~ MamakTalk ~: Meet The Android Wear-based Smart Bike Computer

2015年9月1日星期二

Meet The Android Wear-based Smart Bike Computer

You probably know Android Wear as the operating system powering your smartwatch. However, Google’s software is so flexible that a company managed to transform it and fit in a very interesting computer for a smart bike. Canyon is a German manufacturer of racing, mountain and triathlon bikes and during the Eurobike event that took place last week they unveiled their Smart Bike Computer prototype, a device running a software based on Android Wear to aid bikers on daily rides. The system is built onto a custom bike mount and can be easily attached/detached from basically any bike. The computer itself can also be detached in order to be recharged or even if you want to secure it when parking your vehicle on the open. As for the appearance, it resembles a smart watch attached to the bar with the bands removed – actually it looks like a re-packaged Sony Smartwatch 3, although the company didn’t mention anything.

The device has a 1.6-inch trans-reflective capacitive color touchscreen LCD display, built-in GPS and 4 GB of internal storage. It features a micro-USB port on the bottom for charging and, according to the company, when ready it will have 8-10 hours of battery life. If it’s indeed based on Sony’s device, it’s most likely to be powered by the quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor running at 1.2 GHz and 512 MB of RAM. Differently from similar devices such as the Wahoo RFLKT/RFLKT+ and because of the fact that it runs the Android Wear-based software, the Canyon Smart Bike Computer is designed to be less reliant on a connected phone. It also has Bluetooth Smart to connect to other sensors and gather data. Further, the bikers will be able to use all of Google’s ecosystem of apps and services, including Google Fit, Google Maps and big names like Strava, MapMyFitness (MapMyRide), Komoot, RunKeeper, Runtastic, MyTracks, and much more.

The Smart Bike Computer is just a prototype that was presented during Eurobike, an annual trade show for the bike industry that takes place in Germany. As for pricing and availability, it will take a while for the device to get to the market since it won’t be available until Spring 2016 with a 200-220 EUR price tag (220 – 240 USD).