Jelbert Car Cup holder for Google Home Mini

thingiverse

This is a holder for the Google Home Mini that fits into a car cup holder and provides a safe way to hold the Mini for in-car use. Note that you will need an in-car wifi connection to use the Home Mini effectively. I've designed a similar product for the Amazon Echo Dot, which works well enough in the car for music via Spotify, but the Echo is not very good for podcasts. This is because the dot does not remember where you listened to previously so if your trip is shorter than the podcast then you have to start from the beginning of the podcast every time. To compound the problem, there is no "skip x seconds" feature to quickly get to the point you left off. The good news is that the Google podcast player does remember where you got to and also supports skipping x seconds, making it a much better podcast experience. The Google Home Mini has one major drawback - it does not have an AUX out connection to connect to the car speaker. Not all cars allow Bluetooth pairing allowing the car speakers to play media from the Mini. The solution seems to be installing a Google Chromecast Audio in the car as well and plugging it into the AUX in on the car. If you set up the default cast device in the Google Home Mini settings then it appears to work quite well. This design is based roughly on my earlier Amazon Dot design but the top has been heavily modified to hold the Google Home Mini while still allowing access to the USB connector and switch. The design consists of two parts - the cup and the carrier, both of which need to be glued together using superglue. You will see there are two guide channels in the underside of the top carrier part that allow you to mount the cup in a central position or an offset position depending on the space available around your cup holders. Be sure to check before gluing them together. The Google Home Mini stays in the carrier by gravity, but you might consider adding some double-sided tape at the bottom if more grip is needed. I have uploaded the STL files and the OpenSCAD code for the cup in case you need to make it shorter or taller to fit your car. I recommend printing this with Inova1800, ABS, or another higher temperature filament because it can get hot in a car and you don't want this melting in the summer sunshine. Please like my design if you find it useful.