RFID-style chip for stolen bikes

Wasn't there a company promoting a similar product for bikes recently on chainlink? 

This application and hardware combo may solve the problem of size (needs to be small and discrete) and battery (never needs replacing, lasts one year before replacing whole chip).  

http://www.thetileapp.com

Remaining questions:

1. could it be well enough hidden as to remain on the bike? Perhaps beneath the seat? glued to bottom of BB? 

2. It requires a dense user base to track your stolen goods (another tile-user has to randomly pass within 50 feet of your lost bike for the bluetooth 4.0 signal to be pinged back to the cloud and then to your iPhone). Might not be feasible until a certain max density is reached. 

But I like the hardware and concept a lot better than that bottle cage device.  

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Permalink Reply by Skip Montanaro 0mi on July 17, 2013 at 4:06pm

You might be thinking of http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/

I have my doubts about its effectiveness for bikes.  I sent an email to the company and will report back what I hear.

Permalink Reply by Walter Dworak on July 15, 2014 at 9:05am

I have to say, the carbon seatpost with tracker sounds pretty awesome. Wonder how much that will run for, may have to click that interest button. Would love to hear from a user of their other two.

Permalink Reply by KayCee on July 17, 2014 at 4:58pm
What about trackr? You need a network to make these work, and it looks like this one's farther along than tile.

Article here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/10/trackr-the-coin-shaped-dongles-tha...

Heres a link for a free one. No idea what the subscription will entail.
http://www.thetrackr.com/profile?auth_token=zdkovHjpdYwg7Szmvapy#
Permalink Reply by KayCee on July 18, 2014 at 4:18am

Wallet Trackr and Phone Halo have been available on Amazon for awhile, which is why I said they're farther along.  I assume users will use the same network.  Unfortunately it looks like reviews are very, very mixed.

Permalink Reply by Skip Montanaro 0mi on July 18, 2014 at 1:53pm
Has anyone considered creating a privately run/funded bait bike program using one of these systems?
Permalink Reply by Mark on July 19, 2014 at 6:56am

Who has to wait to get a bike stolen?  Lock it up on Washington st. at the Metra station, with a cable lock. It will be gone by morning.  It doesn't even need to be a nice bike. 

Permalink Reply by Jaik S. on August 21, 2014 at 2:19am

Just ordered the Trackr. There's also a newer version coming out, the Trackr Bravo. I used the link that someone posted above and selected the "Buy additional Trackr for $24.99" option. So, I'll be receiving two for that price since the first is free. I would encourage cyclists to download the app to widen the network of discovery for these.

Permalink Reply by Jaik S. on August 21, 2014 at 8:30am

Find my iPhone works on GPS. GPS is only accurate to about 10 Meters. iPhones are also easily turned off or restored to another image. Specifically, someone looking to steal a phone would also be likely to turn it off to disable these tracking items.

When you introduce something that is tracked by Bluetooth, and relies on tracking under 100 feet(although I've experience more with low noise or interference). If someone passes by an item using a Trackr, and is also using the Trackr app, a signal is recorded and beamed to you. You then have an idea of where your Trackr is located. If you show up to that location, and use your mobile device, it will become stronger the closer you get, and notify you that you're getting closer. 

Getting stolen things back is more common than you think. I had a bike stolen in 2012. It was returned to me almost two years later. When you say you don't understand why people want their things back after they are stolen, the most simple explanation I can give you is because it is their stuff. Saying you don't understand the want for something recovered, stopping crime, and catching bad guys, well that's just ridiculous and not realistic. Everyone wants to live in a safer World, even if they put off the image that they think there is no more hope. 

You continue to spend your energy being pessimistic, I'll continue to spend my life optimistic.


Davis Moore said:

"Find My iPhone" works about as well as anything proposed here ever possibly could. Anyone here know anyone who has ever gotten their iPhone back using it? Anyone? These gadgets are just gimmicks that play on people's fantasies of security, or "catching the bad guy". They're smoke and mirrors.

People have been stealing stuff for as long as people have had stuff, and the victims have been entertaining fantasies about getting their stuff back for that long too. And the percentage who do actually get their stuff back has probably always held steady at about .000000000000000000000001%.

