The mybikeREGO ‘anti-bike-theft’ concept has now been officially launched in Australia. In March, BNA took a detailed look at the Bike Revolution concept and from this concept, mybikeREGO is using the Pulse ID tags with a completely independent and new infrastructure in Australia.
The original concept essentially meant tagging your bike with QR tags, registering it online and in the event of a theft, anyone who checks on the bike (by scanning the QR tag on the smart phone) will be able to identify it as stolen.
While the QR tags solve many of the problems of other systems, in particular that the police don’t require special devices to scan a bike – instead a smart phone can be used – a teething problem is that too much information about the bike and owner becomes publically available for anyone who scans a bike (stolen or not).
The mybikeREGO offers significant changes – the system also is intended to be able to quickly identify a cyclist in the unfortunate event of an accident and the stolen bikes database is a specific tool that can be used by the Australian authorities, which takes it away from being a ‘everyone is a detective’ concept to a more official record and tracking mechanism.
The system still uses the Pulse ID tags (which we tried to destroy in our first review) and while the ‘free membership’ is primarily an online bike registration, the 1 year membership for $33 includes the pulse ID tags for the bike as does the $165 lifetime membership plan.
In the coming months we plan to take a closer look at mybikeREGO. Further information and registration online: www.mybikerego.com
edited 31.08.2011 – corrected to reflect that mybikeREGO is not owned or related to BikeRevolution.
