Watch out bike thieves, this bike is armed with a Boomerang. No, not the wooden tool/weapon that supposedly comes back. This Boomerang is a cellular equipped GPS device you attach to your bike.
There have been a lot of different products that were meant to keep your bike safe and track it in the event of theft, but few of those actually include their own cellular connection. The Boomerang is connected by Verizon Wireless which means that it has much better range than a bluetooth connection. Once you purchase the Boomerang, there is a quarterly fee of $14.97 ($59.88 per year) that is paid directly to Boomerang who manages the actual cellular contract.
In addition to the cellular connection, the device includes a GPS tracker, motion sensor, and other electronics to alert you if the bike is moved. The motion sensing alarm will go off if someone tries to move the bike without your knowledge, and you’ll also get an alert on your cell phone that your bike is being messed with. If it’s actually taken, it will start to send GPS coordinates so that you can track it and hopefully retrieve it.
According to Boomerang, visible trackers are more of a theft deterrent than internal trackers, and the cell signal wouldn’t be as strong if it was in the frame so it’s mounted externally. The Boomerang is mounted to a bottle cage mount with anti-theft torx bolts that are long enough to mount a water bottle cage on top if you’d like.
The external positioning will also help you recharge the device which you’ll have to do at least once a week. Boomerang claims that the device will last for up to 10 hours when in motion (gathering data and sending it to the cloud), and 3-4 months while in sleep mode. Charging takes 4-6 hours.
In addition to anti-theft, the device could be useful for rental fleets as it allows you to set geo fences to keep tabs on bikes, and track ride data. That ride data tracking can also be used for personal rides with distance, elevation, number of rides, calories, and even carbon offset and gas money saved metrics.
The device weighs in at 142g, and each Boomerang sells for $155. Note that there is a separate GSM version for riders outside of the U.S.
