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AlterLock Anti-Theft Alarm - Can it stop your bike from being stolen?
This article includes paid promotion on behalf of AlterLock
While the Apple Air Tags that we featured in the last video weren’t initially intended for bikes, the AlterLock has been designed specifically to help you keep track of your beloved bicycle. But will it help Dave to get his bike back?
In this series, we are looking at ways to get your bike back should it ever be stolen. Do any devices offer a deterrent to a would-be thief, how quickly are you notified of your bike being pinched and then is it easy to follow it around town while you try to get it back?
In this video, we take a look at the AlterLock system which Mat Brett reviewed last year. It is tracked via GPS on the Sigfox network and should it be moved to an indoor location where GPS is lost, the device will use WiFi to give an approximate location.
Before the bike is actually stolen, you have the ability to set an alarm, giving an audible notification that your bike might be getting pinched. This will also give you a notification on a connected smartphone, which could be useful if you’re leaving your bike outside while you’re at the cafe.
But we’ll be looking more at the tracking abilities of the device should your bike actually be stolen. Dave will be doing the tracking today, using the app which is available on iOS and Android and that should give him a position update once per minute.
The AlterLock system is a low-powered GPS unit, requiring less battery power than a standard GPS unit, such as a cycling computer. This gives a claimed battery life of up to two months, though the use of Sigfox does mean that coverage is a little patchy in certain areas.
Once again our thief will have 30 minutes to make good their escape, and after that they’ll hide out in a cafe while Dave tries to get the bike back.
So, did the AlterLock work? Watch the video to find out...
Are there any systems that you'd like us to test out? Let us know in the comments below.
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7 comments
So now all the criminal bike thieves that watched this video now know what to look for! Then of course they had to go put a big decal on the thing called Alterlock, giving a clueless criminal a huge clue something is amiss...LOL!! Alterlock needs to take that decal off and not put any indication on it anywhere that it's a tracking device, just a black thing, or use a misleading decal like Alter Cage; better yet design a water bottle cage with the device built into it so it will appear to be a cage with a larger than normal base, then th Alter Cage decal would make sense.
Anyway, what I want to know is what is the furthest away you can track a bike? And if you are in an area with very tall buildings everywhere do you lose contact? All the devices I've seen can only track for about 10 blocks, once your bike is outside that area the bike is gone. I could not find the range on their website.
It should continue to track it as long as it's in range of a Sigfox antenna. Where it is in relation to the device you're using to monitor it isn't really relevant.
I think this is a bit confused - as I understand it these are two separate components of the system: [standard] GPS to determine position (supplemented by WiFi network scanning when GPS is weak or unavailable); Sigfox (low power mobile comms network) to report that position back to the monitoring device.
Some GPS chips use much less power than others, a recent example being a lot of the reason Garmin has got much more battery life out of the InReach Mini 2 than version 1. When you don't need continuous locations with high accuracy once a second, you can design a chip that sleeps most of the circuitry most of the time.
Yeah - the bit I was questioning was that 'Sigfox is a GPS unit' - I think these are two different services used by the device.
Ah, got it. Yes, that sentence should start with "The AlterLock..."
Is it "always on" or does it have an on / off switch? I'm assuming the former or it has controls to stop it being turned off...
With a secure Allen bolt (maybe a hexlock in a normal bolt and a security bolt for the other) this could actually be quite a good tracker device for commuter bikes left outdoors.