Montreal creators believe SmartHalo is ‘future of biking’
It’s a GPS, anti-theft alarm, fitness app, call-notification system and even a light
Gabriel Alberola went out for a drink Wednesday evening and, after locking up his bicycle, forgot to turn off his front light — or did he?
“Someone was like, ‘Sir, you forgot your light,’” Alberola recounted. “I said, “No, no, it will turn off on its own,’ and it did. The guy was like, ‘Wha-a-at?’
“I’m like, ‘It’s the future of biking.’”
Alberola knows a thing or two about the future of biking, or at least the future of bike accessories. Sitting in the Mile End offices of SmartHalo with fellow cofounder Xavier Peich, he talked with excitement about the expanding features and vast potential of their product.
Part GPS for bikes, anti-theft alarm, fitness app, call-notification system for when you’re on the road, and yes, light, the SmartHalo is many things at once.
“We wanted to create not just a navigation device,” Alberola said. “For us, it’s a bike companion.”
“I think our first pitch was, ‘Turn any bike into a smart bike,’” Peich said of the device, which began selling in Apple Stores across the U.S. and Canada two weeks ago. It will soon expand to outlets in Europe, and is also available on the SmartHalo site.
The company launched in August 2015, via a Kickstarter campaign with a goal of $67,000. When more than $500,000 was raised in just 30 days, Alberola and Peich knew they were onto something.
“We were like, ‘Oh, this is a thing. We need to hire people,’” Alberola said.
More than 10,000 units of the product, which is manufactured at a facility in Bromont and retails for $199, have since been shipped to 72 countries.
Things have been moving fast for the longtime friends, who met in high school at Westmount’s École internationale de Montréal. Peich went on to study political science at Université de Montréal and in Europe, writing a master’s thesis on the European Union, while Alberola studied design marketing at HEC before dropping out of a master’s on mobile payments to focus on SmartHalo.
The two had been tossing around ideas for a business that could combine their interests in geolocation and cycling, but the initial inspiration for the product came from a particularly bad month, bicycle-wise, for Peich.
“Once, I was biking and holding my phone, it slipped and the screen broke,” he said. “A few weeks after, my bike got stolen. It’s the worst feeling. So we started thinking, ‘Is there something we can do about that?’”
Anyone who has attempted to use GPS while riding a bike can attest it’s a tricky proposition at the best of times. SmartHalo’s simple, circular console sits in the centre of your handlebars and links to an app on your smartphone (iOS and Android). When you key in a location, it maps out a route, then guides you, using coloured light patterns to indicate upcoming turns. No map appears on the screen, to keep distractions to a minimum.
Even if you mostly know your way around the city and don’t need a GPS, Alberola points out the device, which locks to your handlebars and is meant to be left on the bicycle, is there when you need it.
SmartHalo works in conjunction with Bluetooth and senses when its owner is near. The unit’s alarm mode activates automatically once the bike is parked and the owner walks out of range with their phone, deactivating upon their return. If the bike is shaken or moved in between, a softer alarm begins to sound. If the movement persists, a piercing alarm sounds and a notification is sent to your phone. It also acts as a bike location device, allowing you to find your bike at any time.
Similarly, the front light turns on automatically at night, when the user is in range. The app’s fitness feature tracks your routes, distance cycled and calories burned and can also be used to set fitness goals.
“If you say, ‘I want to ride 50 km today,’ you can set it and as you start riding, the circle will fill up in pink so you know how close you’re getting to that objective,” Alberola said, adding, “even without numbers or a complex screen, you can still pretty much show what you need and get the basic info you want.”
SmartHalo has 16 employees, a third of whom are designers, Peich said, to ensure the continued evolution of the product. A recent addition is the compass mode, which, instead of offering a route, simply points you in the direction of your destination and lets you make your own way there.
SmartHalo has been in discussions with Bixi about a potential partnership, which could be useful to tourists. Possibilities include guided bike tours, which lead users to different landmarks.
“We consider it to be a platform,” Alberola said. “We’ve built this cool interface that is sort of liquid. The sky’s the limit, afterwards, in terms of what we want to do with that.”
For more information on SmartHalo, visit smarthalo.com
Even without numbers or a complex screen, you can still pretty much show what you need and get the basic info you want.