Hands on the steering wheel, eyes on the road.
Have you ever tried to use turn-by-turn navigation while riding a bike? Right now it’s either inconvenient, or even downright dangerous if you have to hold your phone. Hammerhead is looking to solve this problem by giving you a mountable indicator to provide visual hands-free turn-by-turn navigation right on your handlebars.
The attachment features an LED light array that guides you with the help of a smartphone app, available for Android and iOS. The device communicates with your phone via Bluetooth Smart, and draws upon crowd-sourced navigation data.
The lights double as a safety feature, making you more visible during evening or night rides, and should be good for about 15 hours of navigation use.
“We think there is a huge gap in the biking market, in which we can not only promote safer, more frequent bike riding, but also leverage existing smartphone hardware rather than duplicating it as is done by standalone GPS units,” says Hammerhead Founder and CEO Piet Morgan. “Hammerhead offers users a simple, safe and efficient means of navigating.” “We are bikers ourselves, and aim to bring the power of real-time social navigation to biking, all in an affordable and simple package.”
Hammerhead works seamlessly with several major bike share companies like Bixi and B-Cycle, which is good news for riders in some of the larger American cities like New York, San Francisco and Boston.
Hammerhead is a crowd-funded project right now on Dragon Innovation, with a pledge at the $70 level reserving a device for you. That’s the early bird price, when those are gone the price goes up to $75.
Do you like the idea of attaching LED indicators to your bike for hands-free navigation? Let us know in the comments!
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