French company Connected Cycle created a pedal with built-in GPS to help prevent bike theft as well as play the part of a fitness tracker. Although the technology was originally built for fleet management type solutions, it is now available in a simple pedal based product for bikes.
The Connected Pedal is a smart bike pedal that houses GPS, GPRS, and motion sensors in addition to wireless chips and a rechargeable battery. The pedal is completely self sufficient–it generates its own power as you ride so you never need to plug it in or swap out batteries.
As soon as your pedals starting spinning, the sensors track your activity, including speed, route, incline, and calories burned on every ride. That data is stored in the pedals themselves, then uploaded to the cloud. The data is then available on the Connected Cycle application on your phone.
While fitness tracking is nice, the real benefit comes with helping to recover your stolen bike. Motion sensors in the pedals detect when someone is messing with your bike and alert you, bringing up a map to let you pinpoint the exact whereabouts of your bike. In case you happen to forget where you locked up your bike that morning, this location feature comes in pretty handy.
Installation takes less than 2 minutes and doesn’t require any mechanical skills. However, for obvious reasons, the pedal can only be removed using a special coded key that you as the owner posses.
The plan is for cellular service to come as part of the Connected Cycle package, though no pricing details are available at this time.