A remote control bike lock? Whatever next?

Yep, it’s a bike lock that you can unlock from your phone. Or from hundreds of miles away.
Why? We hear you cry…
Well, it’s not all ‘technology because you can’ and we reckon there are a couple of handy uses. For a start, it works both ways, so your lock could text you when it gets opened – which if you’re not by your bike at the time, might be a handy thing to know. It has wider uses for bike-sharing schemes and rental bike systems. Say where you want to unlock a (Dutch) Boris Bike (a Børis Bike perhaps?) where the operator can unlock the bike that you’re calling about, needing no keys or combinations.

According to the makers: “By using Dutch KPN’s LORA* technology, Mobilock is the world’s first bike lock which is connected to the Internet of Things (IoT). The bike sharing system that uses a smartphone app to open the lock can now monitor and localise all its bikes in real time, where-ever and whenever they are, without using GPS.”

There are already big bike sharing schemes out there and this might help simplify things a little. The locks are set to roll out next month in Holland.

*LORA is short for “Low Power Wide Area Networks – or (LOng RAnge)” and makes it possible to connect billions of devices over large distances with the internet, using 3G or 4G. Because LORA chips and sensors need little power, the system hardly uses energy. A device connected to the LORA network is able to send data and commands for fifteen years using only two penlite batteries.

Bikes with this lock can be localised and monitored real-time, even when someone is riding the bike. “Thanks to LORA, rental companies can locate their bikes at any time and see who’s riding it. Also, the system barely needs energy, while old GPS systems – for instance used in cars – need a lot of power. With this addition Mobilock becomes the most complete and compact bike share system in the world.”

Oh, and they know where the bike is at any time. Unless you’re a foil-hat wearer, this could be good for keeping track of stolen bikes too (assuming the broken lock is still bolted to the bike…)