I really do not understand this obsession with theft recovery, and stopping crime, and catching bad guys etc. Why people can't just follow the normal recommended advice on locking etc., and then just accept that there are no guarantees in life. If your bike is stolen, post about it or whatever, but then get on with your life. Life is too short to go obsessively chasing down these illusory abstract concepts of "justice". Especially about something as relatively inconsequential as a bike. There's more important stuff in life to spend your energies on it seems like.

Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on August 21, 2014 at 8:35am

My friend did get her iphone back actually. She was back in Chicago and drove all the way back to the Wisconsin Dells.  

Davis Moore said:

"Find My iPhone" works about as well as anything proposed here ever possibly could. Anyone here know anyone who has ever gotten their iPhone back using it? Anyone? These gadgets are just gimmicks that play on people's fantasies of security, or "catching the bad guy". They're smoke and mirrors.

People have been stealing stuff for as long as people have had stuff, and the victims have been entertaining fantasies about getting their stuff back for that long too. And the percentage who do actually get their stuff back has probably always held steady at about .000000000000000000000001%.

I really do not understand this obsession with theft recovery, and stopping crime, and catching bad guys etc. Why people can't just follow the normal recommended advice on locking etc., and then just accept that there are no guarantees in life. If your bike is stolen, post about it or whatever, but then get on with your life. Life is too short to go obsessively chasing down these illusory abstract concepts of "justice". Especially about something as relatively inconsequential as a bike. There's more important stuff in life to spend your energies on it seems like.

Permalink Reply by Skip Montanaro 0mi on August 21, 2014 at 9:04am

If my bike is stolen, that's bad for me, and presumably good (at least temporarily) for the thief. If I was the only bike owner that thief took advantage of, then sure, I understand your admonition to get over it and move on.

However, San Francisco's bait bike program, recent discovery out in California of a large cache of stolen bikes in the possession of one person, the stolen bike registry here, etc... suggest that bike theft is not a handful of one-to-one owner/thief relationships. Bike theft appears to be big business. It currently appears to be low risk, high reward. If I work to get my bike back, I might well be preventing what appears on the surface to be my own personal thief from stealing other peoples' bikes. That one thief is not only stealing from me. He is almost certainly busy stealing as many bikes as he can lay his grubby little hands on.

The thief-to-owner relationship tends to be one-to-many, not one-to-one.

Permalink Reply by Jaik S. on August 21, 2014 at 9:12am

I didn't spend two years obsessing about it. About a month total. Within the first week I found the person that stole it. He didn't have it anymore. Since I followed the proper "snake oil" tactics, it was discovered when someone brought the bike into Comrade Cycles for a repair.

The only way I could have prevented my bike from being stolen would have been to either weld the door shut, not have any neighbors to allow the door to be opened, or put it inside my bedroom. I couldn't have made the building more "theft proof" but I bet I could have found it quicker with something that located the bike.

I'm glad you think you're being engaging on this thread, but it's more about tracking something and locating it, rather than harping on the people who are attempting discuss that and making a change. Also, not believing in how effective the technology of the future is sounds like someone stuck in an archaic age of wanting things to remain exactly the same as they are. 


Davis Moore said:

And I'm glad you got your bike back. But if you spent two years obsessing about it, that seems like a waste of energy to me. (I'm not saying you did, and if I had to wager I'd bet the bike "found it's way" back to you, rather than you hunting the thieves down like some sleuthing crime fighter.)

Bike theft is a crime of opportunity is all I'm saying, so prevention is a bigger cure than something reactive like these variations on lo-jack. All of which I think are all just some gimmicky bs anyway that just play on peoples fantasy of being able to "catch someone red handed". I just don't buy it that they'll ever be all that effective.

Permalink Reply by Jaik S. on August 27, 2014 at 8:35am

I should be receiving my TrackR any day. Just found their server data map, and they have over 100,000 of these shipping to everyone. That will create the largest crowd sourced GPS network, assuming everyone uses the app to track things like they should. This was from last month:

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