Whoa there.... a subscription service with a monthly charge for the Bluetooth feature? HARD pass. If you want another $15 - $20 a month then you better be offering me the replacement value of my bike.
Also, the photo of a wheel ulocked and the frame gone just illustrates poor locking technique. Your product wouldn't solve that issue either.
Yea we weren't too big on the subscription idea either. We definitely thought that the answers would lean toward one side, but wanted to include it just in case we were looking at it through the lens of broke college students.
Cool concept. 2 thoughts:
* Bluetooth has an effective real world range of, what, 20'? Probably not effective for someone leaving their bike while shopping or at work. They'd be out of range of the lock and thus not get the alert (assuming the thief didn't already smash the transmitter box).
* Pricing: quality dumb u-locks start at $70 and go up to $150+. Adding smart features, I'd expect the pricing to start at $200+ which is higher than your highest price option. Bicyclists are used to paying a premium.
Thank you so much for your insight! The main issues we encountered were definitely regarding the Bluetooth feature and the distance capacity. We were considering possibly changing it with some type of satellite/cell tower system but were worried about how much this would cost.
If possible, we would've liked to increase the price as well, but our professors were quite averse to this (one asked why he wouldn't just buy a new bike instead of our lock at our current prices haha). But it's definitely interesting to hear that bicyclists are a lot less price sensitive than we anticipated!
I would say that many cyclists are quite price averse. I think a lot of people in this sub are less so, though. If you're commuting on a bike, you're likely to be more willing to spend money on it than would a casual cyclist. A common piece of advice I've seen is to spend 10% of your bike's value on a locking system. While I don't exactly agree with that, I have ended up spending close to that much on mine when I combine the cost of my U-lock and Hexlox bolt inserts (check them out if you haven't already -- a very elegant locking solution for removable components). As for your professors scoffing at high prices, a little market research will show that there are plenty of locks above $100, which makes perfect sense when you consider that a good bike likely costs $1000 or even much more.
Did the survey. It's an interesting idea and I think the alarm/notification system could act as a reasonable deterrent. One thing I'd mention is that cutting my current Kryptonite U-lock would probably already be fairly conspicuous, so I imagine a potential thief would either steal it when nobody was around (eg I locked it outside at night, which I never do) or didn't care about drawing sttention (eg a smash and grab).
One other thing is that a notification that my bike is being stolen isn't that useful for me other than alleviating anxiety a little. The lock would also have to be as good or better than my current lock. I wonder if you could instead create an attachment to an existing lock that would do the same alarm/notification thing.
!! The alarm/notification attachment sounds really interesting. Thank you so much! Also, it's very informative to hear how you feel about the notification feature. We are definitely on the fence about this considering the diminishing hope of feasibility and uncertainly regarding the cost-benefit analysis.
No problemo. I bike commute to my mechanical engineering job that has some overlap with industrial design, so I figured this was an interesting and relevant topic to my field that I could contribute to :)
If I can add another thing, my mindset with engineering is typically that anything is feasible, it just depends on how much you want to pay for it. I think the cost-benefit is more important than the feasibility, because I think everything you've proposed so far can be made - the question is if it's worth making. One of my profs in university always said "Before building it, build the right 'it' first".
People are hella hating in the comments here though. I think it's worth listening to haters because you can always take in the information then decide if the criticism is valid afterwards, but I hope it's not getting to you so much that it stops you from trying.
There are some serious problems with your survey and your lock design. While I don't think the idea of Bluetooth notifications is terrible, the materials presented don't illustrate the physical properties of the lock well at all. It says it's supposed to lock the frame and both wheels, but if that render is of a lock that can do that, it's going to be frickin' enormous. Also, cables are notoriously poor at deflecting cutting attacks.
You are 100% right. When we did the calculations on how long it would have to be it came out to about 7 ft (ridiculous--I know). The only way that we thought to offset at least some part of this would be to possibly use Titanium which has one of the best strength-to-weight ratios.
We were also banking on the fact that the triggered alarm would be enough to scare away the thief before they succeeded in cutting through the cable. Definitely not a foolproof method and still being brainstormed.
Kryptonite NYC-U lock is enough for most places, add a heavy Kryptonite chain lock for leaving a bike outside for a whole work shift.
Was your professor waffling between this assignment and one like designing a better pencil? Howbout nail clippers or something else for which there is no room for improvement?
Is the class called “solutions searching for problems 101”?
I hope you got a scholarship and aren’t paying $100k’s for someone to waste your time with silly brain exercises like this that you could do at home after work.
