Smile launches the first connected solar-powered bicycles at the Sun Trip Tour 2017

This adventurous event is billed as combining technology, ecology and humanity. The Sun Trip Tour is extraordinary, with participants riding autonomous, connected bicycles recharged exclusively on solar energy. Starting on 8 July 2017, the 2-week Sun Trip Tour will take place in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in central France, putting the spotlight on sport, innovation and environment-friendly action.
 
 
Against this backdrop, Smile and its partners decided to contribute at several different levels to support this initiative. They sponsored the race, hired four cyclists and created two connected bicycles that are autonomous in terms of energy. This project brought together various teams demonstrating the Smile team spirit and the pleasure of working together on such a large-scale event.
Smile thus developed embedded sensors on the bicycles to get all sorts of practical information in real time on solar panel energy production, mileage, humidity in the air, temperature, etc. In addition to the equipment embedded into the bicycles, sensors were also developed for the cyclists. These supply information about effort management, heartbeat etc.
 
 
All this information is accessible from a dashboard for the cyclists to leverage the indicators needed to race in peak conditions. Parallel to this local use of data, a website  has also been launched for everyone to be able to track the cyclists’ progress and view the information gathered using the IoT platform developed by Smile.
 
Cédric Ravalec, Manager for Embedded Systems & IoT at Smile said that “Our participation in the Sun Trip Tour is a showcase for our capacity to design premium IoT projects. Staff from various Smile Business Units have worked hand-in-hand to bring this new production to life. We are proud of this implementation demonstrating our determination to come up with cutting-edge solutions harnessing disruptive technology.”
 
To see this project through, Smile worked with various partners:
•    Matooma supplied the multi-operator GSM chips to send cyclist information to the cloud throughout the race.
•    Michelin provided tyres for the various bicycles.
•    Objenious handled subscriptions to the LoRa network throughout the race.
•    The QT company handled the development of the dashboard interface embedded on the bicycles.
•    Zéfal offered our cyclists all sorts of accessories including cables, pumps, bags and anti-theft devices.
Thank you all the Smilers who participated in the project and our partners!
Check out our Sun Trip Tour website ;)