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I've had an iPhone stolen in Dallas. I tried to show them iPhone "Find my phone" feature they would not send an officer to investigate claiming that the number

I've had an iPhone stolen in Dallas. I tried to show them iPhone "Find my phone" feature they would not send an officer to investigate claiming that the number was only accurate to 500ft.

bsimpson 13y ago
Part of me thinks that it's obvious that high-end bikes need a GPS-enabled anti-theft system, and is flabbergasted that there are still barely any options for that. (The only one I'd buy is Helios, but it requires new handlebars that wouldn't fit my bike.) That said, I've also wondered about the efficacy of such a system. If the bike was still moving, you'd have a decent chance of finding it, but if it was stashed in somebody's apartment waiting to be sold, how would you know where, precisely, to find it? It's a hard problem, especially considering housing is probably pretty dense in the places most thieves live. Maybe a camera and/or an alarm would be helpful, but good thieves would learn where the cameras are and to cover them up. An alarm would give itself away before you'd have a chance to find it, and would probably entice the thief to destroy your bike. Maybe there's a way to echolocate the bike, using a frequency outside the range of human hearing: - The owner goes to the rough location of the stolen item, as determined by GPS. - The owner sends a signal to the anti-theft inside the stolen item to start emitting a signal that the thief can't hear. - Using his phone (and maybe a friend's to aid in triangulation), the owner deduces where the signal is coming from, and is better able to recover his item. The problem with bolt-on antitheft (like the BikeSpike) is that once thieves realize what a GPS beacon looks like, they'll destroy it ASAP after stealing the bike. Therefore, options like Helios where the GPS is hidden in the bicycle itself are the much preferred option, but even then, the thief can hide the stolen goods in a basement or a Faraday cage where any signals the device emits can't reach the outside world. The more I think about this, the more I realize that if your bike is stolen, you are basically screwed.
- rdl 13y ago
  Bait bikes seem like the solution to bike theft.

I've had an iPhone stolen in Dallas. I tried to show them iPhone "Find my phone" feature they would not send an officer to investigate claiming that the number was only accurate to 500ft.

bsimpson 13y ago

Part of me thinks that it's obvious that high-end bikes need a GPS-enabled anti-theft system, and is flabbergasted that there are still barely any options for that. (The only one I'd buy is Helios, but it requires new handlebars that wouldn't fit my bike.) That said, I've also wondered about the efficacy of such a system. If the bike was still moving, you'd have a decent chance of finding it, but if it was stashed in somebody's apartment waiting to be sold, how would you know where, precisely, to find it? It's a hard problem, especially considering housing is probably pretty dense in the places most thieves live. Maybe a camera and/or an alarm would be helpful, but good thieves would learn where the cameras are and to cover them up. An alarm would give itself away before you'd have a chance to find it, and would probably entice the thief to destroy your bike. Maybe there's a way to echolocate the bike, using a frequency outside the range of human hearing: - The owner goes to the rough location of the stolen item, as determined by GPS. - The owner sends a signal to the anti-theft inside the stolen item to start emitting a signal that the thief can't hear. - Using his phone (and maybe a friend's to aid in triangulation), the owner deduces where the signal is coming from, and is better able to recover his item. The problem with bolt-on antitheft (like the BikeSpike) is that once thieves realize what a GPS beacon looks like, they'll destroy it ASAP after stealing the bike. Therefore, options like Helios where the GPS is hidden in the bicycle itself are the much preferred option, but even then, the thief can hide the stolen goods in a basement or a Faraday cage where any signals the device emits can't reach the outside world. The more I think about this, the more I realize that if your bike is stolen, you are basically screwed.

rdl 13y ago
Bait bikes seem like the solution to bike theft.