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TECH NEWS

Video: Lock8 promises 'smart lock' revolution with GPS tracking & built-in alarm

Phone alerts & tamper sensors included in high-tech lock

They’ve not announced many details yet, but new lock maker Lock8 is promising to “revolutionise bicycle security” with a “smart lock” that incorporates an alarm, GPS tracking and remote control via an iPhone app.

The project will launch properly on Kickstarter on October 29, but for now founders Franz Salzmann and Daniel Zajarias-Fainsod have outlined a few details on their website.

Here’s a video demonstrating how it will work:

The initial impetus for Lock8 came when Franz and Daniel were at university together. When they first met, they had both recently had a bike stolen. How could they improve on standard bike locks? Lock8 is their answer.

Lock8 will have a built-in 120bD alarm that will make an almighty racket if it detects an attack. At the same time it will send a notification to your phone, so you can drop your cappuccino and dash out to accost a thief.

Built-in sensors detect temperature changes associated with some ways bikes loks are attacked, motion and damage.

It seems that Franz and Daniel quickly realised this would be useless if the lock could be easily smashed and removed from the bike. That’s been the weakness of past alarm-equipped locks, which could be disabled with a good whack from a hammer, or removed and left beeping plaintively to themselves on the floor.

Lock8 will be bolted to the bike. Franz and Daniel say that as they developed the idea, “the LOCK8 bike lock design soon turned its focus towards a frame mounted bracket, effectively making the bike and the bike lock one complete part.”

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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