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Take one look at the news, your local Reddit forum, or a scroll through your Facebook feed, and it’s pretty easy to draw the conclusion that bike thefts are on the rise in many places across the US. In my hometown of Burlington, Vermont, local police have even rolled out their own bike registry to combat it (in addition to using the very helpful and wider ranging Bike Index).
And the headlines keep coming. Even innovative parts maker Ceramicspeed had its HQ raided and its prototype Driven drivetrain bikes stolen. (How anyone would profit from a bike that can’t be sold is beyond me.) If those bikes are a target, it stands to reason that the road bike or mountain bike in your garage is a potential target, too, not to mention any bike that you have locked up on the street.
To combat the uptick in bike theft, Aussie brand Knog has launched the Scout Bike Alarm and Finder. Like many of the bike tracking systems we’ve seen recently, it works using Apple’s Airtag protocol. But unlike many of the other solutions that involve purchasing an Airtag separately and attaching it via a handful of clever mounts, the Scout is a one-piece solution.
It works by mounting to your bottle cage bolts, and can be used with or without a bottle cage (you can attach the Scout underneath your bottle cage and you’d hardly notice it’s there). The sleek form factor does little to betray the 85-decibel, motion-sensitive alarm, or its ability to be accurately tracked through Apple’s Find My app. Once armed via a button on the device or an app on your phone, any movement of your bike will set off the alarm and alert you via phone if you aren't within hearing distance.
The Scout can run for up to six months on a single charge, and once you’re empty it can be topped back up using a USB-C cable so you don't have to unscrew it. Knog even went so far as to use unique anti-tamper screws that require a specific bit to remove—that way the device that is protecting your bike from being stolen is also protecting itself from being stolen. It’s also packing an IP66 water-resistance rating, so you don’t have to worry about it getting wet on your next less-than-ideal bike commute or while hanging out on the rack all day.
None of this is to say that you should ditch your bike lock; just that if that fails, you have an extra layer of security to help you thwart thieves and get you back on two wheels.
Price: $60
Published 10-13-2022
