Real IoT 2018: Smart Bicycle (continued from 2016 article)

Following on from the 2016 realworld IoT article on IoT and M2M, as we used to call it :), is a 2018 view on how that has update, again via another Kickstarter success.

Here at Conecto IoT HQ we have been testing quite a few innovative travel and sprot related IoT products that are interesting in that they pose a problem for non Cloud IoT platforms, in that:

1. Nobody knows their usage pattern, which causes problems for "box and wires" IoT as they do not know how to dimension the service
2. Lot's of people get obsessed with them being either high bandwidth 4G (not needed, honestly) or crappy 2G which is being turned off quicker than any new IoT models can go mass market, more on that below.

Many of these have been in the cycling space, and are confidential / require permission to publish, however one I want to share is public, and its the long awaited Hammerhead Karoo, which I have now had time to test with a Conecto IoT Connect SIM, which is sold to customers on AWS IoT platform via one of our partners and is available in test packs by contacting Conecto directly and making your case.

The British Summer is a great testing ground for riders ability to apply the Velominati cycling rule #9 as well as test IoT

And this is where the true meaning or Real World comes in. Everybody is talking about IoT needing 100s MB or even GB, but that is the key: these people are just talking about IoT. People who are actually doing IoT know that for every high bandwidth SIM, there are literally thousands to millions of low bandwidth SIMs, and volume my friends, is all that matters in IoT!

So it was refreshing for Hammerhead to do two things with the Hammerhead Karoo while I was busy testing 4 SIMs, 18 IMSIs and 4 IoT devices on a typical rainy summer's day in the UK

1. They have paired it down to the bare bones of android, even to the point that when I signed in on Google I had an alert from an "unknown OS"! More on that in a bit; it would at least be nice to see the Operator logo, since I spent 5 mins, the time it takes on the Conecto platform, to edit the SIMs service provider name to "Hammerhead".
2. The devices is 4G ready, but does not have 4G enabled yet. This is good, due to the roaming nature of the Conecto SIM I always had 4 to 5 bars of signal, even in the depths of the Surrey Hills, and this was good as we will see later. So many devices are 2G only and we can see that in dense urban areas in the UK these have now been turned off, as has 2G in its entirety on the AT&T network. 

So onto the good bits, how much data does it use and is 3G a substitute for Wi-Fi. Well yes and no. By pure coincidence Virgin were working on my Wi-Fi when I was trying to download a route, so I switched to 3G and

• The Karoo downloaded a 92km route with Maps very quickly with a total of 31,784,010 bytes, or 32mb to you an me, and that was with a download failure in the middle due to, ok me taking the device past the part of the building I call the "faraday cage". Obviously that would not have been as much fun for the obligatory software update that went before it, however, which fortunately I had Wi-Fi for. Even if I did not have Wi-Fi for it, I would have gone past somewhere I know that has it before the ride, like the office, or local cafe.

So how much does it use in a ride, I hear you ask??? Well I can tell you:

• During a 92km ride the Karoo used 9,847,998 bytes exactly, or 10mb to you and me, and this was a ride which due to me entering and leaving a faraday cage of an entrance 3 or four times to still misjudge clothing and accessories for British summer (wet) riding, I had the "Waiting for GPS error" all the ride, something I would normally have to restart other GPS devices for, but the Karoo was tracking the route better than the devices the route was done on, so left it using the mobile signal a-GPS to keep riding; again, win for the SIM device!

Despite the "waiting for GPS" warning, with a SIM in it the Karoo tracked the route better than the source GPS route!

So what is my point here? Well it's to force home the fact that even this high end Android device could get by using less than 100mb a month, and its here today making our life easier and saving us previous hardware reboot and satellite search time... This is also important as it also affects battery life. I got the same battery usage as people in the forum got with Cellular / mobile turned off, which is important for the data on the go. There is no point my being able to download a software update on the fly if it then (inevitably) gives me range anxiety on a long ride.

Also, in case you are wondering, the average IoT SIM on our platform uses 1.2Mb per month, with the vast Majority being under 1Mb and a small % being in the 10-100mb zone.

Also read the 2016 Realworld IoT article on smart bikes

Real IoT 2016: Smart Bicycle

Real World #IoT 2016 Smartbikes #IoT Internet of things

Let's get this over with: Real IoT smashes Kickstarter goals. And the speed-x smart aero bike is at over $2M when its goal was $50k....

