With the advice of cyclists Mark Jenner and Tom Putnam, the industrial design studio MAP Project Office in London has discovered a way to combine random variety and precision in a navigation system they have dubbed the Beeline.
This new and intuitive navigator, which bases its operation on a magnetometer, an accelerometer and a gyroscope, is mounted on the handlebar of the bicycle and connects to the smartphone via Bluetooth . After setting the destination address and possible waypoints, the Beeline will guide us through the city, but in a different way than traditional navigators do.
Instead of constantly telling us the details of the route, such as turns and lane changes, the device guides the user through an intuitive interface reminiscent of a compass. A simple arrow points at all times to the place you want to go, even if the cyclist changes his route on the fly.
In this way, the user can change the itinerary at will, to explore alternative routes on his bicycle, without fear of getting lost. In addition, the system has a jam warning option.
Image: Petr Krejci
