The £13 Kids Car Boredom Buster

The thing is with having a family in the other end of the country is that we have to do a fair few trips up and down to see them. G is pretty sorted, she’ll sit watching a film on her Nexus tablet, listen to music, or play on her phone. J, at nearly 16 months doesn’t really like sitting still for ages he gets bored. If we’re not careful the boredom soon erupts into full scale, bat-shit-crazy tantrums, and whilst stuck in a confined space, hurtling up the M6, it’s not a fun experience.

J likes TV – he doesn’t really watch all that much, an hour in the morning – probably the same in the evening, but when he does, it can captivate him, and more importantly, keep him quiet. We tried setting up the portable DVD player we had that G used to use, he can’t hold it – it gets eaten or switched off. Putting it in the headrest case we have works to a degree, but he kicks it.

Next thing we tried was a headrest mount for my Nexus tablet – it did work.. but, the mount was a little crap and again he’d end up kicking it. Also because once it’s in a mount it was hard for Loz to put something different on for him, it would be a faff to take it out, fiddle with, and put back. Also we had to unclip it when we stopped as a potential thief could see. When it was working, J was silent – caught up in the world of ‘In the Night Garden’ and ‘Baby Einstein’ – it was fab. So, the tablet was obviously the way forward – but the mounting method needed improvement. After a bit of looking around, I chanced on this..

So, what is it?

Well it’s a Tablet headrest mount made by TFY, I picked up the Nexus 7 version – and this is how it works. You get a case for your tablet, the Nexus one is similar to those ‘gel’ ones you can get on eBay – but, the back has Velcro on..

The other part is an elasticated ‘wrap’ that goes around the headrest, this is how it looks fitted to my car.

That’s it!

Put the two together and you get this

So the tablet is out of his way, out of the ‘kick zone’, and as it takes a second to pull off and reattach, it’s a lot quicker and easier for Loz to access it if she needs to. Plus, you can leave the headrest ‘wrap’ on the whole time too, so when we nip into the services we can take the tablet out, and no one would even notice that it ‘might’ be there! We’re heading up North soon, and I can’t wait to see how it works!

Thankfully this ‘Car Boredom Buster’ is available for all manner of popular tablets, the headrest wrap will work in pretty much any car, but you need the special case for your tablet. Amazon sell them for –

Nexus 7
Nexus 10
iPad 2 / 3 and 4
iPad Mini
Kindle Fire HD 7″
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1″

Plus a few more..

What a cool, and cheap product! 🙂