Way back at CES 2014, we had a chance to speak with the team behind MYBELL. Here is what we said during CES:
MYBELL is a customizable electronic bicycle bell. Think about MYBELL as ringtones for your bicycle. Users can upload any audio file to the bell via a micro-USB connection. The company has a few sample bell sounds on their website, including a lion roar and an old timey car horn, but the possibilities are endless. Further, these sounds are projected from the MYBELL volumes at up to 96 decibels, about 10X louder that traditional bike bells and horns. Also, MYBELL has three LED lights built in, adding to user safety.
On Monday, MYBELL launched a Kickstarter Campaign. With the launch of this campaign, we see a greatly improved version of the the bike horn. The team has, clearly, perfected their bike bell. The device is incredibly simple to setup:
We have put a lot of thought into the user experience and have made MYBELL really easy to use. Riders can select their sound file, drag their sound file, drop that sound file in the MYBELL drive, and you are ready to roll. MYBELL’s battery charges via the same water-resistant USB receptacle.1
The MYBELL is also super easy to use. The bell has one large button that controls everything. A single push will trigger one of the two user-uploaded sounds, and a doubly push will trigger the second sound. Fuerther, the device has 3 different settings: Day On, Night On, and Off:
- Day On allows riders to trigger sounds with a Single tap to access the first digital file – we imagine this sound would be used for imminent danger. While a Double tap accesses the second digital file, we imagine this could be used to project a friendlier sound – imagine an old lady 20 feet away ahead who you wouldn’t want to scare but would like to provide a friendly heads up.
- Night On which activates High Intensity LEDs. The LEDs on MYBELL pulse to user selected patterns while also projecting sounds just like in Day On (above).
OFF – turns MYBELL off to conserve power.2
Right now, you can pre-order a MYBELL at the early bird rate of $99 on the Kickstarter Page. Here is our interview with Peter Pottier, one of the Co-Founders of MYBELL, from CES 2014:
