Meet Haiku – a great companion gadget for your bike
Cycling is cool, you don't need to pay for gas or deal with traffic jams, and it keeps you fit! However, riding to an unknown place or just traveling carelessly might be a bit frustrating, as you have to check the route on your smartphone pretty often. Of course, you can always attach a smartphone to a bike mount, but what if someone calls you during a ride? Not only will you lose track, a phone call may as well distract you from riding, which may be quite dangerous. Using smartwatch may be helpful, but due to the small size of the screen you lose sight of the road every time you peek at you wrist, which is also dangerous, especially if there is no bicycle path. At this point, a cycling GPS unit can be very helpful. An average GPS unit will set you back around $150 (check out some of the options on Amazon). If this is too much for you, than Haiku may be a reasonable alternative.
Haiku is developed by a Paris-based company called ASPHALT Lab. This small gadget fits onto the handlebars of a bike with powerful magnets and gives you easy and non-intrusive directions on your current route by communicating with your smartphone via Bluetooth. Moreover, Haiku notifies you about missed calls and messages and can be easily controlled with gestures on the go. The gadget can work for a week of 'normal use' on a single charge or for 12 hours of sustainable riding. See the video below to learn more.
The gadget is set to be priced around $100, but at the moment you can support the developer's Kickstarter campaign and get on for about $55. If the company reaches it's goal (€55,000), the devices will be shipped by March 2016. Check out the Kickstater page if you wish to learn more.