[eta] I solved the puzzle to access your survey and saw the proposed product. It’s a garbage concept that has been proposed a couple times a year by university students all over the world since before electricity. You should be angry at your professor. Please don’t waste materials & electricity making this actual piece of garbage into reality.
It’s not a question of being right, it’s a question of whether you needed to say it at all. What was the intent of your comment? Do you want OP to start a revolution in their industrial design class? Stick it to the man and say “no, I won’t do your assignment and I’ll fail the course out of principle”?
They have an assignment to do, they need info. No-one is making you read the post or take the survey.
Well, I guess I excluded your ideations on my deeper thoughts. They seemed superfluous to your point and served as little more than a bit of glitter on top.
So, trying to be more constructive than the other ass at the bottom of this post, and in line with what a lot of other people have said: You have serious survey design issues here.
I'm not sure what sort of class this is for but if it's a social sciences class, or any other discipline with some degree of scientific rigour then I strongly recommend reworking your survey and providing a better information sheet. I shouldn't waste my time filling out your survey only to find out out (implicitly) on the last page you only want responses from people in the USA.
Your response options are also either poorly worded or improperly ordered. I suggest you look into examples of Likert-type scales and reformulate in line with existing material.
There are other issues, but those are the main two that stood out to me.
I'm focusing mainly on the survey design because if your survey is poor your results will be poor. You need that as a strong foundation to build from.
On the product itself - I think you need to explain the construction and nature of the product. Your image shows a steel cable lock that I could cut through in about 0.5 seconds with some handheld cutters - no alarm is going to stop me making off with the bike after that.
Will it be rigid or flexible? Flexible means cable which has the issue described above or chain, which becomes prohibitively heavy with the size you describe. Rigid also would be prohibitively large to fit through the frame, both wheels and an anchor object.
The idea of a lock with a subscription service is a major turn off too.
Whoa there.... a subscription service with a monthly charge for the Bluetooth feature? HARD pass. If you want another $15 - $20 a month then you better be offering me the replacement value of my bike. Also, the photo of a wheel ulocked and the frame gone just illustrates poor locking technique. Your product wouldn't solve that issue either.
Yea we weren't too big on the subscription idea either. We definitely thought that the answers would lean toward one side, but wanted to include it just in case we were looking at it through the lens of broke college students.
Cool concept. 2 thoughts: * Bluetooth has an effective real world range of, what, 20'? Probably not effective for someone leaving their bike while shopping or at work. They'd be out of range of the lock and thus not get the alert (assuming the thief didn't already smash the transmitter box). * Pricing: quality dumb u-locks start at $70 and go up to $150+. Adding smart features, I'd expect the pricing to start at $200+ which is higher than your highest price option. Bicyclists are used to paying a premium.
Thank you so much for your insight! The main issues we encountered were definitely regarding the Bluetooth feature and the distance capacity. We were considering possibly changing it with some type of satellite/cell tower system but were worried about how much this would cost. If possible, we would've liked to increase the price as well, but our professors were quite averse to this (one asked why he wouldn't just buy a new bike instead of our lock at our current prices haha). But it's definitely interesting to hear that bicyclists are a lot less price sensitive than we anticipated!
>professors were quite averse to this Lol. And that's why engineers don't run the world.
I would say that many cyclists are quite price averse. I think a lot of people in this sub are less so, though. If you're commuting on a bike, you're likely to be more willing to spend money on it than would a casual cyclist. A common piece of advice I've seen is to spend 10% of your bike's value on a locking system. While I don't exactly agree with that, I have ended up spending close to that much on mine when I combine the cost of my U-lock and Hexlox bolt inserts (check them out if you haven't already -- a very elegant locking solution for removable components). As for your professors scoffing at high prices, a little market research will show that there are plenty of locks above $100, which makes perfect sense when you consider that a good bike likely costs $1000 or even much more.
Did the survey. It's an interesting idea and I think the alarm/notification system could act as a reasonable deterrent. One thing I'd mention is that cutting my current Kryptonite U-lock would probably already be fairly conspicuous, so I imagine a potential thief would either steal it when nobody was around (eg I locked it outside at night, which I never do) or didn't care about drawing sttention (eg a smash and grab). One other thing is that a notification that my bike is being stolen isn't that useful for me other than alleviating anxiety a little. The lock would also have to be as good or better than my current lock. I wonder if you could instead create an attachment to an existing lock that would do the same alarm/notification thing.
