The best defense against bike thieves is to own a bike that no one would want to steal and use a lock that’s just good enough to make it inconvenient and come back only to find your ride stripped down or gone.
The lock was created by Velo Labs, a cycling tech startup founded by engineers from Boeing and Jawbone. This startup has invented the Skylock smart bike lock.
At first glance, the main attraction of the Skylock is keyless entry, which works over Bluetooth short-range wireless signals. Open the app or simply approach your bike and the lock will snap open. If you’ve somehow been separated from your phone, the lock has a keypad and can be opened with a password.
The lock also has an internal accelerometer so it can alert you if your bike gets moved — something that would have been helpful to me last fall when construction workers dismantled the scaffolding to which I had stupidly locked my bike. Velo Labs co-founder Jack Al-Kahwati said in a statement. “We wanted to take on the challenge of bringing cycling into the future.”
But wait, there’s more. Skylock works in conjunction with a smartphone app, either iOS or Android. Skylock is solar-powered so you don’t need to worry about the battery dying. The theft alert system works with either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. As far as the solar powered battery goes, just one hour of sunlight gives users enough power to last a week.
Skylock isn’t the first smart bike lock. It differs in two essential ways: it appears to be further along than BitLock was at the start of its Kickstarter campaign, and Skylock claims to be twice as physically strong. However, it doesn’t use Wi-Fi and its battery is lithium rather than solar.
Skylock is fundraising on its website and offering a discounted price of $159 to backers, with additional discounts for backers who refer friends. The company says it will have both Android and iPhone apps ready at launch and it will retail for $249 once it hits the market. Its goal is to raise $50,000 to release its first batch of Skylocks. Velo Labs plans to start shipping Skylock by the end of the year.
Solar-powered Skylock smart bike lock offers security, sharing
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