Cobra Joyride Smart Charger for Smart Phones

At first glance, the Cobra JoyRide Smart Charger for Android looks like regular 12-volt-to-USB charger with a large LED illuminated button emblazoned with the Cobra logo. Indeed, the JoyRide's primary function is to charge your phone. It will charge any phone that accepts 5V USB power, but its included micro USB cable is indication of its Android skew. Additionally, it's one of the few 2.1A rapid chargers for phones and tablets that will rapid-charge my Google Asus Nexus 7 tablet, which has been notoriously picky about what chargers it will recognize.

However, the JoyRide has a secondary and more interesting function. Tapping the large Cobra button accesses a variety of user-customizable controls for your Android phone via a free app while in the car.

Cobra JoyRide app controls
The JoyRide communicates these button presses to your phone via the USB connection by connecting to your phone as an accessory -- certain phones may need to enable USB debugging in the Developer Settings menu -- and includes triggers for single tap, double tap, triple tap, and a long press of the single button. Any of these button triggers can be set to activate certain actions on the connected phone.

The Cobra JoyRide app lets users assign functions to its button and locate their parked car.

(Credit: Antuan Goodwin/CNET)

By default, a single tap will task switch between a user-selectable loop of applications. For example, tap to launch the Music apps, again to switch to Maps, once more to jump to favorite Contacts, and again to restart the loop with Music. Users can select the apps in the loop and can add as many as they like from the Cobra JoyRide configuration app.

The single, double, triple, and long tap triggers can also be set to launch a specific app, play and pause audio, call a specific contact, answer an incoming phone call, automatically initiate turn-by-turn navigation to specific destination (for example, home), open the JoyRide settings app, launch the Cobra iRadar app, or report to cop-spotting app Live Police.

The On Connect and On Disconnect actions let users automate certain commands upon entry and exit of the vehicle.

(Credit: Antuan Goodwin/CNET)

Additionally, users can set actions that will trigger when the JoyRide is initially connected to and recognized by your phone. These On Connect actions include launching an app in the foreground or background, toggling Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connections, and automatically replying to incoming text messages and calls with a customizable SMS message. Users can also set their screen to stay powered on when connected to and powered by the JoyRide, which should keep it from going black while, for example, navigating or streaming audio.