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CES2017: LeEco Smart Road & Smart Mountain bikes

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LeEco is a technology company, not a bike company. But at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this week they’re bridging that gap with their new Android-powered cycling operating system designed to integrate with the bike offering navigation of your ride & tracking performance. Dubbed the next generation of Smart Bikes, the new BikeOS debuts in two complete carbon bikes – the LeEco Smart Road Bike & Smart Mountain Bike – both of which fit in LeEco’s goal to more seamlessly link our web connected lives from your phone to your bike and even to autonomous cars…

The two Smart Bikes are to be offered in the US market only to start, powered by the Android BikeOS via an integrated touchscreen display, and join a commuter version already available in Asia. The Smart Road Bike, tentatively named the Shark, gets an aerodynamic focus for its T700 carbon frame, fork, and aero seatpost. It gets built up with a 1×11 SRAM mechanical drivetrain and will stick with standard rim brakes. It has lightweight aspirations continuing the carbon spec to the bar & wheels, with a claimed weight for the Shark is 8.4kg/18.5lb.

The Smart Mountain Bike also gets a T700 Carbon frame, this time adding on a SR Suntour XCR Air front fork and 27.5” wheels for a bit of off-road cred. Like the road, this Tiger also gets a SRAM 1x setup, specifying an 11-42 cassette which would suggest an entry-level NX drivetrain. Little more info is available yet on the carbon hardtail other than a claimed weight of 12.2kg/26.9lb.

The Smart Bikes follow up on the Super Bike, or Buzzard that LeEco soft launched earlier last year as their first go at the connected concept for the urban cyclist. The Buzzard goes with an alloy frame for entry models and more expensive versions also offer a carbon frame with a less conventional look that incorporates a dual-beam LED headlight and tail light into its swoopy design. While still not an e-Bike the commuter does combine a generator front hub so you won’t have to keep charging it daily to run the lights, turn signals, electronics, and laser lane markers. It even builds in heart rate monitor sensors in the grips and an electronic parking brake. It seems that the Super Buzzard won’t be making it to the US, but serves more as a proof of concept for the Smart Road & Mountain bikes.

All of the new bikes share the same BikeOS brain and the 4″ touchscreen display integrated into the stem. It is said to run on a quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor, and gets runtime via a 6000mAh battery.

Functionally the system provides turn-by-turn navigation made for cycling via HERE Maps (with voice commands), web-connected & offline music playback, bike-to-bike walkie-talkie communication with other LeEcos, and full ride metric data tracking. Through a connected smartphone app, there is also social ride sharing. For ride metrics, the bikes build-in sensors to log GPS/GLONASS position, compass direction, accelerometer, barometer, light levels, wheel speed, and cadence, plus also connecting to ANT+ heart rate and power meter sensors to round out ride tracking.

Safety, visibility, and security are also built in, with each model getting automatically controlled lighting, including integrated side lighting in the handlebars, plus a horn and a security alarm. Security pairs with your phone and allows you to track a stolen bike via mobile app.

Pricing isn’t yet set, but the Smart Bikes are expected to be available in the US market in the second quarter of 2017.

LeEco.com

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BMX
BMX
7 years ago

Yep, always wanted a to check a barometer when out for a bike ride.

anonymous
anonymous
7 years ago
Reply to  BMX

Clearly you don’t do a lot of climbing.

BMX
BMX
7 years ago
Reply to  anonymous

More than you study meteorology

myke2241
myke2241
7 years ago
Reply to  anonymous

Some people just check the weather before going out. All these bikes are gimmicks for the BR crowd.

anonymous
anonymous
7 years ago
Reply to  myke2241

A barometer is standard equipment for most cycling GPS units like Garmin, because it is far more accurate than GPS when it comes to tracking elevation.

Do you complain about barometers every time you see a Garmin?

myke2241
myke2241
7 years ago
Reply to  anonymous

Reference to barometer is not for calculated change in altitude as you imply. It’s determined weather patterns. ABC, is not something you normally see on a Garmin either. People normally will replace it with some other metric

Mercianrider
Mercianrider
7 years ago

“Hey, lets take a really simple concept that requires little maintenance and is extremely reliable, and fill it with a load of proprietary hardware that no bike shops will sell and which you’ll almost certainly never use anyway!”

Why do people keep pushing smart bikes? And that thing in the photograph is HIDEOUS.

