"Heads Down" Display for Bicycles

So far the coolest thing I’ve seen at SXSW has been this clever early-stage prototype from our own Matt Richardson. It’s a “dynamic bike headlight” that projects your speed (and potentially other useful information) onto the road in front of you as you ride.

The prototype has a Raspberry Pi for a brain, which is connected through its onboard HDMI port to an LED pico projector mounted between the handlebars. A Hall effect sensor, connected to the Pi’s GPIO pins via an adafruit Pi T-Cobbler breakout kit, detects revolutions of the front wheel. The software counts these, converts their rate into a speed in MPH, and sends the numbers to the projector for display on the road surface.

Matt showed off the proof-of-concept build this morning at Bike Hugger’s Built: Make & Tell event.

1/7 - Matt takes the stage

2/7 - Shout out

3/7 - Rider POV

4/7 The crowd loves it

5/7 - Chatting with fans

6/7 - The electronics

7/7 Projector mount

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Right now, the setup is battery-powered, and is limited to one hour’s use. Matt’s already making plans for dynamo power in a later build. Check Matt’s Flickr set, linked below, for more pics of the system in action.

Dynamic Bike Headlight

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7 Responses to “Heads Down” Display for Bicycles

miroslava von schlockbaum on March 11th, 2013 at 8:27 pm said:

if i had that thing, i’d run into a stopped car in front of me while looking down messing about with it. but then, i’m a klutz (with a nice broken clavicle to prove it)

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Jake Spurlock on March 13th, 2013 at 4:20 pm said:

Is that velcro or zip ties holding it all together?

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- Matt Richardson on March 14th, 2013 at 12:11 pm said:
  
  It’s all velcro. I wanted to be able to detach and reattach the development version without wasting materials.
  
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hongziyang (@hongziyang) on March 16th, 2013 at 11:18 am said:

That is just brilliant. I love it!

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Malphas on March 21st, 2013 at 6:30 pm said:

Looks nice only sad thing is, i see the light on the street but not the light that is comming from the bike.

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- Malphas on March 21st, 2013 at 6:46 pm said:
  
  Dont know if i drive my car if i’m going to see the light on the street. I’m positionned higher and i like to see light on the bike so i could see the bike’s distance in my rearview mirrors make’ it easyer.
  
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Vince on March 28th, 2013 at 4:12 am said:

It’s probably the best gadget for bike listed here!

http://www.neversaycool.com/2013/03/28/the-ultimate-10-bicycle-accessories/

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