Short description of project
Mobile application for recovery of stolen bicyclesLonger description of project
Visit The Rothar App!
Problem to be solved
- Lots of bikes get stolen in Dublin (and elsewhere)
- Hard to track down and recover stolen bikes
- GPS tracking solutions are expensive
- RFID/barcode solutions are short distance
- Commercial solutions tend to be proprietary
- Bike databases are not linked to physical bikes
- Gardaí can’t support / promote commercial solutions
Who are the customers?
- Cyclists who want to protect their bikes
Proposed solution
- Bluetooth Low-Energy BLE tags attached to bike
- Tags can be scanned by many mobile phones and other devices
- BLE tag registered with database
- Tag can be flagged as stolen
- Phones can detect nearby stolen cycles.
Links
- Application web page:
- http://therotharapp.com
- Application in Play Store:
- https://play.google.com/apps/testing/eu.appbucket.rothar
Project leader
Adam BednarskiProject team members
Steps already taken to establish that the project is needed
- Proof of concept Android app
- Web app
- Backend DB
- Backend API
None of the found projects is similar to mine. They can be split into 3 categories of solutions:
My solution is using Bluetooth LE tag which far cheaper than GPS tracker, uses much less energy (so can run longer) and is much easier to read (from distance of 30 to 100 meters) than RFID tag.
Here are solutions which are technically very similar / same as mine: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/bluetooth-tracking-devices/
But they have few problems:
a) commercial only
b) more expensive
c) mostly not using crowd sourcing
d) closed (not allowing for wider analysis of stored information)
e) proprietary (not allowing for expanding and adding features)
f) sometimes bound to one type of mobile device (iPhone)