This easy mount helps flip your iPhone right into a webcam for lower than $10

The Elephant Card is a conveyable mount for Mac house owners who need to use their iPhone as a webcam with macOS Ventura’s new Continuity Camera characteristic. Not solely does it fold flat for simple portability, however it additionally works with or with out iPhone instances in my testing and attaches to each my MacEbook’s show and desktop monitor. 

Better but, it really resembles an elephant with its tusks and ears creating the mounting factors. That’s cute, made much more so by the mount’s tiny $7.99 / €7.49 price ticket, which returns to the common $9.99 / €9.90 record value after Monday, November twenty eighth.

To use the mount, you merely unfold the 2 “tusks” that maintain your iPhone, which sends the “ears” backward to create two small hooks that match over your Mac’s show. It’s a really intelligent design from the massive minds at WorkforceNobile, the design collective primarily based in Vienna, Austria, liable for the equally artistic AirBell.

The Elephant Card is designed for MacBooks which have lengthy suffered from notoriously unhealthy webcams built-in into their ultra-thin shows. But it additionally matches the favored Dell UltraSharp U2720Q desktop monitor I’ve linked to a Mac Mini. The Elephant Card’s ears are nowhere close to deep sufficient to grip your complete thickness of the Dell monitor, however they simply occur to slide securely into the air vents situated all alongside the highest of the show. If your desktop monitor lacks such gildings, then it seemingly gained’t work with the Elephant Card mount.

The mount’s ears connected simply to my 12-inch MacEbook, as anticipated. But identical to we found when testing the $29.95 Belkin mount, the MacEbook’s hinges aren’t actually designed to carry heavy objects like iPhones. The hinge on my light-weight MacEbook supported the mixed weight of my iPhone 11 Pro and case till the angle exceeded about 25–30 levels, after which gravity took management. On one event, the mounted cellphone triggered the MacEbook to tip over in order that the iPhone (frivolously) smacked the desk — I used to be glad I left it within the case. To its credit score, the Elephant Card saved maintain of the iPhone and MacEbook at the same time as I reflexively snapped the show upright.

That being stated, the ear hooks that relaxation alongside the highest fringe of the MacEbook show create a fairly slim and flimsy mounting level. I managed to bump the iPhone as soon as, inflicting it to come back free from the MacEbook and fall onto the desk with the Elephant Card nonetheless connected. Using the mount on Apple’s lightest MacBooks, particularly, requires some care to keep away from accidents. For instance, I wouldn’t advocate common use of the Elephant Card with a MacEbook positioned in your lap whereas seated on a chair excessive above a concrete ground — your iPhone is simply asking for hassle.

The mount holds the iPhone at a set angle, however that limitation didn’t current an issue in my testing. I might both regulate the MacEbook’s show sufficient to be in body for Zoom calls, or I might rely on Continuity Camera’s Center Stage characteristic to robotically crop and heart my face when mounted on the upper Dell monitor. 

The Elephant Card shares the size and width of an ordinary bank card, however it’s twice as thick. It simply matches into even compact wallets, however it may be too thick when you’re pondering of compacting it into the house between your iPhone and the case. For my setup, it created sufficient of a bulge within the case to partially expose among the show’s edges to impacts.

All in all, it’s laborious to search out any main faults with an adjunct that gives a lot utility to Apple customers for lower than $10. The present 20 % low cost makes it particularly compelling now that gift-giving season is upon us.

Elephant Card is out there in blue or grey for the discounted value of $7.99 / €7.49 by way of Cyber Monday, with 50 cents from each buy going on to SaveElephant.org to assist with the rescuing and care of Asian elephants.

All images by Thomas Ricker / The Verge