What separates the Speed-X out is how it integrates technology: lights, cables, diagnostics

Now the bike, as you can see is handsome, however it has not yet taken me from my present road rides for two reasons:

1. I just bought 2 road bikes and completely overhauled a 3rd in the space of just over a year
2. It still does not have a SIM in it, more on this below.

But I still have time :)

So what is the attraction? Well bike owners hate being like my friend, let's call him X. X has everything on his bike, saddle bags, day and night lights even in the day, a cycle computer mounted off to one side, the original bell and reflectors that came with the bike: you name it, the bike looks like a shop accessory demo. At the other end you have cyclists, especially roadies (I am both road and mountain, well actually anything with pedals) even think its important to have the tyre logos and wheel logos match up, and don't even get me started on matching zip-up overshoes...

So to have all this in one integration is good. And then there is the cabling and the data. Power meters go some way to help, as they have cadence built in, but even Shimano Di2 needs a separate connector to tell you what gear you were in. this would be OK if the industry had not made us all buy new frames and electronic gears to get rid of cables in the first place. Its a bit like trying to console a child that winning is not important when they have lost 10-2: well, if you teach them how to count, they are gonna know they lost and it sucks.

Having one integrated device measure everything is a key part to bike IoT, but its missing a second ingredient still...

So on to why I did not pledge one of these yesterday (but still can tomorrow lol). Well here she is:

You cannot beat a custom build, in my case a custom s-works; but its not electronics are not integrated; and that's a problem.

For those of you who are not cyclists, here are 5 important electronics, integrated as best I can:

1. A power metre in the crank, from Rotor, which talks to my Garmin cycle computer via ant+
2. Electronic gears, Shimano Di2, which could talk to my Garmin via ant+ if I buy an extra dongle and cable and attach it to the very frame that I was sold as an upgrade to my old top of the range, even lighter Tarmac, due to integrated cabling...
3. the Garmin computer mentioned above, note I have splashed out on a Garmin mount to have it more aero because, as per point 2: #aeroiseverything.
4. An Exposure Use Flash rear light with saddle mount, to be as tucked away as possible, but is essential even in the daytime, as we still have people on the roads in the Uk who think its ok to be in charge of a 2 tonne plus vehicle distracted by phones, cigarettes and more with the "sorry guv, I dinna see you there" excuse.... 
5. two GSM trackers you cannot see in the picture as they are inside the frame.

So while Ant+ and Bluetooth here gives me all the big data I need, there is still the little data IoT I am missing. Just like the trakdot, I would happily pay $20+ dollars per year to Rotor to have a SIM in the crank, that with the 300 hour battery, which I am ok with now being 200 hours, will sit there unconnected, with no battery drain until one of three things happen: 1) my battery is low, I do not want to do my most epic ride with no data, 2) I do not come back from a ride and am lying in a ditch somewhere, 3) some little toe rag takes my bike.

I would also happily pay those same $20+ per year to Shimano to have a SIM in the Di2 that makes sure my battery is never down when I do my epic ride and, yes, as a back-up to the unsavory points above of distress or theft.

This is where people get confused with Big Data and little data and say: well we could have ant+ do that, and the answer is: yes to battery alert, but it will most likely be just as I get on the bike for the big ride and there is not much I can do, and it still does not solve the huge issue of stolen bikes and being trackable way after the Garmin has run out of batteries or bluetooth has disconnected, or it went flying into the rod in my fall and was run over by 50 cars by now...

Just some of the tracking devices I use on my bikes, but these should be integrated into the other electronics for real IoT

Then finally there is the issue of the fact that thieves get wise to trackers, and they can go in the nearest river / bin / etc. Try pulling a crankset and gear wiring off of a bike in a getaway and still have a saleable swag :)

I am confident, from the conversations I am having both via my IoT Consultancy Virtuser and the IoT enabler Conecto that I co-founded, where we are having conversations about embedding SIMs in luggage, bikes, skis and more, from 1 SIM to millions of SIMs that this is the year of embedded bikes.

The SIM comes into its own in that you can use location APIs and 2G to get months of battery where GPRS and GPS give you weeks, or weeks where the latter gives only days or hours of connectivity, and this is important, not only for the points made above, but also for the revenue stream of $20+ per year per millions of subs by adding a chip to an existing device hat costs much less.

connected car, home (and bike) m2m finally becoming reality with e-cars?

