Bike Angel is a high precision tracking device.
Bike Angel
About this project
Bike Angel was created as an efficient solution to prevent bike theft! In fact, Bike Angel is a security and GPS tracking device, that always tells you where you can find your bike. Just put it in your seat tube and enjoy its high precision GPS localization, that can put your bike on the map in less than 30 seconds.
- Bike Location
- Smartphone Integrated
- Accelerometer
- Hidden and Locked Device
Did you know ?
In Amsterdam and in most big cities of Europe bike stealing has increased dramatically, becoming a challenge even for the police. More and more bikes are stolen every year and less than 10% of bikes in the Netherlands and only 5% of bikes in UK are recovered.
In Copenhagen, 20 bikes are stolen every day and 19 of them are not recovered.Year-round in Denmark, more than 20.000 bikes are stolen.
In Berlin, 70 bikes are stolen every day and just 9% are recovered. Annually, 317 000 bike are reported stolen across Germany.
In the Netherlands, a staggering 450 000 bikes are reported stolen every year. The number is probably double, since more than half of the incidents go unreported. (data from online publications and research papers)
The story behind the solution
Alexandru Claru, is co-founder of a mobile bike service in Amsterdam called FlatTire.nl, which started as a student service in 2013. He saw that none of the products in the market are efficient in preventing bike theft or tracking a lost bike, so the Bike Angel concept was born. Along with Tiberiu Anghel, they put together a team to test and validate the idea of a hidden GPS tracking device at an affordable price that would become available to all bike enthusiasts worldwide.
Always on the watch !
In just 3 easy steps the device is active. First you have to connect the 2 modules and then simply slide the gadget inside your bike's seat tube. This makes the system invisible to the naked eye and in the way it was built guarantees that you will be able to track and find your bike, even if it is stolen.
The device is capable to detect the vibration a bike hijacking would make and will let you know immediately, through an SMS sent directly to your smartphone.
Bike Angel is a locked device, but you may charge its battery easily, through micro-USB. It is also water and shock resistant, so you do not have to worry about keeping the bike outdoor or using your bike on rough terrain.
Through our free smartphone app you are able to adjust the settings of Bike Angel. The app will lock and unlock the device via bluetooth. It will save a history of the places where you left your bike and notify you of any incident via GPRS and/or GSM message.
Privacy Friendly
You are the full owner of the data and Bike Angel never shares location or usage statistics unless the owner requests this. The data that is stored by Bike Angel can only be accessed by the user and nobody else has access to this information without the owner's approval!
Features
The architecture and the complete features below are the ones we can guarantee at this moment. Alexandru Suditu and Cristian Tranca, our project engineers, are working as we speak, on the final electronics layout of the product. We successfully tested the small-scale GSM in different conditions and the results are positive, both on connectivity level and on energy efficiency.
Product Development
We had 4 iterations of the electrical architecture and product design and we are now heading towards the final layout of the electronics and case.
The product will have GPS and GPRS positioning and will be connected via Bluetooth 4.0 and GSM with your phone. You will be able to lock and unlock the device, thus allowing you to save battery. The GPS/GPRS system will only activate in case the accelerometer signals an unusual movement of the bike while it is armed.
Right now we are in the final stages of product development. We have successfully engineered and tested a newly-designed GSM module and a suitable motherboard that fits the bike frame.
We also made good development on the case of the product and we can now set the final stages: optimization, standardization and production.
You help, we offer
Production plan details
The timeframe below takes into account the fact that we still have challenges ahead of us. However, we reached the most important milestones, namely the motherboard and the small-scale GSM, so it's just a matter of hard work and optimisation, in order to give you the best device we can engineer.
Meet the Team
Why we need your support?
In order to bring Bike Angel to all bike lovers, we need your help to finish the last stages of product development and to establish a lean production system for the device, which will make us able to offer the product with more features at a better price. We will build our supplier base and improve the assembly, providing you the best product on the market!
To support us:
In The Netherlands: Account: BikeAngel
Bank: ABN AMRO
IBAN: NL80 ABNA 0502 4190 59
BIC: ABNANL2A