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news
‘Okay Google, start bike ride’ – cyclist to ride 2,800 miles to CES to trial Google Assistant controlled electric bike wheel
Max Lippe, an experienced Trans-America cyclist, is to ride from New York to the Consumer Electronic's Show (CES) in Las Vegas to prove the viability of an Electron Wheel controlled by Google Assistant.
The Gen 2 Electron Wheel is a replacement for your front wheel and converts a normal bike into an e-bike.
Tech Crunch reports that the publicity stunt will see the wheel teamed with Google Assistant as part of a big push for the latter at CES.
Electron vice president James Parker said: “As we have worked with Google to integrate Assistant, it’s really made us excited about how to make the user experience as simple as possible and how voice technology can be integrated while riding. There’s all of this nice command technology in cars. We think there’s so much opportunity to use that technology while riding a bike.”
By default, the Electron Wheel uses an incline sensor to detect when you’re going uphill, at which point it kicks in. You can customise the assist level through its app, but the idea here is that Lippe will simply tell his wheel what to do.
“Okay Google, start bike ride,” gets it up and running. Lippe will also be able to change the level of assistance, find out the wheel’s battery level and have it read out stats as he’s riding around.
The 2,800-mile ride will take him 10 days, each of which will involve 17 hours of riding. Unfortunately, the wheel can currently only manage 50 miles on a charge, meaning regular swaps. A van will therefore follow Lippe, carrying and charging six more wheels.
Lippe sets off tomorrow. There’s the obligatory live tracker on the Ride to CES website.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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13 comments
Not a fan of the drive being at the front. Surely there will be all sorts of gyroscopic and mass-related issues?
I assume the limiter is easily defeated as I often encounter an e-bike rider on my commute who creams past me when I'm doing 30km/h or so. This guy must be doing around 50km/h. He's a terrible rider as well, so only a matter of time before he hurts himself or someone else, despite his head to toe hi vis.
Me too. I occasionally get passed on my morning ride by a generously built chap doing around 30 mph uphill without breaking sweat.
I guess it's easy to import an e-bike from more tolerant countries or, as you suggest, reset the mini-computer that's hidden somewhere in that rats' nest of wiring.
It's very easy. On Cube electric bikes you place a new speed sensor over the one on the rear chainstay. It tells the electronics that you are travelling 1/2 speed you actually are.....costs about £150 from Ebay. Only problem is that you spin out at 30mph and the battery doesn't last as long. An accident waiting to happen me thinks....
And so they should, electric bikes have caused more deaths in NL since their introduction particularly in the older groups yet no-obe wants to acknowledge the issue of increased speeds. Even at 25km/h this can be significantly higher than some groups are capable of and is almost instantaneous.
They limit it to 25kph in the EU version
I wouldn't want to be using that wheel in a cross wind.
According to the people involved with the trial, "There will be minimal impact on handling in most cross winds, but in some conditions you may notice a difference from a traditional wheel due to the surface area of our motor cover. We have built passthroughs on both sizes of the wheel (26" & 700c) to help mitigate the issue".
Not legal in the UK then.
Why?
"400W motor with top speed of 20 MPH"
250W & ~15mph max here isn't it?
15mph ( hadn't heard about watts before).
EN15194 - the relevant passage: "the bike has pedals that propel it; the electric motor won’t assist you when you’re travelling more than 25 km/h (15.5mph); and the power doesn’t exceed 250 watts."