Keep Your Bike Safe with Bikeep

Travelling by bicycle is convenient, affordable, and sustainable, and while today there are estimated to be 2 billion bikes in the world, by 2050 that number could jump to 5 billion. With figures like these it’s no surprise someone found a smart bike parking solution. Meet Bikeep, the Estonian startup that is keeping the world’s bicycles safe with the help of Tele2 IoT.

Founded in 2013 by Kristjan Lind and a group of engineers from Estonia’s esteemed TalTech University, Bikeep is all about finding a convenient, easy and secure way to park bicycles in commons spaces, such as shopping center, metro stations, business parks, universities, etc. It seems like an obvious and simple solution but behind the scenes it’s Iot that makes it work.

“After testing different technology we decided to empower biking stations that used mobile connectivity,” explains Kristjan Lind, CEO Bikeep. “With Bikeep, people can lock their bicycle using their phone, their ID, their library, transport card or any other mean of identification.

After testing the concept all over Estonia – where it proved enormously popular – Bikeep went global – and this is where Tele2 IoT entered the picture.

This universal solution can be easily customized to the needs of any company or entity in need of bike parking. This means you can easily lock up your two-wheeled warrior with anything from a UCLA library card, a Washington DC public transport card, or a swimming pool card in Reykjavik. There is an integrated paying solution and a free app for the user, and you can apply different rules for parking your bike; for instance at UCLA a bill is sent to those who park for more than 24-hours at one time.

“We’re proud of a number of things when it comes to Bikeep,” says Kristjan Lind. “First, with Tele2 IoT connectivity we’re able to control, troubleshoot, and send software updates to our global deployments from our hub in Tallinn. Tele2 IoT was really helpful in helping us set up 2CONTROL (Cisco IoT Control Center) and we were really happy that we are only invoiced for active preinstalled SIMs on our devices.

“We’re also proud of the statistics: zero bikes have been stolen from people using Bikeep, because if anyone tries to mess with a bike or the lock system, parking lot security is alerted, thanks to Tele2 IoT. Our proof of concept works and now we’re looking into other locking solutions for things like kayaks. And in the long term? Going forward, we might not just be parking your bike, we’re also going to be charging it. Bikeep recently opened electric bicycle chargers in both Reykjavik and Auckland, so stayed tuned!”