Why Under-Mount Your Smart Display?
Back in the day, it wasn’t unusual to see a small television mounted under a kitchen cabinet. It allows you to watch your favorite shows or sports while working in the kitchen, it kept the TV off the counter space, so you weren’t losing precious workspace, and it also kept the TV out of the way of splashes and spills.
While mounting a little tube TV under your kitchen cabinet isn’t a thing anymore, all the reasons to do so we just highlighted are still perfectly valid. So why not give your smart display the same treatment? By getting your display up off the counter, you protect it from messes and free up counter space. Let’s look at some ways to mount popular smart displays.
By the way, although we’re talking about smart displays today, if you happen to have a little flat-screen TV instead of a smart display, you’ll be happy to hear that there are plenty of under-cabinet mounts for small TVs on the market.
Ready-to-Install Smart Display Mounts
We’re leading with “ready-to-install” because most people simply want a product they can one-click purchase and, save for putting a few small screws into the base of their cabinet, use immediately. However, there is a pile of DIY 3D-printed solutions, and we’ll highlight those in a moment.
If you have an Echo Show 5 you can buy this under-cabinet bracket to hold it up. It’s just a simple but sturdy frame that holds the face of the Echo at a better angle suited for it’s elevated position under the kitchen cabinet.
The same company has a similar mount for the Google Nest Hub that also wraps around the device’s body and helps you position it at a proper viewing angle.
If you have bigger devices, like the Echo Show 15, you’ll need a different kind of mount. While the Echo Show 15 has standard 100 x 100 VESA mounting holes on the back, you’ll want a mount that supports easy and smooth rotation so you can switch the Show between landscape and portrait mode based on your needs at the moment.
Landscape might be good for watching a cooking video, but portrait is better for reading the recipe. So if you go shopping for another VESA mount for your Echo Show, do pay attention to whether or not the mount can rotate smoothly.
DIY 3D-Printed Smart Display Mounts
One thing you might have noticed about the two smaller display mounts above is that they look 3D printed, and that’s because, well, they are. Many of the niche smart home products on the market are simply 3D-printed designs.
If you can do the 3D printing yourself, however, there’s no end to the number of designs you can find online by searching for under-cabinet mounting and the name of your device.
Here’s a sampling of the numerous designs on the popular 3D schematic-sharing site Thingverse, formatted with the compatible display name first and then notes about the design.
Google Nest Hub — This model features both vertical and horizontal adjusts so you can tilt and twist. Google Nest Hub Max — This model cleverly combines 3D-printed parts with common off-the-shelf PVC parts to create a sturdy pivoting mount for the larger Hub Max. Echo Show 5 — This simple non-adjustable bracket mounts your Echo Show 5 in a fixed position. Echo Show 8 – The Echo Show 8 is a tricky display to mount, this model uses C-shaped brackets to hold it so you can easily pivot it. Echo Show 8 — This Echo Show 8 mount is just a simple fixed bracket, like the Echo Show 5 model above.
If you love the idea of 3D-printed models but don’t have a 3D printer, check out Etsy and search for the name of your particular smart display. Not only will you usually find popular models from Thingverse printed at reasonable prices, but you’ll often find custom models the designers haven’t published.
However, you go about it, though, getting your smart display up off the counter is a great way to free up counter space, keep it clean, and position it where it’s easier to see.
