The iPhone Dock Bed

published on August 4, 2013

My girlfriend and I both have an iPhone. Every night when we go to bed, we plug them in for charging. We also use them as our alarm clocks.

Until very recently, we did this by using the typical charger. Only my girlfriend’s side of the bed is rather far from a wall socket. So, she’d plug in a very long iPhone cable (that we got from Deal Extreme and was literally falling apart), but it was not quite long enough: she’d still have to get up (to reach for the phone, e.g. for turning off the alarm).
Plus, it was in my way to get to my side of the bed. So … several times I almost stepped on her iPhone, and many times I stumbled after getting stuck behind the cable. Less than ideal, right?

A very long time ago, on February 11, 2012, I backed the Elevation Dock Kickstarter for two docks. Somewhere in the beginning of 2013 I had received them. They’d been lying around in a closet, unused. A waste of money? I almost regretted ordering them.

A few weeks ago, the long iPhone cable finally gave up. I thought of the Elevation Docks again. I started thinking how to put them to good use. We don’t have night stands (no room for that besides the bed). I considered building a tiny nightstand myself. But that would make cleaning much more bothersome, and wouldn’t serve any other purpose. Ideally, I’d be able to attach the docks directly to the bed. One visit to the local hardware store later and I had all the parts I needed: two of the right pieces of metal, six screws and some fine iron wire.

First, the L-brackets: iPhone dock L-bracket close-up. Both iPhone dock L-brackets attached to the bed.

Then, the power plug extension box for the docks to be plugged in: Power plug extension box for the docks. Power plug extension box cabling. Power plug extension box plugged in.

Finally, securing the docks with some fine iron wire through the Elevation docks’ speaker holes and through the top holes of the L-brackets:

Secured the iPhone docks. Close-up of the end result.

We’ve been using it for several weeks now, and we’re very happy with how it turned out. It’s a pleasure to use!

It’s a fun and simple life hack, that should last for a very long time. Hopefully until the next thing beyond the smartphone1 :)


  1. It’s relatively future-proof, the company behind the Elevation Dock provides adapters for e.g. the iPhone 5 (we currently both have an iPhone 4S). Though I’ve read that due to the inherent higher friction of the Lightning connector, it’s always going to be a less-than-stellar experience. ↩︎

Comments

Steven Houben's picture

Very cool hack! As soon as I have a fixed place to live, I’m gonna try it myself.

Wim Leers's picture
Wim Leers

Cool :) Definitely ping me when you’ve done that, I’m curious to see how others do this!

Andrei Mateescu's picture
Andrei Mateescu

Nice work! I like the bed too :)

Bojhan's picture
Bojhan

Just wondering, if there is a way for this to work with Android phones. I love this, since I always lose my adapter.

Wim Leers's picture
Wim Leers

As I mentioned in the footnotes of the blog post, Elevation Lab provides a Lightning adapter for using the iPhone 5.

However … before that was available, somebody created 3D printed a part they had designed themselves to make this possible!

You can download the blueprint and read more about it in a blog post by the owner.

Several other 3D-printable parts already exist for the Elevation Dock, but not yet one for an Android phone. If your Android phone is not too wide, I’m sure you can create an adapter to make it work with the Elevation Dock :)

Sebastien's picture
Sebastien

I don’t want to be the one wearing the tinfoil hat, but I don’t like sleeping with the phone so close to my head.. and electric current flowing along the bed.

On the other hand, I need the phone to be as far as possible in the room, so I really get up at some point instead of snoozing forever :-)

Wim Leers's picture
Wim Leers

:)

I don’t like that either. My girlfriend especially dislikes it. That’s why we turn on Airplane Mode every night before going to sleep!