

The Cricket - A Small Lightweight Bike Alarm - tomharari
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-cricket-your-bike-s-first-line-of-defense--3

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joekrill
Wow. Did anyone even think this through? Is this a scam? It just makes very
little sense. 150 feet? As long as someone knows to take a peak under the
seat, they can just make one pass with a pair of dikes and steal the Cricket.
Then come back a little while later, presumably after the owner checked on
their bike, and simply go on with their original plan of stealing/defacing the
bike.

This is my favorite:

> It is advisable not to attach the Cricket to metal objects such as your bike
> frame.

And also this about how long it "lasts":

> At least a year, usually a lot more, depending on how much you use it.

Even though the second paragraph says (in bold text, no less):

> works for years without replacing the battery or switching the device
> on/off.

So it does matter how much I use it? Or it doesn't?

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reirob
Works only with Apple phones/tablets :(

It works over Bluetooth so it will alert you if you stay in distance of 150ft
(45.72 meters). I wonder if you can use your phone to listen music over
Bluetooth while staying connected to the cricket device?

I have got my bicycle recently vandalized because the thieves could not brake
the lock, so they destroyed everything they could and left with just the seat
- it was in the night in front of the building where I live in :(

I would love to have a solution to keep thieves away without adding too much
weight - in my case a loud alarm would have been enough - but I cannot imagine
one small and light enough for a bicycle.

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SchizoDuckie
I'll never buy a bike alarm that's just visible like this to the naked eye.
This will _never_ work in The Netherlands because it's too visible.

My sights for my MTB are still on the SpyBike GPS track that has an NFC tag to
activate, and is completely invisible to the naked eye (So a much larger
chance it remains there even if i gets stolen)

[http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/Spybike.jsp](http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/Spybike.jsp)

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themoonbus
"The Cricket works best at close, over the shoulder distances. People will
touch your bike by mistake from time to time, so it is best to use the Cricket
when taking a look at your bikes is as easy as looking over your shoulder."

I'm really having a difficult time seeing how this is useful...

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lnanek2
Wow, that is mind numbingly stupid. Use 150ft range Bluetooth to track a
stolen bike.

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fvrghl
Why does the light pulsate, thus drawing a thief's attention to it? And can't
a thief just use the app?

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tomharari
Cricket has a motion sensor inside, making the Cricket respond in a tenth of a
second, no other product can do that" <\- Yariv Bash, Product Designer

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SchizoDuckie
Trust me. Thieves don't wait around for you to respond to your phone. Within
one minute your bike is out of range, and so are you. Also, see my post
elsewhere in this topic.

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jmulder
I'd like to see them test this in The Netherlands, where, especially here in
Amsterdam, it's quite normal for bike thiefs (or junkies) to steal a bike in
seconds and sell them for 15 euro just minutes later.

Success of this device depends on the reaction speed of the owner or other
Cricket users being quicker than the thief can steal it. Good challenge, but
my money is on the thief ;-)

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glennos
I'm not a bike rider, so can't comment much on the utility, but I think
there's some utility in generalising the application of the devices. Tile is
taking a while to get to market, but is quite nicely generalised.

The trick will be to get scale so that the network features become a reality.

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smcl
Cool, so you can use your iPhone to track exactly which bin the bike thief
dumped your Cricket in.

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shachar
sweet product - got me a couple of those!

