The keyless Bluetooth bike locks are now coming thick and fast ... relatively speaking. In just the past couple of years, we've heard about the Skylock, Bitlock, Lock8, Ulock and Noke U-lock. Now, the Kadalock has appeared on our radar. It differs from the others in that it's a cable lock, and it mounts on the user's existing water bottle cage.
Upon initially looking at it, one of the first things you might wonder is "Couldn't you just steal the bike by taking off its bottle cage along with the lock?". The designers thought of that, however. The cage's mounting bolts are hidden under a supplied metal strip, that is itself secured beneath the locking mechanism – in other words, you have to unlock the Kadalock in order to take off the cage.
The aluminum-bodied lock itself is weather-resistant, weighs about 250 g (8.8 oz), and contains an electrically-retractable 120-cm (47-inch) rubber-coated steel cable. We have to admit, that cable looks pretty puny, although the company claims that a hydraulic cutter is required in order to snip it.
You start by downloading a free iOS/Android app, charging the lock's 3.3-volt 210-mAh lithium-polymer battery via USB, and pairing the lock with your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.0. Once charge should be good for about a year of "average use," and you're notified on your phone when the battery is getting low.
After being mounted on the bottle cage, the lock can be woken up by touching it with a finger. You subsequently enter a passcode on your phone in order to unlock the Kadalock, then pull out its cable and wind it around an adjacent immovable object before feeding it back into the lock. When it's time to leave, you just repeat the process, and wind the cable back into the lock by pressing a button on the device.
If your phone battery dies, you can unlock the Kadalock by tapping in a pre-specified Morse code pattern with your finger.
While the bike is secured, the lock will detect if it's moved, or if its cable is cut. Should either of those things happen, it will respond by emitting an 80-decibel alarm, plus it will notify you via a message on you phone. Additionally, you can grant lock access to friends who wish to borrow your bike, by temporarily allowing their phones to unlock it, too.
Should you be interested – and if you trust that skinny cable – the Kadalock's creators are currently raising production funds on Kickstarter. A pledge of US$99 will currently get you one, when and if they're ready to go. The planned retail price is $199.
More information is available in the following pitch video.
Sources: Kadalock, Kickstarter
that IS a puny cable and could be cut with any pliers or wire cutters NOT like they say [what is a 'hydraulic wire cutter' anyway?]
or a common BIKE TOOL [called a 'cable cutter' oddly enough]
anyway fool and his money
wle
city traffic would be louder than that
a person talking, 5 feet away, is louder than that
how does this thing send a message to a phone, is it a cell phone too - which would need a $$$ubscription plan??
wle