[HN Gopher] Making a smart bike dumb so it works again
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Making a smart bike dumb so it works again
Author : franciscop
Score : 71 points
Date : 2025-04-19 09:57 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (francisco.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (francisco.io)
| Aardwolf wrote:
| > You can also charge this light with USB-C instead of the
| original micro-USB.
|
| A dynamo would be the next upgrade
| dobladov wrote:
| I can't state how convenient hub dynamos are, no noise, no
| maintenance, unlikely to be robbed without stealing the whole
| bike, it just works, perfect for a city bike.
| tomn wrote:
| I get why people like them, but they make way less sense when
| you work out the capacity of an equivalent weight (not to
| mention cost) of lithium cells.
|
| It's easy to get to about 90Wh, which will run a dynamo-
| powered light for 30 hours on max (most dynamos seem to be
| rated 3W).
|
| There are definitely cases where it makes sense, and not
| having to keep batteries charged is nice, it's just easy to
| miss how good batteries are these days.
| tomsmeding wrote:
| Not having to take the light off the bike and charge it and
| then forget to take it back to the bike, not to mention
| forgetting charging it and finding out when it's dark, is
| _completely_ worth having a dynamo.
| ortusdux wrote:
| How much energy do they rob? I can't think of dynamos without
| thinking of Bart Simpson -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaKjmxb7Qlc
| Xylakant wrote:
| It depends both on the lights and the dynamo. Incandescent
| lights used substantial chunks of your pedaling power. LED
| lights need maybe 5W or so. Hub dynamos are pretty efficient.
| For an untrained person your average power output is around
| 100W. That means powering the light would be around 5% of
| your power if you're using an efficient hub dynamo. That's in
| the ballpark of "bad chain maintenance costs more energy"
| consp wrote:
| > Incandescent lights used substantial chunks of your
| pedaling power.
|
| Not solely caused by the lights as they are about ~5W
| anyway (edit: the old one in my box of bike parts says
| 6V/3W on the metal). The wheel dynamo's are insanely
| inefficient and get hot everywhere which were the primary
| ones used with most incandecant lights.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| hub dynamos are not particularly efficient. it's very
| difficult to make an electric machine that is efficient at
| the (very low speeds, relatively) that a bike wheel turns
| at. 60% sounds about right. However, safety lights use much
| less than 5W, and a modest but very useable headlight about
| 3W, so your figures are otherwise pretty close.
| hackingonempty wrote:
| The best ones are roughly 50% efficient, 10W to output 5W but
| some are much less, 14W to output 5W. ...and 3W with no load.
|
| https://www.cyclingabout.com/how-much-do-hub-dynamos-
| really-...
| dheera wrote:
| I detest this trend of needing an app for every piece of
| hardware.
|
| Just put the damn interface on the hardware. You are after all
| selling the hardware, not the app.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| They are _not_ selling the hardware. They are taking your money
| in exchange for the privilege of utilizing the hardware they
| created to use a service they built so their customers can
| obtain data about your usage of the device and whatever it
| connects to.
|
| I fear that small companies without VC are the only ones
| interested in making a thing they sell that doesn't require
| some ongoing commitment from buyers. And those companies run
| the risk of folding overnight. It's fine for the customers
| since their hardware continues to function, but it's not an
| attractive business model.
| consp wrote:
| > but it's not an attractive business model
|
| It's been the business model for over 100+ years with bikes.
| It's not an attractive VC buisness models as it cannot
| needlessly extract wealth beyond the product sale. It is
| double dipping as you fully pay for the bike, and people fall
| for it somehow.
| observationist wrote:
| VCs mandate that every possible avenue of rent seeking be
| exploited in order to maximize the amount and frequency of
| transactions. You're not getting hardware funded; the VC will
| steal your idea and pawn it off on some other party capable of
| exploiting the potential for your product as a service. Because
| if you don't, someone else will, and they'll have more money to
| outcompete your product, because enshittification is how FAANG
| got to be trillion dollar companies.
|
| A person existing is sufficient to make these people assume
| they are entitled to something for it.
| kennywinker wrote:
| The phrase rent-seeking is such a funny one to me. Like, if
| rent-seeking is bad that should apply across the board. I.e.
| being a landlord, literally seeking rent from tenants.
