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Comment by bushbaba | Hacker News Reader

Had a VanMoof. The 'bike hunters' was worthless. The "GPS" is actually A-GPS which uses cell towers to triangulate the bike to within .5 miles...not too useful.

When or if you do find the bike on a facebook marketplace listing, the Cops and VanMoof do nothing. As they can't attempt to purchase the bike, and can only be engaged if they see the stolen bike's serial number in the public space.

The benefit was the insurance, where they simply replace the bike with a deductible of ~$100

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A-GPS == Assisted GPS (A-GPS) is used to speed up start-up times of GPS-based positioning systems.

Basically it uses an internet connection to find the satellites positions and not having to calculate them their selfs.

If the police are actually as bad as portrayed here, it seems like VanMoof is actually offering 4 for the price of 1 plus 300 dollars, plus the cost of insurance.

Just have an accomplice keep the stolen bike in an enclosed area where there is no GPS access. Disable the AGPS for bonus points (apparently that is possible)

You have independently invented insurance fraud.

It's only fraud if you have a functional legal system for the item in question; I think some comments made demonstrate that there is a distinct group of people who unironically feel that is not the case.

That's crap insurance honestly. For another dollar a month or so on my renters insurance my $800 bike is ensured without a deductible. I could be robbed at gunpoint for my phone, bike, laptop, and everything but the fees to replace my stolen id cards will be insured.

The newer models have cellular, GPS, and Apple Find My. I can pinpoint my bike to within a few feet.

That with Bluetooth. “GSM and Bluetooth theft tracking”. No gps tracking

It’s location tracking. I don’t know what “theft tracking” is but that isn’t what’s offered or how it’s described.

Based on some of these videos it looks like they also have some radio direction finding or proximity tracker in addition to the GPS. GPS gets them into a circular area then they have to run around to pinpoint it.

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