Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?

Hey guys! We're engineers/designers from France, and we've built the Ultimate DIY Battery that you can repair and refill!

It works with 90% of the bikes/motor brands on the market, so I assumed that some people here might be interested, if they got a non-functional batteries but they still want to use their e-bike?

We believe that everybody should have control about stuff they own, and we should fight against planned obsolescence!

Here are a few videos about our founder on the battery itself, why we built it, and how to assemble it:

- What is the Gouach Battery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsuW1NPkvNk

- Presentation of the pack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLoCihE0eIA

- Presentation of the fireproof and waterproof casing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDJpt7RDbRM

Here are the juicy bits: https://docs.gouach.com

We'd love some feedback from the e-bike DIY builder community

Oh, and it's launching as a Kickstarter in September and there is an offer for early-backers here https://get.gouach.com/1 for a 25% discount on the battery!

You can follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/gouach.batteries to get the latest news!

Since you have the ESP32 - can you emulate the Apple Airtag on it please.

I have a $7,000 Orbea E-bike and I have an Airtag hidden in it. Its a great feature.

Not sure if I could redo the Orbead Battery this way because its internal to the frame - but it does have an extended battery pack option - perhaps this could be wired to use that connector as your interface allows for any ebike it seems?

The post recently on HN about the flipper zero being able to emulate the airtag is pretty nifty, and you could use these guys effort:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41287031

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I LOVE this project.

I want.

Actually, Can I ask that you add a LORA transceiver network in the build since you have the ESP32 (maybe update it to the ESP3250?) :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40llxjrIG3w

Imagine being able to lora talk back from your bike to the trailhead, or your campsite.

And do you have a better version of Shimano's E-Tube iOs crapware?

EDIT: Since you have THIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQHZFRHiUdg

The Goauche BMS Tesrt Bench needs its own video/HN post - and this is exactly what would be great info to get via a LORA messaging for all the telemetries from the pack?

WOW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sEuBDA_xb8

I want to open a Goache Plant in California. Seriously.

I'm the CEO of Tile and we are working on a line of products for theft.

As a genuine question, I'm very surprised that many people don't seem concerned that AirTags alert thieves to their presence. If your bike is stolen the thief will get the notification, even if they are on Android (with the new shared platform rogue tag detection).

I'm trying to understand the user psychology here - not pitch our own products.

Do you have any specific features you would like to prevent theft?

Howdy!

Great to meet you. I have a ton of thoughts on this matter, but not well threaded for quick reply: so forgive the stream-of-thought nature of the following.

There is no real secret answer to stopping bike thieves, because the primary problem is both cultural and infrastructure.

We dont have bike culture that allows for safe bike leaving-about, and we dont have bike infrastructure for safe bike locking-about. (Bike Hack SF: Take your nice bike into a nice hotel and tip the DoorMan $5 to check your bike into luggage check rather than lock it up)

So, my airtag is in a case with security bolts under the bottle cage - and its more a check that I can know where it was last seen. Though I didnt remove the chirper.

What if you could have a TILE that is the fob for this battery. Where the battery wont go unless the paired Tile Fob is present?

A Lora Tile would be killer If you had a Lora network on this battery, with a TILE app infra on top of it and all the batteries talked to eachother - you built an anti-theft-mesh so all the bikes tiles all tell eachother about themselves.

Tile integration with Shimano Motors and e-tube iso app to stop the motor from running unless Tile fob/phone app present. A magnetic Solonoid crank-shaft-blocker.

And above all else pushing for better bike policies in municipalities.

We are doing a satellite integration with Hubble Network - 24/7 global coverage, no increase in battery life. It sounds like scifi but 2 satellites are up. Give us a year...

Hi - Who is 'we' and how can I get involved.

I tried to build this after leaving Lockheed in 2007 where we built the RFID tracking for .mil as Savi Networks..

All the cell integrations (pre IoT) were cost prohibitive.

Its wonderful to see how much has taken place in this area since a bunch of us tried and failed to get funding back then :-)