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TECH NEWS

Haiku navigation bike computer is gesture controlled

New unit aimed at urban riders harnesses the GPS capability of your smartphone

Haiku, an urban bike computer offering navigation from your smartphone and controlled with gestures of the hand, is available to pre-order ahead of a March 2017 launch.

The computer from Paris-based startup Asphalt Lab provides you with your speed and ride time, as you’d expect, along with directions and notification of calls and messages.

Haiku uses your smartphone’s GPS capability to provide you with directions. The idea is that you input your destination into the phone before you start riding, then squirrel it away somewhere safe. The phone communicates turn by turn directions to the Haiku which displays them in a format that looks to be very clear.

Haiku  - 6.jpg

You wave your hand or just your thumb in front of the touchless sensor to switch the display from navigation to ride information. The team behind the computer says it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re wearing gloves or whether it is raining. 

Haiku will let you know if someone is trying to call you, and allows you to access messages and call notifications – although its inventors are at pains to point out that you can do this at a time that’s safe.

Haiku  - 5.jpg

“The basic needs when riding a bike in the city are very different from on a road bike,” says Frédéric Martin, Asphalt Lab’s head of design and user experience.  

“It is not about performance, it is about knowing where to go, what time it is, and whether anyone is trying to reach me. With Haiku we offer urban cyclists a simple access to this information with a dedicated and innovative user experience focused on safety and simplicity. Set a destination on your phone, connect Haiku, and you’re good to go!”

Once you attach the Haiku to a magnetic dock on your handlebar it automatically starts up and connects to your smartphone. 

A Haiku Kickstarter campaign exceeded its €55,000 (£46,400) funding goal back in September (the video, above, is from the Kickstarter project). It will be available to buy for €99 (£84) in March 2017 although pre-orders are still open at €85 (£72).

For more info go to www.haiku.bike.

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

Add new comment

36 comments

Avatar
Rob S | 7 years ago
1 like

Supplements your phone
With a much tinier phone
On your handlebars

I'd rather have maps
Than just a little arrow
In case of missed turns

I think I'll stick with
My regular smartphone mount
Instead of this thing

(I have a Quad Lock
It's really rather splendid
If a bit pricey)

Avatar
CycloTron07 | 7 years ago
0 likes

From the number of

comments, I first thought hooray!

But nay, it's a dud

Avatar
wycombewheeler | 7 years ago
2 likes

I'm afraid I can't

trust this newfangled gadget

I'll stick with garmin

 

also its ugly

and takes up far too much space

on crowded cockpit

 

I just have to guess

what people would think as I 

wave at my headset

 

how many dif'rent

hand gestures must I learn to

find my destination 

 

a strange choice of name

oriental poetry

shares nothing with maps

 

at least this topic

wont descend into debate

on helmets' merits

Avatar
danthomascyclist | 7 years ago
5 likes

Seventy two pounds?

For a really shit garmin?

Hipsters can rejoice

Avatar
The _Kaner | 7 years ago
0 likes

Gestures are better?

Hand signals are not better?

drivers still ignore?

Avatar
LarryDavidJr | 7 years ago
1 like

Hand gestures from me

are solely directed at

bus and cab drivers

Avatar
newtonk | 7 years ago
2 likes

Its the boss calling

A gesture should do the trick

turn left for dole queue

Avatar
Al__S | 7 years ago
2 likes

Fallen leaves on path

gadget says go left. you try

all is pain, autumn

Avatar
Stef Marazzi | 7 years ago
0 likes

Look! A new review!

Is this product any good?

One star? I guess not

Avatar
davel | 7 years ago
0 likes

Emails and WhatsApps

on handlebars: undesired.

Don't think I'll invest.

Avatar
ktache | 7 years ago
2 likes

I was wondering

if I should mention helmets

in this Hiaku thread

Avatar
Mat Brett | 7 years ago
2 likes

Hand gestures on bike.

It's all gone horribly wrong.

Misinterpreted.

Avatar
gjh | 7 years ago
7 likes

I will quote Dr Cooper-Clarke on the subject of Haiku:

To convey one's mood

In seventeen syllables

Is very diffic

Avatar
nniff | 7 years ago
3 likes

Wave hand for message?

Sounds like semaphore to me.

You call this progress?

Avatar
flathunt | 7 years ago
3 likes

A wave of the hand

The device registers no

thing. Oh well, that sucks.

Avatar
ktache | 7 years ago
3 likes

I do love this site

I know I shouldn't but I

still can't help myself

Avatar
pockstone | 7 years ago
4 likes

a wave of the hand

a message from the ether

'Watch the bloody road!'

 

Thank you Road CC

in counting syllables

a day is  wasted.

Avatar
nniff | 7 years ago
2 likes

Garmin and Haiku

Fight over best route for you.

Both say bridle path..........

Avatar
multimodal | 7 years ago
1 like

Cycle gadget flags

New tasks out of office, now

bike tethered to work

Avatar
nniff | 7 years ago
1 like

Magnetic clip thing:

compass no use to you now.

Must trust in Blue Tooth.

 

Avatar
nniff | 7 years ago
2 likes

Navigation is

Lost art in modern world.

Now, get lost quickly.

Avatar
ktache | 7 years ago
2 likes

I thank you all for

making me laugh out loud by

doing these Haiku 

Avatar
beezus fufoon | 7 years ago
0 likes

surely the headline should read - "Haiku navigation bike computer is gesture controlled, quite good"

Avatar
morseykayak | 7 years ago
0 likes

Ride at Night

This would be neat

No more reading maps on the small screen

Avatar
samuri | 7 years ago
6 likes

The wind blows rain on my face

I am warm inside

Because I have wet my pants

 

Avatar
Mat Brett | 7 years ago
1 like

All of our stories

Will be written as haiku

From today onwards

Avatar
CygnusX1 replied to Mat Brett | 7 years ago
1 like
Mat Brett wrote:

All of our stories

Will be written as haiku

From today onwards

Your last few headlines
Have been very long, almost
Epics like Homer

Avatar
dave atkinson | 7 years ago
1 like

This seems like good fun

A competition, maybe?

Best one gets some schwag

Avatar
CygnusX1 replied to dave atkinson | 7 years ago
3 likes

dave atkinson wrote:

This seems like good fun

A competition, maybe?

Best one gets some schwag

Not all the comments

Follow the haiku metre

Thus, disqualified?

Avatar
dave atkinson replied to CygnusX1 | 7 years ago
3 likes

CygnusX1 wrote:

Not all the comments

Follow the haiku metre

Thus, disqualified?

Indisputably.

That's a fundamental rule.

Go five-seven-five.

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