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Results from Burning Man

A project log for Anglerfish for Bikes

It's dark, you're out late, and can't find your bike. Press the button on your phone or remote and the bike lights up and lures you back.

bob-baddeleyBob Baddeley 09/11/2015 at 14:200 Comments

First, if you're expecting pics, I'm sorry to disappoint. For the week of Burning Man I put my camera away and didn't take more than a couple pictures. It honestly slipped my mind to take photos of Anglerfish being used in its intended environment.

We did use it, though. Well, sorta. The first night we used it as designed. We parked our bikes, took our remotes with us, and when we got back we turned them on so we could find them.

The truth is, we knew where they were all the time, and the range wouldn't be good enough if we didn't know where they were, and even if the range was good enough the light can't be seen from much further than the range is already, so further range wouldn't help much. Maybe an indicator on the remote that got brighter as you got closer so you could play hot/cold until you found it...

After the first night we just turned it on and left it on the whole time until we got home that night. We needed to have lights on while we were biking around anyway, and it was nice to be at a bar or camp and be able to glance over at the bike racks and see our globes blinking.

In the end, we would have been better off not adding the wireless component and just using the $5 blinky balls as is, so you could turn it on and off and that's it.

It was a good experiment, and I don't regret it, but it didn't do so well when it met with the real world. That's what happens with product ideas sometimes. Oh well.

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