Quad Lock Cycle – Waterproof Wireless Charging Head

The Quad Lock Waterproof Wireless Charging Head is a solid, waterproof way to charge your phone on your bike. You need to use a Quad Lock phone case and have a Quad Lock 360-compatible mount – but once you’re invested, it’s an excellent way to keep your phone visible and charged in the worst of weather and when you’re riding over the roughest of surfaces.

> Buy now: Quad Lock Waterproof Wireless Charging Head for £69.99 from Quad Lock

If you’ve ever ridden a decent distance through an unknown area, you know how important navigation is, and being able to navigate smoothly without having to stop to check a map – physical or digital – makes for a more enjoyable cycling experience.

If you have the technical knowhow, electronic hardware and appropriate map subscriptions you can program a GPS head unit to show a map with turn-by-turn guidance. But if you need to alter your route for any reason, these quickly become a faff to manage on a tiny screen that’s usually not touch-enabled. If it’s cold and you’re wearing gloves, much more so.

So for many of us, using our phone to navigate while cycling is the cheapest, most-convenient option. There is a plethora of handlebar mounting and case options around, and we’ve reviewed many over the years. Quad Lock has been at the forefront of the phone-on-the-bar solution pack for well over a decade, and I’ve been a fan since the start back when phones had one camera and could fit in the change pocket of a pair of jeans.

Quad Lock came out with a waterproof wireless charging head for motorcycle use a few years back, and it has now released a cycle-specific version for connecting to e-bikes or battery banks.

The Wireless Charging Head weighs just 15g but the whole setup of head, alloy Out Front Mount Pro and cable comes in at a pretty hefty 185g – but as this is for e-bike or touring use, weight isn’t that likely to be the deciding factor. A 10,000mAh power bank is going to be circa 200g by itself.

The feel of the Charging Head is the usual high quality Quad Lock is known for. The back of the unit is alloy with cooling fins to dissipate the heat generated by continuous wireless charging.

You have a few choices regarding the mount that the head bolts to – but they need to be Quad Lock’s 360-type mounts. Most of us will go for the Out Front Mount Pro or the Stem Cap Mount. You choose the orientation of the Charging Head to suit the most-used phone orientation. You click your phone in place at a 45-degree angle and then twist another 45 degrees to lock it. That leaves the two ‘wings’ just showing either side for your fingers to depress as you then twist to remove one-handed. If you then fit your phone in the non-standard orientation, you can still remove it – it’s just more of a two-handed operation.

One caveat is that there’s no 35mm handlebar option for the Out Front Mount Pro – so if you want to put this on a modern eMTB or even some hybrids, you’ll need to go with the top cap mount. I think Quad Lock really does need to address this.

Once you have the head mounted, you need to connect your power cable of choice. The head has a permanently attached 150mm lead, ending in a waterproof connector. The whole setup is IP67 rated, which means unless your bike ends up in the sea or a lake, it’ll be good to charge.

When you order your head (£69.99), you specify the cable you want to come with it. Currently Quad Lock offers a Bosch Smart System cable (£23.99), a Shimano and ‘other’ cable (£19.99), and a choice of either USB-A or USB-C cables for power banks (£19.99). The Charging Head comes with a USB-A cable included. If you’re using the USB-C cable, the head supports PD3.0 charging.

The cables are long: 110cm for the USB-A & -C/Shimano/other and 136cm for Bosch Smart System including plugs. This is another criticism with the solution – the USB cables don’t come in a shorter option. So with the charger head on your bar and your power bank in a handlebar or top tube bag, you have a lot of needless cable to coil up and secure.

The Shimano/other cable ends in two wires – red and black – for wiring into a 12v feed from whichever motor you’re using. Quad Lock says: ‘Due to the complex nature of the installation on e-bikes, we advise the Waterproof Wireless Charging Head is only installed by a mechanic, dealer or expert.’

Being a Bosch- and Shimano-certified mechanic with the associated stress that accompanies any long-term work on e-bikes, I can attest to just how much of a day-long faff some cabling jobs can be. I’ve had apparently simple new shifter or dropper cable runs turn into three-figure-sum bills for customers, when entire motors and battery frames needed removing, sometimes the fork and headset too.

