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TECH NEWS
Brit company seeks funding for speed-displaying light + video
An Edinburgh-based company is looking for funding on Kickstarter to introduce a rear bike LED that displays your speed as you ride.
According to its inventor, Euan Mackenzie, “Drivers see the VeloCityLight and associate the displayed speed with their own rate of travel. It’s a prod, a mental prompt to re-evaluate their own rate of travel and their subsequent actions.
“Its effect on drivers is fundamentally different from any other red light. A number is a meaningful symbol that has to be processed, registered and stored in semantic memory. This is what makes the VeloCityLight something special.
“Regardless of whether the cyclist is travelling at the speed limit or at a gentler pace, VeloCityLight gives the approaching car more information about the cyclist in the visual noise of traffic, day or night.”
The idea is that the VeloCityLight immediately indicates to other road users that you are a cyclist, and it also functions as a brake light because it gets brighter as you slow down. The 48 individual LEDs give out 20-175 lumens.
How does the VeloCityLight know how fast you’re going? You fix an ANT sensor to your fork and a magnet to a spoke, as you do with most bike computers. The sensor sends the information wirelessly to the VeloCityLight. Sounds pretty straightforward. It’ll also send data to an ANT-based cycle computer, if you have one.
The VeloCityLight has adjustable levels of brightness, and a sensor automatically adjusts the brightness according to the light conditions of the environment. It runs on a USB rechargeable 1700mAh internal battery and the makers say that it offers between four and 12 hours of continuous use, depending on the brightness setting.
The VeloCityLight measures 110mm x 60mm x 20mm (about the size of an iPhone) and weighs about 65g.
Euan Mackenzie and his team have developed prototypes and are now looking for £40,000 in crowdfunding from their Kickstarter campaign.
If you pledge £45 or more you’ll be in line for a VeloCityLight and bracket that’ll work with an existing ANT sensor. Pledge £49 or more and you’ll get the full package, including a sensor (that goes up to £55 after the 100 earlybird places are taken up). Other incentives are available for pledges of different amounts.
As usual with Kickstarter, none of the money is taken unless pledges reach the campaign’s target.
If they reach their target, the team aim to get the first units out by March 2014, or maybe February.
If you’re interested in more details, head to the VeloCityLight website or go to the Kickstarter page.
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. 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.
Latest Comments
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The BBC using the explanation for their use of the term e-bike to cover all forms of bikes with electric motors is very similar to their...
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What I do find quite interesting is the hypocrisy in the calls to boycott IPT/Israel but the willingness to let UAE and Bahrain backed teams...
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In fairness to BTP they aren't that well-funded and are spread pretty thinly across the rail network. As to policing and funding priorities I think...
- KiwiMike 52 min 16 sec ago
Imagine getting something for nothing, then complaining about it.
- Rendel Harris 1 hour 9 min ago
The system is that the ban given is served from the moment the driver is disqualified, i.e. at sentencing, but it must be extended from whatever...
- Bungle_52 1 hour 27 min ago
Not as far as I know. The only points and fine I have been told about so far was a pass on a blind bend. I was out in the middle of the lane as I...
- Rendel Harris 1 hour 59 min ago
Something similar occurred to me, although on reflection I thought that probably, assuming the shed is in the back garden, once the thieves get to...
- mdavidford 2 hours 24 min ago
But then you'd have to ride it naked from the waist down...
- chrisonabike 2 hours 34 min ago
I get there's a performative aspect and some of the dress is ... questionable. One might question this on safety grounds also.
- Condor Andy 3 hours 3 min ago
There's no forum on Velogames, so I'm not sure how to handle that. Can always continue chatting here. The league is active for the entire year.
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35 comments
Interesting idea, but from the video it looks like the numbers are too small for other road users to see from far enough away to effect their behaviour. Also, does it actually work as claimed? Is there data from the prototype testing showing that driver behaviour is changed by this product?
I think it's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. Bad overtakes happen when drivers rate their journey as more important than other people's safety. They rarely happen because the driver misjudges rider speed. This is also the case with left-hooks - it isn't really "I thought I had enough time" but "I don't care whether I kill you or not" - if drivers actually cared they'd give more space and time to riders, regardless of the speed.
The vast majority of drivers do not want to kill anyone. People on the whole do not want to kill other people and will actively avoid it. it is an issue of ignorance or misjudgement but this is not the answer IMHO. (although it is sort of cool)
Like that daft laser projector light this is not a common enough concept for people to recognise what it is they are actually seeing, it just won't register in the way the designer intended.
Oh and please think of a more original name. I think Velo and City may have been combined before in a cycling context.
It should be called the Roubaix light...I would buy one then
I'll 3rd that - great idea, but alas it's not the cyclists that need to do more, its the status quo that needs to shift away form the majority motor driven vehicles "owning the road" to one which is shared, safely by all. The public highway should be just that - for use by all members of the public who are prepared to behave responsibly and legally toward each other - regardless of the mode of transport chosen, with suitable and sufficient levels of enforcement to remove offenders.
It's brilliant. Until you are exceeding the motor vehicle speed limit. Then the hypocrite who hurls abuse at you whilst travelling faster has more ammunition.
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