Bike Buddy

The Bike Buddy transforms your smartphone into an onboard biking computer adding gamification and safety features to make it an indispensable assistant for all your biking needs.  

The Green cylinder contains the mirrors and technology to redirect the capture of images / video through the blue lenses. The orange rectangle is projecting the phones light. The yellow mount contains the battery, the cage for the phone (in red) and mounts to the bicycle handlebar. (The colors in no way represent the final color, they are used to illustrate the different functional elements)

What's the challenge?

• Finding a compelling software and hardware solution to enhance the bicycle riding experience to be more safe, fun and engaging.

  
  

How does the innovation help?

• The Bike Buddy uses mirrors and proprietary software to enable the camera on your phone to see the world regardless of the angle you’ve mounted it to your bike. Additionally, the Bike Buddy provides an additional power source via an onboard battery pack which charges your phone wirelessly while it’s being charged in one of three ways:

  1. Solar panels - Flexible solar panels can be mounted / attached in various areas of your bike to keep wind drag to a minimum.

  2. Wind power - Two simple fans (like what you used to see on the back of home computers) mounted on the handlebar of the bicycle are used to capture the wind energy from your ride.

  3. Dynamo - Replacing the hub of one of your rims or using a proprietary rim laminate that contains magnets every few millimeters and a cathode mount that easily attaches to the bike frame, will capture energy as the magnets pass by.

• There is also a camera mounted on the back of the bike with turn signals, brake light and reflector.  The brake light remains dimly illuminated while you’re riding at night. 

• The Bike Buddy extends the safety features that already come with your phone.  Bike Buddy will constantly be recording your ride and unless otherwise configured, only keeping the current 30 seconds of that ride (We want to be sure not to eat up all your local storage).  If the phone detects you’ve been in an accident, the video and audio from that recording will immediately be sent to the cloud with notifications sent to friends and family. All the information you need leading up to that accident including relevant position / location information will also be shared showing your plotted route on a map.

• A bicycle ride alone is already a lot of fun.  However, what if you could add gamification to that experience?  The forward-facing camera will not only be used to record your ride but using AI, will add some cool capabilities. The complementary app that comes with Bike Buddy has a few different game options you can choose from.  For example, think of Pac Man – you accumulate points for every 1000 meters of your ride, every person you pass is a few extra points, maybe there are a couple dogs on a leash – more points.  Maybe you overtake someone on your ride, bonus points. 

  • This will take on a whole new level when we introduce an AR (Augmented Reality) app that will let you view these details righy in front of your eyes.

• In addition to all the telematics information you’d expect in a bicycle app and integrations with wearables such as Apple Watch, it will also take advantage of the rear camera to let you know if anyone approaches. 

• Anyone who has installed the Bike Buddy app will also have the option to share their location in three ways:

  1. To only their circle of friends.  When this is enabled, everyone out on their Bike ride will be made aware of friends in family being in the area via a notification that appears in Bike Buddy.

  2. Share location with everyone (Public).  Now friends, family and everyone else using the Bike Buddy App will know where you are.

  3. Share location with mapping navigation provides (e.g. Apple Maps, Waze, etc).  If you’re someone that rides their bicycle on the roadway, now you’ll be able to inform the motoring public of your location so they know of your location well before they can see you.  This will prepare them to “slow down and move over”.

• The work out features are also enhanced:

  • When pedaling really had, perhaps up a hill and you're looking down rather than forward, we'll use the forward facing camera to detect you're looking down and flip the screen on your phone to show whats ahead, this will help you continue to focus your efforts.