Hey bike thieves – if you see a Skylock on my bike, then go ahead and cut through my frame and leave the lock behind. Why? Because my shitty beater cost like €50 and the Skylock is $250, that’s why.
$250? Yup, although you get a lot of tech for that money.
The Skylock will do the following, in addition to securing your bike:
- Send an alert to your phone when someone fondles, waggles, cuts or otherwise abuses it.
- Watch for crashes and, if it detects one using its built-in accelerometer, ask if you’re ok (via the iPhone) and then alert emergency responders if you’re not.
- Bike sharing. You can loan your bike out to folks in the Skylock community, and keep track of the lock (and supposedly the bike too) via the app.
- Solar power. The battery that powers all this gimmickry is charged by the sun. Or by street-lamps.
I actually like the Skylock quite a bit (except the price-tag that is). It connect to your phone using Bluetooth 4.0, so the battery never runs down and you can use your iPhone to unlock your bike with a tap of the screen (or using proximity or the capacitive touchpad on the lock itself).
I also like that you can use the app to log the bike in to a local Wi-Fi network and receive alerts when anyone tampers with the lock or your bike.
And the accident alert feature is also pretty cool, especially as it uses your iPhone’s network connection to do its stuff. I don’t see it being so useful in the city, but if you’re touring alone and come a cropper, then it could save your life.
The sharing feature is also neat. You can lend you bike to your iPhone-owning friends right from the app.
But the best part is the promo video, which totally has a homage to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in the middle of it.
The Skylock launches its crowd-funding campaign today, at a pre-order price of $159, so go check it out.
Source: Skylock
