Nordic Semiconductor has announced that Northern Ireland cycling startup, See.Sense will be employing Nordic nRF9160 SiP in the world’s first cellular bike security tracker. It uses both GPS and the NB-IoT to help users automatically locate and track their bikes from a smartphone for up to three months on a single charge from an internal rechargeable lithium-polymer battery.
See.Sense AIR weighs 80g and is about half the size of a deck of playing cards i.e 65 x 50 mm. It is aptly designed to fit securely under any bike’s seat or bottle cage. The user has to just follow the simple set-up procedure to recharge the battery once-every-three-month. If the bike is moved, stolen or tampered with, the AIR detects this and switches into the ‘Flight’ mode setting and will raise an alarm and immediately text message to the rider. The Flight mode will rapidly transmit high-powered tracking signals to allow the owner to accurately locate their bike to the nearest couple of meters. Thereafter, the tracking information can be passed to local law enforcement, which increases the chances of recovery.
The AIR will not just protect the bike but its rider too. If the rider meets an accident, AIR will send an SMS with the precise location to the rider’s assigned contact. Besides this, AIR can also enhance the cycling experience by constantly and accurately monitoring the cyclist’s experience on their ride so that aggregated and depersonalized ride insights can be shared with partners to improve conditions for cycling.
The multimode Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160 SiP has an integrated LTE-M/NB-IoT modem plus GPS and is certified for global cellular IoT applications. It has a dedicated 64 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 application processor, 1 MB Flash and 256 KB RAM, an integrated RF front end, and is supplied in a compact 10 x 16 x 1 mm package. Also, there is a range of analog and digital peripherals plus automated power and clock management, Arm TrustZone for trusted execution, and Arm CryptoCell 310 for application-layer security.
The AIR has emerged from a successful Kickstarter campaign that exceeded its funding target multiple times with over 850 backers. The See.Sense AIR will retail for around $150 and will begin shipping in Europe April next year, with a U.S. launch is scheduled to be done by the end of 2020. AIR will come with two years’ free cellular connection with an approximate $ 15 annual charge from the third year.