A few things have come together over 2012 to make me think the connected car is finally becoming a reality (but then next year has been the year of mobile payments since 2006...)

Firstly, earlier this year my colleague Keith, himself looking at getting an all electric car and on the subject of an "emerging apps" project for a client, suggested that electric car apps, and electric cars are finally becoming "desirable", with the app providing the knowledge gap and easing the pain of adoption.

Nissan Leaf app allows the user to see charge, start aircon, etc remotely

Some of which is the info and even "geek chic" of having an app to see the level of charge the car as, and probably more importantly to constantly have in your pocket proof that you can see of how wonderful a human being you are by being so green. No doubt the urge to occasionally tweet and post about this from said mobile also happens...

Electric vehicle parking and charging point opposite two cafes in Berkeley Sq.

The charging point in Berkeley Square in London (pronounced like Barclay if you are from a country that misspells the word colour) in Mayfair is a great perk of going electric, for now at least: drive into central London using the preference lanes, without paying congestion, parking in premium locations with free top-up of juice and a caffeine jolt for you opposite.

Secondly, I recently paid a visit to one of the Scottish and Southern Electricity (SSE) offices in Scotland, or Scottish Hydro as it is known there, precisely the Waterloo Street office in Glasgow where there is a marketing suite at shop floor level. For those who do not know, SSE is the leader by a long way in the UK in hydro and wind power generation, and so SSE have the right to boast a little about these efforts with a very well put together marketing suite where customers can walk in and even try and electric vehicle.

A visit to a showroom like this makes you want to trade in your mobile with all-you-can-eat tariff for a  car

In this showroom are a couple of blah cars (I really cannot be bothered looking them up) but there was the adorable Renault Twizzy, which will soon be joined by other e-cars people actually want, all the way up the the amazing Fisker Karma. Next to them are electric scooters, and while I am aware of the universal and long-lived appeal of the Vespa, there was nothing that got me excited in any way, neither did the e-bikes there.

Having said that, you only have to look at the audi e-bike video, especially with its associated app to ease (and tease) the change.

More real world are bikes like the specialized turbo which have gone for an integrated computer rather than an app, but we all know that people really want either their phone docked here charging, or at least in their pocket to control the device and keep it locked from reasonable levels of temptation. It would not be hard at all to add Bluetooth or wi-fi to the existing computer (the one that controls the electrics, not the display unit!) and have some smartfone goodness to check the state of your battery before you go to bed without having to brave the dark and cold of the garage...

The specialized turbo makes e-bikes a must-have, but how do you check its charge remotely?

If you are not electrified so far, Garmin or some 3rd party apps like Torque can give you a feel or getting info from your car as covered in my app blog. Anyone who is a cyclist will already have a Garmin Edge500 or Edge800 to ensure all the glory detail is captured.

Connected car made easy with Android

The final step is controlling your house, which is now well on its way from companies like lightwave rf allowing you to control your spend and lighting and heating from your armchair; even if that armchair happens to be in your local cafe or your club. As silly as this may sound, I have been using it for a while and its actually very useful, from being able to turn the lights on from your phone when you have a coffee in one hand and your breakfast in another, you plonk yourself in the sofa in the dark and turn the lighting slowly up as the caffeine seeps in, what can I say, its the little things!

Controlling your lighting by room or mood or form a far is where it is going 

So where is this going and, more to the point - why is it all coming?

1. Well, for one, the smartfone has come of age, which for the likes of Sonos and controlling, who managed to get the early adopters with a dedicated controller, this key extra hardware and cost has gone away. 
2. This also means one device does all, you control your car and your bike and your music and your TV and your... from one device
3. The pain of adoption is lower - the main thing stopping the e-car is: where do I charge, where do I park, how will I know when... the answer is: its all in an app!
4. the measure of the benefit it tangible (and if you are socially inclined, shareable) which means in simple marketing terms, that its easier to get early adopters, who in themselves market to the me-too market who in turn will promote to the mass market...

So what are we waiting for? Well some things never change; just like with convential cars - I was drawn in by a Renault Twizzy and ended up configuring a Fisker Karma - I just need to settle somewhere in the middle.