The Copenhagen Wheel Project
Posted by Stijn | Filed under abroad, design
Notice the red smartie in the back wheel of this bicycle? It transforms ordinary bicycles quickly into hybrid e-bikes and also functions as a mobile sensing unit. Excuse me? Indeed, the smartie captures the energy dissipated while cycling and braking and saves it for when you need a bit of a boost. But it also maps and tracks pollution levels, traffic congestion, and road conditions in real-time.
How? It’s controlled by your smart phone (like e.g. I-Phone). You can use it to unlock and lock your bike, change gears and select how much the motor assists you. As you cycle, the wheel’s sensing unit is also capturing your effort level and information about your surroundings, including road conditions, carbon monoxide, NOx, noise, ambient temperature and relative humidity.
Tags: copenhagen, design, electric bike, i-phone
One Response to “The Copenhagen Wheel Project”
-
Craig Says:
December 21st, 2009 at 22:42Not very practical. I suspect that the only reason they included the data sensing unit to make it look geeky and marketable. The regenerative portion of the wheel is an idea that has been tried many times before. Unfortunately, the bicycle being of low weight doesn’t lend itself to practical uses for regenerative type of braking. How many of these wheels would sell without the iphone and pollution and noise sensing features. I doubt it would sell that much.
