REVIEW. Car wireless charging dash mount by AIRDOCK

I have been trying to make my own wireless dock for my Nexus 7 and LG G2, so I could just put the device in a mount and have it connect to the Bluetooth and charge without me having to plug anything in. I took a Ebay wireless desk charger and rigged it to work with one of my dash mounts but it looked awful and only charged when I got it perfect in the mount.

Then I was looking at other mounts on youtube and came across a Kickstarter company called AirDock. I ordered from the Kickstarter site and finally got the unit a few weeks ago and thought I would give a review. Be easy, this is my first review of anything.


The device has a sticky pad and 4 magnets that hold the tablet. It worked well for the Nexus 7 without a case but not with the case. But the mount came with a sticker that has 4 additional magnets in it that I attached to the back of the case and it holds it well. I have it in a Jeep Wrangler with 37" tires and has not fallen off yet.

You can buy it with a short suction cup base, a long one, or a CD mount. I am using the long one in the Jeep and it works good, has not come off yet. I bought the CD mount one for my car and it is sturdy and seems well made. It also comes in white or black.

It came with a dual output USB charger that says 1Amp and 2.1Amp but with the wireless charging I do not get anywhere near that. My Battery Widget says it is charging at 500ma ( 1/2 amp) which is enough to use the GPS, Pandora and have the screen never turn off and BARELY charge the battery. I use Tasker to automatically open Pandora when it senses wireless charging.


I will post some pictures this afternoon.

There website is http://www.theairdock.com/ I paid $45 for it on the prelaunch but it looks like they are $68 now. Pricey to me but well worth it because I have double that and 20+ hours into trying to make my own.

Please post any questions you have I will try to answer. I have emailed there support people with an issue with my LG G2 and they answered same day.

I am a lurker on this site. I can offer very little knowledge to rooting phones etc. but I thought I would share my experience with the AirDock. I own a Samsung Galaxy S5, the CHOETECH Qi Wireless Charger Kit from Amazon, and a Spigen Slim Armour Case. Everything works fine. S5 charges thru the case with out issue.

When I get the AirDock I quickly realized that A) the AirDock will not charge the phone and B) the AirDock will not hold the phone. I added the magnets to the inside of the Spigen case and that did not help much if at all. I contacted AirDock and was told I needed to put the magnet stickers on the outside of my case. I certainly do not want to do this and I can’t as the sticker will no longer lay flat. The sticker is not designed to be installed more than once.

On their web site is says the best option for the S5 is to use the Samsung replacement back. I ordered the Samsung replacement back from Amazon and even paid overnight shipping as I was excited about using this. This AirDock now charges and it does hold the phone, but nothing like the videos show it. It is not a strong connection at all. I tried it out in my car and it fell off twice while I was driving during lunch. Obviously this is not going to work for me.

I contacted the company and asked for a refund. I was basically told if I didn’t want to put the magnet on the outside of my phone, there is nothing they can do to resolve this and will not refund my purchase. So I had to open a Paypal dispute.

I am disappoint mostly in the fact that the item didn’t work and that the merchant had no desire in helping me. Maybe I have a defective unit - who knows. I would have liked to try another unit, but I don’t think that is possible now.

If you do not have a super smooth phone back or want to add a magnet sticker to your phone, I would suggest you look elsewhere.

I love my Airdock. This is a picture of what a Nexus looks like in my car. I don't run it like this though, normally a Note 3 goes where the Nexus is.

Few things to note. If it's bright outside, Waze will slowly drain the battery, but at night, it'll slowly charge it up. If you don't run Waze, it charges my Note 3 at around 650mAh.

matkam said:

I've had the Air Dock 2.0 for a few months now. The pad has lost its stickiness and no longer holds my Nexus 5 very well. It is constantly falling off. I've tried contacting them about this and haven't heard anything back yet. I can not recommend getting one.

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You probably just need to clean it to get the original stickiness back. I'm still using the original airdock with no problems. However there is a noticeable difference between using it with a Nexus 4 vs Nexus 7. The Nexus 4 sticks like glue and I don't seem to need to clean the airdock periodically. This is because of the glass back. The Nexus 7 doesn't stick well enough without the sticker which creates a shiny surface, probably due to the surface and due to the extra size. When I was using the airdock with it I found it necessary to clean the airdock once a week, two weeks tops. Note this isn't limited to the airdock. Many people complained about the wireless charger for the Nexus 4 saying their Nexus 4 slides right off it. Same problem there, in order for it to stick, it needs to be cleaned periodically. I got one of those for free because the original owner thought it wasn't working. Wiping it out down with a lens cleaner restored it and I've been using it ever since without an issue. The airdock is actually much better, much more sticky than the wireless dock that was sold with the Nexus 4.

PS: by lens cleaner, I mean the wet disposable kind, not the dry cloth. Water works too, but your phone will not stick to the airdock while it's wet, it needs to be completely dry.

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