|
| Yet I fear the issue most people on here have with "rent
| seeking" is the harm it does to a theoretical idea of free
| market capitalism - rather than the tangible harm of
| extracting wealth from someone's need for a place to live.
| teemur wrote:
| Rent-seeking is a pretty well-known term that has not much
| to do with rents.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
| kennywinker wrote:
| "Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth
| by manipulating the social or political environment
| without creating new wealth"
|
| So, renting out a home. Just the manipulation of social
| and political environment has already been done. Rent
| sought, not rent seeking.
|
| Rent as in rent paid to live in a home fits the
| definition of "economic rent" perfectly. Because housing
| rent is an example of economic rent. The cognitive
| dissonance i am pointing out is that seeking economic
| rent is bad, but using already created structures to
| obtain economic rent is... not bad somehow?
| tchock23 wrote:
| If anyone is looking to do the opposite (i.e., make a dumb bike
| smart) check out the QZ app (qzfitness.com). Made by a solo dev
| who is amazing at support despite the tiny price and lack of
| subscription. I have no affiliation, just thought anyone reading
| the original post might be curious about the opposite...
| c2xlZXB5Cg1 wrote:
| The light placement (so the mudguard casts shadows) would drive
| me insane
| franciscop wrote:
| Another problem is that when turning, the light doesn't follow
| the handlebar, so it "stays behind" the curve. It's bright/wide
| enough and I only drive in the city so neither problems are a
| huge deal though.
| consp wrote:
| That is actually less of an issue as you might think, if the
| light is designed properly. As you will have to look at the
| corner before you ever shine the light directly towards it.
| This is not much different from motorcycles.
|
| Since this is a vanmoof (first edition probably) I think they
| followed the design of "old fashioned" bikes which also lack
| the turnability features as the light is attached to the
| frame part of the central steering bar and not the insert
| which turns with the steering wheel.
| scottyah wrote:
| I was hoping this was about the Copenhagen Wheel. I'd love if my
| expensive brick could get going again. It was my first lesson in
| "Don't trust a startup".
| ortusdux wrote:
| I've been eyeing a Pikaboost 2 conversion kit for a while now,
| but I share your skepticism. For me it's more of a distrust of
| first gen products than it is startups. Even apple messes up
| 1st gen.
|
| I live up a hill, and all my destinations are at sea level, so
| I just want enough E-bike to get home at the end of the day.
| pedantsamaritan wrote:
| I thought I'd read about unbricking it.
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ebikes/comments/1bis770/diehard_cop...
| links to a private FB group that I haven't joined, but implies
| maybe it hasn't been solved yet.
| https://www.instructables.com/Build-a-Key-for-the-Copenhagen...
| makes me think at least one piece of the puzzle has been.
| consp wrote:
| > I'd love if my expensive brick could get going again. It was
| my first lesson in "Don't trust a startup".
|
| This does not even require an app. Simply lock down all
| hardware and make it economically unviable by charging 100+
| euro for a 5 second "software update", which you need to do if
| you ever unplug the battery for > 10 seconds. See the thousands
| of Accell bikes (mostly Sparta branded) on dumps. You can get
| them going again but that's only for diehard hobbyists and
| requires custom hardware.
| autoexec wrote:
| I'm sure there are startups that won't screw over their users
| even if they don't make it. Don't trust/buy any hardware that
| requires a cell phone app to use though.
| xnx wrote:
| Weird. That looks so much like a Vanmoof which typically has
| light buttons on the left handlebar. Might be a knockoff.
| franciscop wrote:
| It is an early edition Vanmoof, it has a single button on the
| handlebar that was for the Bell, no button for the lights. I
| could find little info about this model, it was only later
| versions that were a lot more popular.
| thih9 wrote:
| > Now my bike has a button, you press it and the light turns on.
| It's like magic how simple it is!
|
| I recall no situations where I preferred an app as opposed to a
| regular hardware button like this.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| That companies would follow such absolute shit practices to the
| people who trusted them with their money for actual physical
| products is grotesque. It should even be treated as a type of
| fraud, downright. Fuck these "smart device" manufacturers that
| can't seem to help themselves against fucking the thing you
| bought right over with bullshit fashionable tech trends that
| barely work.
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