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Peak Design is the official king of Kickstarter. They’ve launched 10 Kickstarter’s over the years, raising a whopping $32 million — more than any other brand. Their new product, Mobile, which launched on Kickstarter this week, is a move away from the photo accessories and bags the brand is known for.
Peak refers to Mobile as an ecosystem of mounts, cases, and accessories designed to help integrate your phone into your life. In total, it consists of 13 individual products, all of which can be purchased separately.
The core of the Mobile lineup is the Everyday Case ($40), which to start, will be made for the iPhone 12, iPhone 11, and Samsung S20 lines. For those who don’t have one of those phones, you can buy a $20 adhesive-backed adapter to use with any phone or case. The case and adapter are covered in a tight fabric and have a one-inch square cut out surrounded by magnets. Those magnets snap into a variety of accessories.
I’ve been testing a wall mount, mini tripod, bike adapter, and car adapter accessory over the past few weeks. I stuck the phone adapter on my iPhone XR Otterbox case. Everything has worked incredibly well. The adhesive, the typical weak point for mounts, has proven to be super secure. There’s no sign of the adapter removing from my phone and I’ve been driving with the car adapter on bumpy dirt roads with zero issues.
The bike mount is the highlight product for me. I’ve tested many bike mounts over the years, and none have been as easy to use or secure as Peak Designs. Over the past few weeks, I’ve ridden close to 150 miles on bad New Mexico pavement and haven’t had an issue.
So far, my only complaint about the system comes with the phone adapter. It sticks out about a quarter-inch and thus does not allow wireless Qi charging. This isn’t a problem with the Everyday Case, and there’s a wireless charging stand that connects via magnets, similar to Apple’s new MagSafe technology. But I don’t plan on upgrading my phone anytime soon so I need to remove my case before placing my phone on my Anker charger every night. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s pretty annoying.
Speaking of MagSafe, Peak Design claims many of its accessories should be compatible with MagSafe, too. For example, Apple’s MagSafe charger and wallet will attach magnetically to Peak Design cases.
Similar to the way Apple has created a software ecosystem, I like the idea of a Peak Design ecosystem for accessories. A protective stylish case that seamlessly integrated with a tripod, car mount, bike mount, and charger isn’t something we’ve seen yet. And now that we know that it works, the accessory options are endless. Camera lenses, Popsocket-like attachments, and larger, full-sized tripods would all be great additions to the line-up.
The Kickstarter has already raised over $1 million, and products will begin shipping in May.
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