charge at all times – essential if using a sat-nav app, for example, as they are notoriously heavy on batteries. It also keeps the battery topped up and the rain away. However, most importantly, it reduces the vibrations that can kill an iPhone in as few as a couple of rides, and that alone has to be worth the investment.With an anodised machined aluminium arm and reinforced nylon pivot, this mount fits over the clamp that holds the brake and clutch levers in place on many bikes. It’s a system that’s long been used by RAM mounts for sat-navs, and supplied spacers allow it to fit both my GS (despite these also being the mirror mounts) and the VFR800. The charger has a 1.5m-long cable that terminates in an SAE connector (the same as used on Optimate chargers), with a second cable about 20cm long that has the corresponding SAE connector at one end and a pair of ring terminals to connect to your battery at the other. You could wire this into an auxiliary switched supply on your bike if you want, but I found that without a phone connected, the USB charger pulled about 1.5mA, so would take a good while to flatten the battery. The mounting boss is raised slightly, though not as much as the previous version. It doesn’t interfere with handling the phone at all and traditional wireless chargers work fine through the case. Finally – and this is a biggie – as many riders know and Apple confirmed in 2021, vibrations from your bike can kill your iPhone. The issue seems to be with bigger engines and the image-stabilisation system; Apple recommends vibration dampers if you mount your phone on a bike.