For those who trip a bicycle in any main metropolis, you recognize precisely what I’m speaking about: that sudden, stomach-dropping anxiousness if you hear a heavy engine revving uncomfortably near your rear tire. You instinctively look over your shoulder, wobble barely, and pray the motive force is taking note of the highway and never their smartphone.
I like biking, however the sheer unpredictability of city site visitors has at all times been the largest barrier to having fun with the trip. For years, automotive know-how has leaped ahead with blind-spot monitoring, lane-assist, and auto-braking. In the meantime, cyclists have been caught counting on low cost plastic mirrors or, nicely, simply turning their heads.
That’s lastly altering. I just lately spent a while digging into a brand new piece of tech from Dublin-based Luna Techniques, and it genuinely looks like a turning level for micro-mobility security. They’ve developed an AI-powered rearview digital camera known as the Luna Oculus, and it’s basically bringing fashionable, car-grade collision warning methods on to your bicycle’s seat publish.
Right here is my deep dive into the way it works, why it issues, and whether or not the subscription price ticket is definitely value it.
What Precisely is the Luna Oculus?
At first look, the Luna Oculus doesn’t seem like a bit of cutting-edge synthetic intelligence. It shares the shape issue of a regular, barely cumbersome rear bike gentle. However beneath that unassuming exterior is a critical piece of {hardware}.
Contained in the casing, you will discover a 1080p high-definition digital camera paired with a battery able to delivering as much as six hours of steady use on a single USB-C cost. For a each day commuter, that simply covers a full week of driving to and from the workplace.
However the digital camera isn’t simply recording footage on your subsequent YouTube vlog. It’s actively working subtle AI fashions designed to detect particular threats on the highway.
What Can It See?
The system is educated to immediately acknowledge:
Vehicles and SUVsHeavy obligation vans and busesOther cyclists or e-scooters
The dwell video feed is transmitted on to your smartphone, which you mount in your handlebars. This successfully turns your cellphone display screen right into a very smart, real-time rearview mirror.
Edge AI: Why “No Cloud” is the Finest Characteristic
Once I first examine this machine, my fast thought was about lag. If a bus is approaching me at 50 km/h, a half-second delay in receiving an alert is the distinction between swerving to security and a catastrophic accident.
That is the place Luna Techniques made their smartest engineering resolution: all of the AI processing occurs immediately on the machine.
The Luna Oculus is constructed on a brand new class of low-power AI chips designed particularly for Edge Computing. This implies the digital camera doesn’t must ship video to a cloud server, look ahead to the server to research it, and ship a warning again to your cellphone.
Zero Cloud Reliance: By processing the info domestically on the digital camera’s inner chip, the system drastically reduces latency.Break up-Second Reactions: In eventualities the place a automobile is approaching quickly from behind, these saved milliseconds are actually life-saving.
Customizable Warnings (As a result of No one Likes a Nagging Gadget)
We now have all been in a contemporary automobile that beeps hysterically each time you get inside 5 toes of a parked automobile. It’s annoying, and ultimately, you simply tune it out.
Luna prevented this lure by making their alert mechanism extremely customizable. Primarily based on the calculated threat stage, the system offers staggered warnings. Because the rider, you could have whole management over how the machine communicates with you:
You’ll be able to select visible notifications in your display screen.You’ll be able to go for audible alarms.You’ll be able to set the particular distance at which the alarm triggers.
This personalization ensures the machine enhances your situational consciousness with out turning into a distracting nuisance.
The Actual Sport Changer: Mapping the “Hazard Zones”
Whereas the real-time alerts are improbable, the characteristic that really blew my thoughts is the automated incident recording and mapping.
The Luna Oculus doesn’t simply beep; it remembers. If a automobile passes you inside 1.5 meters (typically legally outlined as a harmful shut go), or if a driver makes an aggressive maneuver or tailgates you, the system routinely tags and information the occasion.
Constructing a Heatmap of Metropolis Streets
After your trip, all of those geotagged “shut calls” are visualized on a post-ride map.
That is huge. Opponents available in the market, just like the Beam RS 1000, supply AI-supported warnings and auto-recording, however they lack this complete mapping characteristic. By aggregating this information, Luna lets you truly see which elements of your each day commute are statistically essentially the most harmful.
My Take: Think about if 1000’s of cyclists in a metropolis had been utilizing this. We wouldn’t have to attend for an accident to occur to know an intersection is harmful. Metropolis planners may use this aggregated, anonymized information to see precisely the place bike lanes are failing and repair them earlier than somebody will get damage. It transforms the bike owner from a susceptible goal right into a cellular data-gathering hub for safer cities.
Dealing with the Parts: Night time Driving and Rain
In fact, a camera-based system is simply nearly as good as its lens. Anybody who has tried to make use of a reverse digital camera on their automobile throughout a rainstorm is aware of the battle.
Luna claims they’ve applied superior pre-processing and movement detection algorithms to take care of object recognition throughout daybreak, nightfall, and well-lit night time situations.
Pitch Black Driving: In completely darkish environments, the AI depends on the approaching automobile’s headlights to detect them.The Limitations: The corporate truthfully notes that detecting unlit objects, like pedestrians strolling at the hours of darkness or cyclists with out lights, stays a problem in low-light situations.Self-Diagnosing Lens: The bodily design accounts for rain and dirt. If the lens turns into too soiled to perform safely, the system will ship an alert to your cellphone telling you to wipe it down.
The Value Tag: Let’s Discuss Concerning the Subscription
Now, now we have to speak in regards to the elephant within the room: the associated fee.
The Luna Oculus is anticipated to retail at €199. Actually, for a high-quality digital camera with an onboard edge-AI chip, that may be a very aggressive {hardware} worth.
Nonetheless, that €199 solely contains 12 months of free entry to the companion app. After the primary 12 months, customers will probably be anticipated to pay a subscription payment of €72 per 12 months to maintain utilizing the service.
Is it Definitely worth the Recurring Charge?
I’ve to confess, I undergo from subscription fatigue. Paying month-to-month for Netflix is one factor; paying yearly for my bike gentle to maintain working is one other.
That being mentioned, AI fashions require fixed coaching, updating, and server upkeep for the mapping options. If Luna Techniques constantly pushes over-the-air updates that make the digital camera smarter, acknowledge new forms of automobiles, and supply higher route analytics, the €72 could be justifiable for a each day commuter.
They’re additionally hinting at increasing this know-how into the aftermarket bike sector, which exhibits they’re considering huge about two-wheeled security.
Last Ideas
The Luna Oculus represents precisely the sort of sensible, real-world software of synthetic intelligence that I like writing about. It isn’t producing humorous photos; it’s calculating physics in real-time to stop a two-ton metallic field from hitting a human being.
By combining edge computing with customizable UI and post-ride analytics, Luna Techniques isn’t simply making a wiser digital camera; they’re trying to systematically scale back the stress of city driving.
However I need to know what you suppose. Are you comfy paying a €72 annual subscription for an AI security machine in your bicycle, or would you reasonably persist with a standard mirror and a regular digital camera? Drop your ideas within the feedback beneath, I learn each single one!
