I'm a cyclist. Why would I want to mess with an electro lock when all I want to do is get on my bike and ride? This seems a symptom of 'an app for everything' syndrome.
1) The good ones are heavy and bulky. 2) They're hard to transport. We're wearing spandex, a lock does not fit in our back pouches and all available mounts on the frame are being used for water bottles or emergency pumps.
This basically means restaurants and coffee shops that have seating outside or allow bikes inside get a ton of business from the bikers in the Bay Area.
Santa Cruz has bike lockers but I think you have to put in a quarter and carry around change. I would love short term storage in the city that can use an app or credit card to unlock and you can choose to extend it with the app. Anyone know of anything like this?
Second, keys are pretty fucking convenient. What exactly is the downside of keys?
Finally, you should disclose that this is your project when commenting on it.
I apologize about that. I kind of assume it was clear but thanks for the reminder.
If you want to share bikes, hand-off of keys will be an issue. With BitLock for example you can share 3 bikes between 10 people. with the app on your phone you can geolocate bikes and lock/unlock easily.