Apple AirTags on your bike, and three other "smart" cycling devices for getting around a city

have you ever been riding your bike and thought to yourself this is great but if only my bike wasn't so dumb what i need is a smart bike hey everybody i'm tom and this is shifter a channel about urban cycling bike commuting and the ways we get around our cities so one of the cool things about having this channel as it's grown is that sometimes companies want to send me stuff and who doesn't like new stuff especially cycling gear and gadgets and that kind of stuff but to be honest i'm not much of a cycling gearhead when people ask me questions like what kind of group set i'm running i usually have to go home and google the word group set and i've noticed lately that a lot of these gadgets and gizmos are sold based on the idea that they're going to make my bike smart and who doesn't want a smart bike right sounds amazing and so today i thought i would gather some of these purported smart bike products and maybe not review them but at least look at them through a specific lens and that lens is does a smart bike make your life better that's what i'm going to look at today let's go give some of these gadgets a look okay let's start with this gadget and clearly it is a tail light it is called click that's cl iq and as you can see it is a nice bright tail light and like any bike light worth its weight these days it has many different blinking patterns but this just isn't a tail light this is sold as a smart light for your smart bike i guess and so this light is pretty amazing it packs some pretty cool things into a tiny little package what things well let me tell you so number one it's designed in a way that it spreads light consistently kind of like a automobile headlight or tail light and that's kind of nice to give out an even light so you can be sure you'll be seen on the streets at night uh it has a clever little mount that allows you to adjust it so that it is actually flat and straight sometimes with these bikes if they go on your tube at the back they can be at a funny angle but you can adjust for that with this light and it has a big 1000 milliamp battery which they say will last up to 20 hours which is good but none of that is smart let's get to the smart stuff okay one thing is this light also has an accelerometer meaning it can detect when you're slowing down so not only is it a tail light it's also a brake light so when you brake it blinks brighter just like in a car that sounds pretty smart especially if you're in a group ride and maybe you're with some guy who you're riding with he's kind of an idiot and he always rides around with a selfie stick pointing at himself i don't know who would do that if you're in a group ride and everyone's got uh brake lights that would make things uh pretty cool and like all things labeled smart these days this light has an app yes there is an app specifically for this light and that's because uh it does a couple of other things as well it has an anti-theft feature so if you've got this left on your bike and your bike starts to move the light will alert your phone which will alert you and i guess you can run out and tackle a thief or something like that i guess and finally because of the app if you've got a bunch of friends you're going out for a ride at night or a group ride you can actually synchronize the lights among different bikes so uh they can blink in a pattern that will in theory make you more visible to the cars on the road or at least look more cool anyway so that is the click it's a pretty cool device well if you thought your bike was too dumb then surely at some point in your life you thought to yourself why is this bag so dumb well we have a solution to that today so this is my two wheel gear pannier backpack and i love this bag i've used these two wheel gear bags for years because they are panniers but this one can also convert into a backpack with a few little snaps and zips and they're amazing bags the best bags i've ever used and like i said i've used them for a long time and only recently they became a sponsor of shifter so thank you to them for that and what's cool and new about these two wheel gear bags is you can now turn this bag or any of their bags really into a smart bag with this device called a joey so what does this thing do well it does a bunch of things uh for one thing on this most basic level tells you the time uh you can turn on an led light right here in case you lose something in your bag you can also charge your phone from it it's got a big 6200 milliamp battery here so plenty of juice for your phone it's also got a charge timer so if a friend needs a boost you can charge their phone and sort of set a limit to how much time or how much power you want to give them so they're not so they're not draining you dry but you also are able to help them and this thing also has an app to go with it and the cool thing about the app is how it can help you if you're prone to misplacing things it can help you locate your bag or your phone uh from the joey you can send an alert to your phone if you must place your phone or from your phone you can send a notification to the joey it will make a sound it will beep so you can come and find your bag as well so there you go you never thought you could have a bag that was smart but now you can okay my next gadget isn't exactly smart because it doesn't have an app so i would say it's more like clever and i think clever is actually a pretty good description this is arclight by redshift and it looks like any other kind of light you might get for a bike right yes but look at this what it does actually is this little nifty thing slides right into the pedal and there are is a light on each side and so check this out if i turn each of them on lights on your pedals that's pretty cool right but here's the clever part you want white facing front you want red facing back but when you pedal you don't necessarily have to fuss about you don't want to have to fuss about getting these correct but look they switch they have uh tech inside they can tell which way it's facing so no matter which way you get on your bike which way your feet go the pedal lights are going to be facing the right way look at that see clever right they've got different blinking modes as well so you can sync them up or not so they're pretty cool it's an innovative way of staying lit up at night and another thing that i like is if you saw my video about the difference between aftermarket lights and dynamo lights is i love lights that you don't have to think about that they're just on your bike and ready to go when you need them and these ones are nice because they also can detect when you stop pedaling so if you get your destination park your bike and just walk away they'll shut themselves off they know that so it's pretty good no there we go look at that they just shut themselves off then if i start peddling again on they go so they slide in and out pretty easily like this and they all plug into a nice little charger arc lights by redshift not smart but definitely clever okay the last smart device i want to talk about today is one that's probably been installed on more bikes around the world than any other device this year actually no probably i absolutely guarantee it is and it fits right into my pocket and here it is it is an apple air tag now you know these things they came out last year it's apple's way of uh helping you not lose your stuff so you uh sync it up with your phone put it in your whatever you want your bag or something if your bag goes missing you can track it down with your phone and i know a ton of people who have put these on their bikes and i have to admit i've put one on one of my bikes as well they sometimes can slide right into the down tube or you can stick them under your seat and i've talked about this before but i have mixed feelings about air tags as a smart device on your bike i know a lot of people use them i actually had a friend who had their bikes stolen recently and went to the police and the police actually asked them if they had an air tag on their bikes even the police are looking for them but i don't love them because two things one is they uh if you do manage to track your stolen bike down into into a house or an apartment building or a condo then what you know you're gonna break in and steal your bike back go vigilante on them are you gonna like crack tackle the thief again there's lots of tackling in this video today i don't think any of those are good options and the other part i don't like is they don't prevent thefts so here's my plea to make this a truly great smart device for a bike somebody out there please invent a way to attach this to your bike that keeps it visible but unremovable so if i can affix this to my bike in a way that a thief can see maybe it will be a theft deterrent in which case it would be a truly smart device so there you go the most popular bike smart device in the world is almost without a doubt this thing but i have mixed feelings about it okay there we go four devices to help make your bike smart what do you think well let's get back to the question at the original is this going to make your life better are any of these are any of these devices going to make your bike riding better well i have to admit for most of these i kind of rolled my eyes at them you know i'm i'm like you know does your bag really need to be smart i don't know does do you need an app for a light on your bike probably not it's all a bit ridiculous isn't it but then i've been using these devices and i kind of like them you know i end up showing them off to my friends the smart bag i've actually used quite a bit i've charged my phone a couple of times it's come in handy here and there um those pedals are pretty great actually i love not having to worry about lights on my bike all the time they're just always there so they're definitely not required but there's no doubt that they do make bike life a little bit better so while i still love my dumb low-tech mechanical bike with its three speeds and its pedal brakes and its rust if any of these devices will help you get out on your bike a little bit more then hey put them on your birthday list why not anything that gets you out on a bike more often is pretty smart in my books thanks for watching see you next time

Channel: Shifter

Views: 68,647

Keywords:

Id: aZPIGomTNAo

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 11 2022