Suggestions on bicycle alarm innovation?

bikewatch

Hello!

I and my team of fellow cyclists are taking bicycle protection against thieves to a new level and right now we are developing a new product – bicycle alarm combined with cable and rear lights.

We have a great team of engineers with experience in electronics, mechanics and manufacturing and also some great ideas, but we believe that the best products can only be created together with other cyclists.

Would be great if you could share your experience dealing with bike thieves and I am sure that you have some suggestions on how to make this product better.

You can answer here or check our web page – http://www.bikewatch.eu/, where you can see design sketches, blog and send your ideas directly to us.

Also follow us on twitter and facebook. We will post updates and answer questions also there.

Looking forward to hear your thoughts!

Regards,
BikeWatch team

meanredspider

bikewatch wrote:

Would be great if you could share your experience with bike thieves

Do you really mean "experience OF bike thieves"? Unless you guys are actually bike thieves, of course

brianandrews

Is this a light with motion sensor and an add on cable - I can't be sure from your sketches? I had an alarmed D-Lock from SG Locks, which I don't use any more, as it received some poor reviews in basic theft tests. I would say unless the lock itself is at least as good as a gold Sold Secure then the rest is superfluous and you won't get it past the magazine tests intact. If it does that and the alarm works well with possibly a warning or two before deafening the guy trying to get his bike out of the rack next to yours then you might be onto something.

bikewatch

Do you really mean "experience OF bike thieves"? Unless you guys are actually bike thieves, of course

Thanks for comment! English is not my native language, so sorry about that. And, of course, we are not bike thieves

bikewatch

Thank you for comment, Brian!

As practice shows even largest lock can't hold longer than 30 sec. Have you seen this?
http://youtu.be/6AdugFzCi24?t=6m41s

So we thought that the best way how to protect bicycle is by creating strong cyclist and their friend community which will look after each other bikes. We are working on specific tone which will be used for our alarms and also tagging mechanism. For example, if you find "screaming" bike with our alarm you will be able to get in touch with bike owner and return his bike more quickly.

I know how friendly cyclists are and I think that this could work.

brianandrews

bikewatch wrote:

Thank you for comment, Brian!

As practice shows even largest lock can't hold longer than 30 sec. Have you seen this?
http://youtu.be/6AdugFzCi24?t=6m41s

So we thought that the best way how to protect bicycle is by creating strong cyclist and their friend community which will look after each other bikes. We are working on specific tone which will be used for our alarms and also tagging mechanism. For example, if you find "screaming" bike with our alarm you will be able to get in touch with bike owner and return his bike more quickly.

I know how friendly cyclists are and I think that this could work.

I haven't seen D Locks cut with bolt croppers before, so that was an eye opener. Chains and cables will always be useless against this type of attack. A quick google search tells me that 42" bolt croppers are available for circa £120. Are there any stats on how many thefts are pros with decent equipment and how many are opportunists that have wire cutters / crowbars etc? I like the community / tagging idea. Good luck

supersonic

Use a minimum of 19mm chain/locks and most croppers will not fit around them.

brianandrews

supersonic wrote:

Use a minimum of 19mm chain/locks and most croppers will not fit around them.

Certainly not the most portable option but agreed.

bobs bikes

my background is in electronic security design, so drop me a pm with the details of the system and ill give you my input.
i have been a designer, developer and installer for about 15 years.

dee4life2005

I quite fancy the idea of a GPRS / GPS based alarm that's mounted within the seat-post - that can be activated like a car alarm. It would then upload it's position once every minute, and if it detected that it's position had changed by more than a set threshold (taking account of GPS error) it could automatically alert the owner / police. This sort of solution would probably only be cost effective for higher end bikes, in much the same way that trackers are used for cars.

bobs bikes

sorry, but the power output for a gps signal would kill the battery in minutes, also, as you can get to the arial (cos it cant work in a metal frame) it isnt secure, and would never pass .... sorry to ruin your idea.
also, if you put a recharge socket in there, that would also be attacked without 'entering' the bike frame, rendering it unsecure.
there is a device on the market already, but it has never passed any industry standards.

bikewatch

Thank you all for comments!

GPS is not a solution. If there will be more than 10 bikes with GPS, thieves will buy for 30$ jammers which blocks GPS signal.

We have team of engineers and we would like to hear design or functionality suggestions! I am sure that together we can create great solution!