I mention this, as for casual use you may be better off going with the USB cable option and a powerbank stashed in a wee bar bag, instead of a hard-wired option. Especially so if your bike has integrated cabling through the headset – there may simply be zero possibility of adding another cable. Yay bike industry, Into The Sea with your anti-consumer designs…

But if you’re looking for the sleek, permanently attached option, fixed cabling it is. The screaming omission in Quad Lock’s lineup is a cable for Bosch non-Smart systems aka ‘Gen 4’, which currently make up the majority of the western world’s mid-drive e-bike market. Email Quad Lock, hit them up on customer chat, and we might get one provided.

For Gen 4 owners, the likely solution is to splice in a 36v-12v Buck Converter to provide power to the charger head direct from the battery using the Shimano cable with its 12v red and black wires. Bosch does sell a battery cable to power Nuvinci hubs, which makes the 36v handily available.

I installed a 3A Buck converter on my own eMTB years ago to run a high-powered Exposure LED light, and it’s worked flawlessly in all weathers and on all-day rides. As always, get this done by someone who really knows what they’re doing – there’s a lot of power in your battery, and an electrical fault is unlikely to end well.

Bosch Smart System motors come with one power port. If you’re already using the motor’s 12W high-power port to run something else like a GPS tracker or a light, you’ll need to look at other options to power the Quad Lock head. Bosch offers battery ‘T- cables’ and ‘Component Connectors’ that give you an additional one or three power ports, which is rather couth.

Yes, Bosch motors come with dedicated lighting ports. If the front one is used the system reserves a whopping 10% of your battery for the lights – hence why adding a Buck converter before the motor is such a popular option for running more accessories or higher-powered ones.

Whichever wired solution you go for, the fact that Quad Lock has put the waterproof plug near the head unit means you can remove the head when not needed by unplugging it, and covering over the cable end protruding from your bike’s frame.

There’s an option to theft-proof your setup using Quad Lock’s £13.99 Anti-Theft Screw Kit, which uses a proprietary four-spline secure-Torx-style tool.

Once you’re wired up, the Charging Head will supply up to 15W of power to your phone. IPhones are limited to 7.5W – which can be an issue staying charged if you’re using mobile data, a moving map, and have the screen on full brightness. Switching the phone to low power mode and dimming the display can help balance usage with charging.

My iPhone 14 Pro charged at bang on 7.5W as indicated by the current draw at the USB-A connector. I tried a few friends’ newer Android phones and they managed the promised 15W fast charging.

One point to be aware of when using a battery bank, is that even with no phone connected the Charging Head draws 25mA. That means it will flatten a 10,000mAh bank in about two weeks. I learnt this the hard way, having set up the Charging Head with the battery bank and cable nicely stashed away. A week later when I came to ride it, there was less than half the battery left.

Suffice to say that in use the Quad Lock Charging Head did exactly what it promised, without fault. My phone stayed put over rough terrain, and it kept charging in pouring rain. There’s really nothing else to say – it works.

Value

The mobile phone world is awash with wireless charging accessories, and it depends on your chosen ecosystem and use case as to what’s going to work best for your needs.

SP Connect makes a universal charging phone clamp for £79.95, plus the cable (12v DC £30 or USB £20) and another £40-50 for a mount. So a £140 package to charge any wireless phone using any case. Compared to the Quad Lock ecosystem, which would be £155 for the Charging Head, mount and phone case. Roughly the same, and you get a rugged phone case – but the SP package can wirelessly charge any phone you like, which may be handy for shared bikes.

A very low-cost option is the £45 Bike IT Pro2 Wireless Phone Charger. This is a waterproof wireless charging case that you put your phone into, it’s permanently attached to your bike and wired into a 12v feed. If you’re after a universal, wireless charger running off your bike, that price is hard to beat.

Five years ago I reviewed the SKS COMPIT+ system – a wireless charger using a proprietary case connected to a 10,000mAh battery bank in between, that can be charged in use from a USB source. You get the battery/charger and a phone case for around £75, then if you bring your own extra battery bank you’re likely to have all-day wireless charging for a low price. Though do be aware that the battery charging input is a MicroUSB, so it’s technically not water-resistant let alone waterproof.

Conclusion

All in all the Quad Lock Waterproof Wireless Charging Head is a high-quality bit of kit that will hold your phone securely and provide charging in the worst of weathers. With the secure bolt kit you can thief-proof-fix-it to your bike, and there’s a choice of mounts for positioning. You have multiple power options, which future-proofs your switching between future bikes. All this adds up to a Highly Recommended from me.

> Buy now: Quad Lock Waterproof Wireless Charging Head for £69.99 from Quad Lock

Verdict

Solid way to wirelessly charge and run your phone in the worst of weather and over the roughest surfaces.

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