Japanese consumer electronic’s specialists Cerevo (Consumer Electronic REVOlution) are actively trying to develop into the fledgling smart sports segments with a new XON line that will take on everything from point-of-view cameras to smart snowboard bindings. What caught our eye is their XON Orbitrec bike concept that will integrate all manner of ride telemetry sensors into the bike itself, much like the Canyon Projekt MRSC connected concept bike we saw about a year and a half ago. But while that Canyon is still a ways off (even though the stem mounted smart computer should be available this spring), Cerevo is claiming that they will release both the integrated bike and a stand-alone version of the full sensor package this year that could be added on to existing bikes. See what the Orbitrec or the bolt-on Ride-1 can do after the break…
The Orbitrec idea is to build a completely connected bike, and to do so at a high performance level they are going with a 3D printed titanium lug setup joined together with bonded-on carbon fiber tubing. Since Cerevo doesn’t have experience in bicycle design themselves, they have partnered with product designer Satoshi Yanagisawa of Triple Bottom Line who has previously worked with this type of construction, like his DFM01 OUSIA bike above.
Both the complete bike and the separate sensor module are based on the same tech. That means both include the same multi-function suite of sensors that logs movement data with what they call a 9-axis sensor, tracking acceleration, angular velocity, and geomagnetism (presumably measuring each variable in 3 axes?) Both packages also will measure and track temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, illuminance, and GPS location.
In addition to the included sensors, both versions will have ANT+ connectivity to pull data from other tracking devices like heartrate monitors and opwer meters. And they want to make it possible to allow control of ANT+ devices through specialized (user customizable?) programming. So for example, a light level sensor could be used to activate a head light, tail light, and display backlight when you ride into a tunnel or send preset information like a Twitter post when you arrive at a predetermined location or a Facebook post once you reach a set performance or distance milestone.
Everything will then talk back to a connected smart phone via Bluetooth LE, so data is uploaded to the cloud instantly and seamlessly. By monitoring things like road surface and location, you can alert other riders of issues, and by downloading the same data for your own ride, you will be warned of conditions others have encountered. We saw the same concept from the Vanhawks Valour that has already begun hitting the streets just a week ago, so one can hope that as this type of tech develops, companies will find out a way to make all of this big data accessible across platforms in a way that doesn’t have to compromise our data security. But that is a pretty big ask!
Lastly Cerevo promises WiFi connectivity, presumably for things like updates and bigger data dumping (if the live tracking is done via a mobile phone connection), and a battery life of 15 hours for either solution. The release date for both the complete bike or the sensor module is slated at Spring 2016. That sounds pretty tight for the bike, but may be reasonable for the hardware-only from an electronics company. While the bike is shiny and looks nice, it seems like a more rational idea to start off with something like the Ride-1 sensor module for this type of new electronics technology, and if it proves its worth in real world riding, then maybe give the fully integrated bike a go, too.
