Shapeheart Smartphone mount for bike

The Shapeheart Smartphone Mount for Bike has a powerful magnet that holds your phone securely – in fact, you might have trouble getting it off again! Unfortunately the sleeve isn't all that 'weatherproof' and the bar mount part is not up to the job for a couple of reasons.

Does Shapeheart's magnetic phone holder keep your expensive tech safe, secure and dry? In brief, the answer is no.

That's not the fault of the magnet though, and if you're concerned about the effect that a powerful magnetic field might have on your phone, there's no need to worry. Shapeheart says the magnet is mounted between two iron plates that 'cut the magnetic field to the phone,' and while it's not actually possible to block a magnetic field, you can certainly redirect it with shielding like this. My phone worked perfectly.

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It's very quick and easy to mount, though you need some strength to get it off again. Do NOT do what I did and put it down on a steel workbench...

The sleeve itself is a simple affair; a neoprene-like back bonded and stitched to the touch-sensitive, transparent front. The stitching was rather untidy on mine, with a few loose threads, but it stayed intact for the duration of the review.

The box has a handy full-size outline for a size guide on the side... except it isn't that handy because, while my phone fitted into the outline with or without its protective case, your phone would have to only have two dimensions for it to be accurate. In reality it was a tight stretch if I left the case on.

If your phone/case is within a few millimetres of the outline, consider going up a size. You can get M, XL and 2XL, but weirdly not L.

I had problems with the silicone strap that secures this to the bars. I had to stretch that strap very hard to try to get it around my perfectly normal (31.8mm) bars, and before I succeeded, it tore. Don't even think about trying to get it around a stem.

After this I had to resort to the rubber o-ring (pictured) instead, but this doesn't hold the mount nearly tight enough on a bar. With a fair amount of leverage available given the length of most phones, the whole shebang twists on the bars if I tried dabbing my iPhone 12's screen at the top or bottom.

You can get this with either a topcap mount or a bolted bar mount instead, but it's then £10 more.

The touch-sensitive front of the case is responsive, though I did have some trouble getting into the corners of the screen, and the camera is blocked. Apple's facial recognition would not work, though Shapeheart claims the Android version does.

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The sleeve is variously described as 'water resistant,' 'weatherproof' and that it 'fully withstands rain,' and while that may be true of the front, the neoprene back soaks up water pretty readily. I put a kitchen paper inside (rather than risk billing road.cc for the death of my phone) and took it out in heavy rain, and the tissue was wet within minutes.

It doesn't help that there's just an unsealed flap to cover the entrance, and a slit at the bottom to allow a charger cable through. There's no separate access for a headphone jack plug, though.

Value

While parts of the design work well, those that don't are pretty major – the bar mount and the weatherproofing. Consequently it's hard to say this is good value.

If you have space on your stem, Zefal makes a couple of secure cases that are tailored to a range of smartphones. A couple of years back we liked the Z-console for the same price as the Shapeheart, and the current version – the iPhone 11 Pro Bike Kit – is still £29.99. It's not entirely waterproof either, but works just fine in real life and real rain. In theory you could mount it on the bar instead of the stem, too.

Meanwhile, the Zefal Z-Console Dry is £24.99 and promises to be waterproof rather than weather resistant.

Overall

I found the mount secure enough so long as I wasn't trying to use the phone, and the screen worked well through the cover. However, the short strap quickly failed, the backup o-ring is less secure and the case itself is vulnerable in rain – overall, this is not a reliable way to protect your phone.

Verdict

The magnetic mount and touchscreen are good, but we broke it during testing and it got wet inside in heavy rain