Self-driving AI is not just for cars — it’s coming to ebikes too
ADAS tech is bringing smart safety to ebikes
Blinc Bike (Terranet)
The most recent offering announced this month isBlinc BikebyTerranet.
The company is developing a new class of Rear-View monitoring to keep an eye on the things happening behind the cyclist with a 180 degrees wide view.
Blinc Bike uses two easily attachable and detachable parts. A Rear View Display is placed on the handlebars and a rear light placed underneath the bike seat.
The camera detects, classifies, and tracks objects invisible to a cyclist. It alerts the user either on the front display or through haptic feedback when there is anything that needs immediate attention.
For example, if a car suddenly approaches from behind, the cyclist will receive a warning on the Front Rear View Display mounted on the handlebars and/or through haptic feedback on their choice of a wrist band, leg straps, or bike grips.
This helps the cyclist to avoid making any drastic turns that can cause a collision with the identified object.
A smart tail light will indicate the cyclist’s actions to the upcoming traffic: braking, moving, or stopping.
Streetlogic
Founded in 2020,Streetlogichas developed a suite of connected devices to identify and alert riders of vehicles approaching from behind, either side or in front of you – a full 360-degree view. Riders can receive notifications on the heads-up display or audio alerts through a built-in loudspeaker or corresponding app.
The dashcam is always on without charging cameras or replacing SD cards and automatically saves footage of collisions or close calls. These are sent directly to your smartphone.
The company recentlyraised $2.1 millionin pre-seed funding. Customers can preorder Streetlogic’s ADAS with a $30 downpayment. The company intends to start product delivery in late 2022 at a price between $300 to $400.
Holoscene X (Boreal bikes)
German startupBoreal bikeswas founded in 2014. Itfocuses on using cellular networks, sensors, and LPWAN to facilitate Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication and increase safety.
The company seems to be operating largely in stealth. There’s not much in terms of details of their upcoming creation, Holoscene X.
Holoscene X is an ebike that uses V2X to deliver “collision avoidance and interactive speed adjustment blind-spot detection, and roadblocks warnings.” It comes equipped with sensors and cameras to enable the bike to monitor, respond to and communicate with surrounding vehicles.
The ebike is embedded with a NVIDIA GPU-powered supercomputer. It’s perfect for devs who cycle.
The company asserts: “With the Holoscene X and its bundled dev tools, you’ll be able to explore, develop, test, integrate and implement tomorrow’s Edge applications today.”
This suggests an interesting bike that would be great for garage hackers.
The company comes with a history for innovation. The founders were previously working onsmrtGRiPS, the world’s first connected smart grips in 2015. The bike grips and their corresponding app aimed to facilitate haptic notifications, eyes-free navigation, separation alerts, and bike tracking.
However, they couldn’t raise enough funding to go to market, alas. But their initiative is pretty impressive for relatively early consumer IoT, let alone a connected bike product.
I think they’ll have received some great learnings that the team will reflect in their current work. The release date for Holoscene X is at this date, unknown.
Story byCate Lawrence
Cate Lawrence is an Australian tech journo living in Berlin. She focuses on all things mobility: ebikes, autonomous vehicles, VTOL, smart ci(show all)Cate Lawrence is an Australian tech journo living in Berlin. She focuses on all things mobility: ebikes, autonomous vehicles, VTOL, smart cities, and the future of alternative energy sources like electric batteries, solar, and hydrogen.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
