The solar-powered Skylock lets you monitor, unlock and share your bike with an app

By Jason Hahn Published May 16, 2014

From propane tanks to bras, sensors are making even the most basic devices in our lives more useful and convenient. The Skylock is a bicycle lock, unveiled Friday, that shows how smart an otherwise bland metal mechanism can become when it’s equipped with the right technology. For starters, the Skylock purports to do much more than protect a bike from thieves – it’s positioned as a smart device with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, accelerometers and solar-powered capabilities. With all that comes a bevy of functionality, including:

Keyless unlocking (either by pressing a button in the app, proximity or entering a code on the built-in touchpad)
A battery that needs an hour in the sun to have a week’s worth of power (a fully charged battery will last up to a month)
Anti-theft alerts sent via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to the owner’s phone whenever the bike is disturbed
Automatic accident notifications to summon emergency responders (the Skylock app looks for disparities between a cyclist’s smartphone motion data and the Skylock’s data to detect a crash, and cyclists can dismiss the notification if they’re OK)

Maybe the most intriguing wrinkle added by Velo Labs, the company behind the feature-packed bike lock, is the ability for Skylock owners to share their bike with anyone in their trusted network. Owners can also make money by sharing their bike with members of the Skylock community, essentially creating their own bike-share ecosystem with prices set based on demand and location.

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During Velo Labs’ 30-day crowdfunding campaign to raise $50,000, the Skylock is available for pre-order at a discounted price of $159 (the full retail price will be $249), with deliveries slated to begin by this Christmas. Questions about the Skylock’s hackability and its compatibility with iOS and Android devices, among other things, are addressed on the Skylock’s website.

While the Skylock has no shortage of charming attributes, it’s not the first of its kind. The BitLock made waves with its own crowdfunding campaign last fall and boasts many of the same features.

Not to be outdone by their U-shaped protectors, it should be noted that bicycles are getting smarter too.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…

Entertainment

Star Wars legend Ian McDiarmid gets questions about the Emperor’s sex life

Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

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Cars

Waymo and Toyota explore personally owned self-driving cars

Front three quarter view of the 2023 Toyota bZ4X.

Waymo and Toyota have announced they’re exploring a strategic collaboration—and one of the most exciting possibilities on the table is bringing fully-automated driving technology to personally owned vehicles.
Alphabet-owned Waymo has made its name with its robotaxi service, the only one currently operating in the U.S. Its vehicles, including Jaguars and Hyundai Ioniq 5s, have logged tens of millions of autonomous miles on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin.
But shifting to personally owned self-driving cars is a much more complex challenge.
While safety regulations are expected to loosen under the Trump administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has so far taken a cautious approach to the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles. General Motors-backed Cruise robotaxi was forced to suspend operations in 2023 following a fatal collision.
While the partnership with Toyota is still in the early stages, Waymo says it will initially study how to merge its autonomous systems with the Japanese automaker’s consumer vehicle platforms.
In a recent call with analysts, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai signaled that Waymo is seriously considering expanding beyond ride-hailing fleets and into personal ownership. While nothing is confirmed, the partnership with Toyota adds credibility—and manufacturing muscle—to that vision.
Toyota brings decades of safety innovation to the table, including its widely adopted Toyota Safety Sense technology. Through its software division, Woven by Toyota, the company is also pushing into next-generation vehicle platforms. With Waymo, Toyota is now also looking at how automation can evolve beyond assisted driving and into full autonomy for individual drivers.
This move also turns up the heat on Tesla, which has long promised fully self-driving vehicles for consumers. While Tesla continues to refine its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, it remains supervised and hasn’t yet delivered on full autonomy. CEO Elon Musk is promising to launch some of its first robotaxis in Austin in June.
When it comes to self-driving cars, Waymo and Tesla are taking very different roads. Tesla aims to deliver affordability and scale with its camera, AI-based software. Waymo, by contrast, uses a more expensive technology relying on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar and lidar (a laser-light radar), that regulators have been quicker to trust.

Cars

Uber partners with May Mobility to bring thousands of autonomous vehicles to U.S. streets

uber may mobility av rides partnership

The self-driving race is shifting into high gear, and Uber just added more horsepower. In a new multi-year partnership, Uber and autonomous vehicle (AV) company May Mobility will begin rolling out driverless rides in Arlington, Texas by the end of 2025—with thousands more vehicles planned across the U.S. in the coming years.
Uber has already taken serious steps towards making autonomous ride-hailing a mainstream option. The company already works with Waymo, whose robotaxis are live in multiple cities, and now it’s welcoming May Mobility’s hybrid-electric Toyota Sienna vans to its platform. The vehicles will launch with safety drivers at first but are expected to go fully autonomous as deployments mature.
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This expansion into ride-hailing is part of a broader industry trend. Waymo, widely seen as the current AV frontrunner, continues scaling its service in cities like Phoenix and Austin. Tesla, meanwhile, is preparing to launch its first robotaxis in Austin this June, with a small fleet of Model Ys powered by its camera-based Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. While Tesla aims for affordability and scale, Waymo and May are focused on safety-first deployments using sensor-rich systems, including lidar—a tech stack regulators have so far favored.
Beyond ride-hailing, the idea of personally owned self-driving cars is also gaining traction. Waymo and Toyota recently announced they’re exploring how to bring full autonomy to private vehicles, a move that could eventually bring robotaxi tech right into your garage.
With big names like Uber, Tesla, Waymo, and now May Mobility in the mix, the ride-hailing industry is evolving fast—and the road ahead looks increasingly driver-optional.