(Pocket-lint) – Going for a bike ride should be one of life’s great pleasures, but it’s also a pastime that we know requires some sensible thinking about safety. We all grow up knowing that you need to wear a helmet to cycle safely, but there are more ways to stay safe in the modern world.
Bike lights are a huge part of cycling safety, but for a long time they’ve been a bit old-school and simple. That’s why the Vodafone Smart Tech team has smartly swapped things up by including a location tracker in its new Curve Bike Light & GPS tracker – here are five things that make it a great pick for cyclists.
1. A great light first and foremost
The biggest factor anyone considers when looking at a bike light, quite rightly, is how bright it can get, and that’s where Vodafone starts things off with the Curve light. It’s a brilliant red rear light that gets up to 40 lumens of light to make sure that you’re visible to vehicles and pedestrians even at long distances.
There are three modes to choose from, including pulsing and flashing options to really shout out your position to nearby observers. You also get a great bit of intelligence here, too – the light can detect when you’re breaking and come on brighter to let people behind you know you’re slowing down, just like a car’s lights do. That’s something that not many reasonably-priced competitors can match.
2. Track your bike
That tracker is, of course, one of the unique things about the Curve light, and it means that you can feel confident about your bike’s location even when you’re not riding it. Bike theft is sadly far from uncommon, but being able to check your phone to see where exactly your bike is, offers a lot of peace of mind.
You also don’t have to worry about the light being stolen – you can detach the light from its base and take it with you, activating the security mode and leaving the GPS tracker behind.
Plus, when you leave your bike you can activate a siren mode on the Curve which will start a loud deterring siren if it detects jarring movement or that it’s being stolen. You’ll also be alerted by your choice of a push notification or an SMS alert, to make sure you can go find your ride.
3. Extra safety features
It’s not just location tracking for your bike, though – the GPS tracker brings with it some great features for when you’re actually out and about on a ride. The biggest one in our mind is collision detection – the Curve can tell if you’ve been in a big crash and send an SOS message to a chosen emergency contact.
This could be a potential life-saver, but it’s also completely optional, so if you don’t want to use it you can just leave it off.
4. Built-in SIM
All of this works so seamlessly because the Curve light has a built-in Vodafone SIM that lets it track location independently from your phone or any other device, giving it true autonomy. That’s also how it’s able to send messages without being tethered to your phone, too.
It’s nice and simple and just works in the background even if you’re far from home or your phone, for a low monthly cost of just £3 or an upfront price of £79, meaning that if you go monthly you’re getting a whole load of safety features for the price of a nice coffee – a pretty great deal!
5. Insights
Of course, riding around with a location tracker means that you don’t just get safety bonuses, you can also get some amazing insights into your actual rides. You can review your routes and pace, and see how you’ve progressed over time.
That makes the Curve tracker and light more than the sum of its parts, a really useful little gadget for a bunch of different purposes. You can find out more about it and order one for yourself on Vodafone’s website now.