What is a Horseshoe lock?
No, we’re not talking about GPS trackers to track down stolen horses.
A smart horseshoe lock is a u-shaped bicycle lock that is usually attached to the seat stay of a bike frame and closes around the rear tire. Smart ones are electronic and include GPS, Bluetooth, and IoT, making them good bike-sharing tools. But what exactly is the difference in their performance?
Horseshoe locks for bikesharing
A BLE lock (Bluetooth Low Energy), such as the AXA ERL-2, can be locked and unlocked via Bluetooth and has the advantage of having a long battery life of up to one year.
In this way, it keeps your purchasing and operational costs low. On the other hand, it doesn’t provide real-time location data, nor can it integrate with an e-bike’s engine. The bike’s location is usually retrieved through the user’s smartphone when they open and close the lock via a bike-sharing app such as Joyride.
Nevertheless, some fleet managers do not only need to know where their user’s trips start and end but also which routes they take. They may need to know the e-bike’s battery levels or provide data for traffic analysis to municipalities. A BLE-lock does not support these features.
An IoT lock with GPS provides real-time location data but consumes more energy in exchange.
You must either recharge it every two weeks or connect it to a solar panel. The most holistic solution is integrating them with an e-bike’s engine that supplies energy from its battery.
Joyride’s software offers that with the Sentinel M60 lock and e-bikes with Bafang engines. With this combination, you know your bike’s location and battery level and the lock switches the e-bike on and off each time a trip starts or ends.
Which solution do you prefer? A simple one with a BLE-lock? Or do you prefer the most sophisticated lock solution?