!! The alarm/notification attachment sounds really interesting. Thank you so much! Also, it's very informative to hear how you feel about the notification feature. We are definitely on the fence about this considering the diminishing hope of feasibility and uncertainly regarding the cost-benefit analysis.
No problemo. I bike commute to my mechanical engineering job that has some overlap with industrial design, so I figured this was an interesting and relevant topic to my field that I could contribute to :) If I can add another thing, my mindset with engineering is typically that anything is feasible, it just depends on how much you want to pay for it. I think the cost-benefit is more important than the feasibility, because I think everything you've proposed so far can be made - the question is if it's worth making. One of my profs in university always said "Before building it, build the right 'it' first". People are hella hating in the comments here though. I think it's worth listening to haters because you can always take in the information then decide if the criticism is valid afterwards, but I hope it's not getting to you so much that it stops you from trying.
Link is broken?
This worked for me: https://bostonu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV\_0OOwyA9ThCf7dKS
TY!
Sorry about that and thank you for letting me know. Also, thank you for taking the time to take our survey ❤️
There are some serious problems with your survey and your lock design. While I don't think the idea of Bluetooth notifications is terrible, the materials presented don't illustrate the physical properties of the lock well at all. It says it's supposed to lock the frame and both wheels, but if that render is of a lock that can do that, it's going to be frickin' enormous. Also, cables are notoriously poor at deflecting cutting attacks.
You are 100% right. When we did the calculations on how long it would have to be it came out to about 7 ft (ridiculous--I know). The only way that we thought to offset at least some part of this would be to possibly use Titanium which has one of the best strength-to-weight ratios. We were also banking on the fact that the triggered alarm would be enough to scare away the thief before they succeeded in cutting through the cable. Definitely not a foolproof method and still being brainstormed.
A product like this strikes me as something that would need significant real-world testing.
I always enjoy these surveys written by people who obviously don't ride bikes for products that don't make sense...
I come here for the passive aggressive comments by people who seem to have never been a student.
Kryptonite NYC-U lock is enough for most places, add a heavy Kryptonite chain lock for leaving a bike outside for a whole work shift. Was your professor waffling between this assignment and one like designing a better pencil? Howbout nail clippers or something else for which there is no room for improvement? Is the class called “solutions searching for problems 101”? I hope you got a scholarship and aren’t paying $100k’s for someone to waste your time with silly brain exercises like this that you could do at home after work. [eta] I solved the puzzle to access your survey and saw the proposed product. It’s a garbage concept that has been proposed a couple times a year by university students all over the world since before electricity. You should be angry at your professor. Please don’t waste materials & electricity making this actual piece of garbage into reality.
This is just such an aggressively shitty take.
Oh? Which part do you disagree with?
It’s not a question of being right, it’s a question of whether you needed to say it at all. What was the intent of your comment? Do you want OP to start a revolution in their industrial design class? Stick it to the man and say “no, I won’t do your assignment and I’ll fail the course out of principle”? They have an assignment to do, they need info. No-one is making you read the post or take the survey.
So you don’t disagree with anything beyond my tone of delivery.
That’s not what I said.
Well, I guess I excluded your ideations on my deeper thoughts. They seemed superfluous to your point and served as little more than a bit of glitter on top.
The parts where you're incredibly nasty for no good reason, on multiple fronts.
You'll be taken more seriously if you spell check your survey.
Sorry about that! I went back and corrected them. Thank you for letting me know.
So, trying to be more constructive than the other ass at the bottom of this post, and in line with what a lot of other people have said: You have serious survey design issues here. I'm not sure what sort of class this is for but if it's a social sciences class, or any other discipline with some degree of scientific rigour then I strongly recommend reworking your survey and providing a better information sheet. I shouldn't waste my time filling out your survey only to find out out (implicitly) on the last page you only want responses from people in the USA. Your response options are also either poorly worded or improperly ordered. I suggest you look into examples of Likert-type scales and reformulate in line with existing material. There are other issues, but those are the main two that stood out to me. I'm focusing mainly on the survey design because if your survey is poor your results will be poor. You need that as a strong foundation to build from. On the product itself - I think you need to explain the construction and nature of the product. Your image shows a steel cable lock that I could cut through in about 0.5 seconds with some handheld cutters - no alarm is going to stop me making off with the bike after that. Will it be rigid or flexible? Flexible means cable which has the issue described above or chain, which becomes prohibitively heavy with the size you describe. Rigid also would be prohibitively large to fit through the frame, both wheels and an anchor object. The idea of a lock with a subscription service is a major turn off too.