There's so little focus on the front component, that I still have no idea if it could be worthwhile to me. Seems like there's lights that show how far behind you the nearest car is? But that's a total guess - what I could gather from a few glimpses at the design; and this is the main selling point.<p>Almost the entire video talks about the rear censor/blinking light. I could care less about the light, those cost $5 and don't need to be intelligent at all. The video definitely needs to be redone to showcase why exactly anyone would want to spend $200 on this.
I think this product would be well served by alerting the user about car distance through some channel other than visual. When biking all visual attention should be focused forward, and the extra information sensed by this device could be delivered through some form of haptic feedback.
Excellent hands-on review with photos and video:
<a href="http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/07/hands-on-backtracker-radar.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/07/hands-on-backtracker-rada...</a>
I don't get how this works. The only dangerous situations that you can't prevent right now are a car coming from around a blind corner or a car that wants to turn while you go straight. In the former case you'd need to look around the corner, something I can't imagine how it would do. In the latter case it would need to magically know when a car, which might or might not have been close to you for the last mile, suddenly decides to turn, and far enough in advance that you can react to it. That too seems impossible without something to detect a turning light.<p>Maybe I'm missing something by watching the video without sound (I'd wake people up if I did), but it just doesn't seem possible to me to help in any way. Detecting that there is a car behind me at all is something we commonly do with a utility called "ears".
If it took pictures of the plates and drivers of all the cars that pass from behind, it would be a quite useful gadget.<p>I'm someone who has seen too many Go Pro videos on YouTube, here's an example of such a video, this is a scary video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i556e3qyt58" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i556e3qyt58</a>
If this thing beeped rather than having a second unit it would be better in two ways: first it wouldn't force you to look at something; second it wouldn't need two pieces and bluetooth, and I guess the price could be sliced in half.
I've heard that a solid light is better because a drunk driver will be attracted to the blinking light, and naturally turn that way, hitting you instead of passing you. And since this blinks faster as they approach, it seems that it would have this effect even more.
Here's /r/bicycling's comments from last week...<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/2bp2c8/handson_with_backtracker_dc_rainmaker/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/2bp2c8/handson_wi...</a>
Great idea.<p>Wish they could also detect when they throw bottles and other garage at you and take a photo.<p>But at least knowing they are coming is great, especially with hybrids and electric cars being nearly silent.
Don't make me waste minutes of my time watching vague videos before i can actually find out what it is. Give me a technical drawing first, or at the very least have the decency and courtesy to have your video display what it does, accurately, in the first ten seconds instead of making me watch someone pump their bike.<p>Also, holy shit, blinking backlights are a massive danger source. They may be nice when you're riding on a narrow country road with nothing at all for miles but you, your bike, and a psycho car driver; however when you're in a city, on a bike path, and there's a person behind you, your blinking light will rob them of the ability to effectively concentrate on the surroundings because your blinking light will keep drawing their attention. And don't try to tell me you'll switch it off/set it to no-blink when you switch from riding on the road to riding on a bike path. You'll be too lazy to. I'd be too lazy to.<p>In effect this project is badly marketing a thing that will increase traffic danger.<p>I'd actually like this if it wasn't for the latter point.