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Mobilock: World’s First Bike Lock With IoT Connection

LORA technology makes real time monitoring bike sharing systems possible

A company in the Netherlands have been working on a new technology which should prevent would-be thieves from stealing your whip. Mobilock is a ‘world’s first’ as far as bike locks go and uses GPS technology via a smartphone app to lock/unlock and also monitor your bike in real time so you can track the location of your ride. This seemed pretty interesting and could stop instances like below…

Don’t let this happen to your bike! (but then again, the bike thief deserved it.)

“In big cities like Barcelona, Paris, Copenhagen, Hangzhou or New York public bike sharing systems play an important role in attempts to make transport more sustainable. To simplify the system of bike sharing, Mobilock developed a bike lock which uses a smartphone app as a key. The system can be implemented all around the world without check-out stations, parking docks or storage facilities. Mobilock smartly uses infrastructure that is already there, like bikes, storages and smartphones.”

Mobilock was originally launched back in January last year and they say the company have been overwhelmed by requests from bike rental companies ever since. Holiday Parks, Hotels and various other companies within the tourism industry are just a few examples of people who would benefit from implementing this technology, and in April (this year) the first locks will be ready to be put on the market.

That time @hazzathebastard sparked a chav out for trying to nick people's bikes at Exhibition Park in Newcastle #duckface #lolweed

A photo posted by Ride UK BMX (@rideukbmx) on Sep 24, 2014 at 3:49pm PDT

Harry Walker (above) delivering a brutal haymaker to a bike thief ‘chav’ at Exhibition Park in Newcastle.

Bike thieves simply won’t know what to do with it and you’ll have to avoid encounters like the one above! Even if they do somehow manage to nick your bike you can track them on your smartphone and get it back.

“KPN’s new LORA technology is implemented in the lock. LORA is short for Low Power Wide Area Networks (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 very 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. To MobiLock this technology offers several benefits. Bikes with this lock can be localised and monitored real-time, even when someone is riding the bike. This improves bike sharing management.

“We are the first in the bike industry to apply this new technology,” says Managing Director Walter Nieuwendijk, who developed the innovative technology together with co-founder Willem-Jan te Riele.”

“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.”

So there you have it, possibly the safest, most secure bike lock on the market with GPS technology which is due to be released in April.

Check here for more details: www.mobilock.nl