

Helios Bars: The arrival of the smart bike - leonardRenter
http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/12332/helios-bars-the-arrival-of-the-smart-bike/

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jzwinck
These people don't seem to be very pragmatic or legal cyclists:

> 0-5mph is red, 5-10 is yellow, 10-15 is green

Everyone should know that red is the only acceptable color for rear-facing
bike lights. Green is absurd. Green tells cars to GO.

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joonix
I don't need my rear lights to be "smart." I just need them to be as bright as
possible. And yes, red.

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jdietrich
This is a non-solution to a non-problem, invented by a non-cyclist.

The first and most obvious issue is that it isn't an effective anti-theft
solution. Professional bicycle thieves use vans and target components as well
as whole bikes. It takes them about fifteen seconds to remove a set of
handlebars - today they do this to quickly steal the STI brake/gear levers
(which are often worth several hundred dollars). A GPS tracker would only be
effective if it was hidden or permanently attached to the frame.

The line "Imagine gauging your speed without having to read a display or pull
out your phone!" seems farcical, given that handlebar-mounted bicycle
speedometers have been around for decades and cost less than $20.

Using non-red rear lights is illegal in most jurisdictions and not wise
anywhere.

The stated battery life is just seven hours.

Perhaps most grievously, the handlebar-stem assembly is completely non-
adjustable and one-size-fits-none. Existing handlebars with an integrated stem
are marketed solely for racing, but are available in many different sizes. To
cover the entire range of road bikes, you'd need thirty or forty different
sizes.

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robbiea
There is also a Chicago startup that has come up with a solution:
[http://bikespike.com/](http://bikespike.com/). They just finished a
successful Kickstarter of 150k+

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bsimpson
The nice thing about Helios's GPS is that it's built into the handlebars,
whereas BikeSpike mounts externally, making it much easier from a thief to
destroy before stealing the bike.

I wonder what technology these use. There's an older stem mounted GPS from a
UK company that uses a 2G network, which makes me skeptical about it's useful
life. Bikes last for decades, but 2G networks will be replaced much sooner.

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nutek
Similar technology is available for several years now. Here are some local
guys used it to actively catch bike thieves and made a video series about how
it worked out in practice. Here's the episode detailing how they recovered a
stolen bike in London:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obqEJVsWq8o](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obqEJVsWq8o)

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astine
There's a GPS devices welded to the bike frame? Congratulations, you'll get
the bike frame back.

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gesman
Bike tires are the most frequently stolen part by thieves who won't bother
with the whole bike.

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bliker
Wait, how do you find out location after the bike was stolen? GSM?

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salmonellaeater
You put a pay-as-you-go SIM card in it, and you can text it and it'll text its
coordinates back.

That suggests, though, if anyone knows your bike's number they could track it
everywhere. I'm not sure I'd want that feature.

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bliker
Can somebody point me to similar low cost, low power GSM modules?

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atestu
How do you brake?…

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LeonidasXIV
You need to add normal road bike style brakes and bar tape. Same goes for
shifting.

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bladurga
The smart bike that can be tracked even if it's stolen.