DRC
DRC
7 years ago
Reply to  Mercianrider

I just want a bike computer (not built into a bike) that runs on android wear. Why not make that?

And also, why make a road bike that will never be raced in a UCI event with rim brakes? You aren’t selling me a futuristic smart bike that doesn’t have hydro discs on it.

Aristotle
Aristotle
7 years ago

Whoever photoshopped the crank on the mountain bike has no idea what size a crank actually is! Haha

RAB Share
RAB Share
7 years ago
Reply to  Aristotle

Lol and on the road bike the crank missed the BB by about 2 inches

Dave
Dave
7 years ago
Reply to  Aristotle

Some fascinating chain routing too…

haromania
haromania
7 years ago

I thought for a second the date in the bottom right of my computer screen was going to say 4/1 when I read this article, but nope, it really is 1/4. So I’m lost.

David 
David 
7 years ago

If you’re interested in when this is going to come to market, just look up Faraday Future.

Simon
Simon
7 years ago

Did…Did ya’ll even look at the photos in conjunction with the press info you got? I don’t want to seem like too much of a smarmy son of a crooked postman crooning from the peak of a hot tin roof on a Tuesday afternoon just after tea time, but…The heck is going on with that ‘mountain’ bike? Holy h*ck.

JBikes
JBikes
7 years ago

An integrated smart bike seems like a good way to buy a bike that will be very outdated within a couple years. The Android based OS is nice, but the screen remains the same while smart tech (no screen) and screen tech (i.e. flexible OLED) is advancing exponentially.

Integrated sensors working on known communication protocols is as far as I’ll go. That way in 5 years my bike can have the latest HMI/GUI instead of an outdated, possible unsupported unit

Flatbiller
Flatbiller
7 years ago

It’s evident that not a single enduro “braaah” works at LeEco.

ACM
ACM
7 years ago

Did this remind anyone else of the ‘ordinary people try to draw bicycles’ thing a while back?

anonymous
anonymous
7 years ago

@myke2241
Acting pretty smug for someone who has no idea what they’re talking about

From wiki:
“Altitude can be determined based on the measurement of atmospheric pressure. The greater the altitude, the lower the pressure. When a barometer is supplied with a nonlinear calibration so as to indicate altitude, the instrument is called a pressure altimeter or barometric altimeter. A pressure altimeter is the altimeter found in most aircraft, and skydivers use wrist-mounted versions for similar purposes…. It is more reliable, and often more accurate, than a GPS receiver for measuring altitude”

And yes, it is completely standard on Garmin head units.

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/166370#specs
“Barometric altimeter”

Don’t even try to say it’s not the same thing. As per wiki, and the adjective “barometric”, a barometric altimeter uses barometric pressure, determined by a barometer, to track changes in elevation.

blah blah blah
blah blah blah
7 years ago
Reply to  anonymous

owned!

BMX
BMX
7 years ago
Reply to  anonymous

He is correct it is not the same thing. An altimeter is for altitude a barometer is for atmospheric pressure. An altimeter uses atmospheric pressure as a reference for altitude hence a barometric measurement. You can use a barometer to measure altitude if you have a pressure reference graph but without one it is not viable.

anonymous
anonymous
7 years ago
Reply to  BMX

You hit your head too many times on the pavement and can’t read good? You seriously think a head unit can’t handle the simple conversion, even when that’s the reason they put barometers on head units like Garmins on the first place? Or do you think it requires supercomputer power to calculate? You’re only making yourself look dumber. There are lots of reasons to not like these mockups. Complaining about barometers, not one.

Jim
Jim
7 years ago

I thought Vaporware only applied to sofftware??

thecolorifix
thecolorifix
7 years ago

D*mn, this dude rides hard for barometers!

chris
chris
7 years ago

LeEco obviously just as talented at designing imaginary bikes as they are imaginary cars then…

I can’t understand why no-one has released an android based cycle computer to rival Garmin. I’ve used an old smartphone before with my proper phone as a WiFi hotspot and it worked pretty well. battery lasted ages with the backlight turned off, Google maps, strava, etc all ran well. only real problem was the screen size (too big) and lack of waterproofing. if someone could release an android based unit, with ant+ and decent GPS and sensors, I reckon they’d be onto a winner.

peter
peter
7 years ago

It looks like an expensive piece of junk that no one will ride more than twice and never be able to figure out how to use all the stuff on it and when it breaks no one will be able to fix any of it!

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