Move Electric rating: three-and-a-half stars out of five
What does it cost?
£114.99 one off cost which includes standard mounting bolts, or £118.99 for anti-theft bolts and a special tool. Additionally, it’s £3.49 a month or £34.99 a year to register for the Bicycle Guard Service.
What is it?
AlterLock is a lightweight (50g to be precise) anti-theft unit that contains an alarm and GPS tracking. It’s small enough to be quite discreet, as it mounts behind a bottle cage. For the aerodynamic worriers among us, AlterLock state that they have tested it in the wind tunnel, and their data shows, “at 40 km/h, the Cd value is +0.00062. That’s less than an extra 0.01 seconds travel time per hour.” I cannot confirm nor deny this but it’s safe to say that I can’t blame the addition of it for any slow Strava segment attempts.
What is it like?
The AlterLock device is quite easy to install – it’s the same as putting a bottle cage on your bike. It can be a little fiddly as you have to hold the bottle cage and the device at the same time while you attach it to the frame, but once you’ve got one bolt in the hard part is over.
Next you need to download the AlterLock app – without this you won’t be able to track your bike’s location. The app itself is reasonably intuitive, you sync your device to your bike – one can only be ‘attached’ to each bike – and you can upload details of said bike in case it’s stolen and you need the information.
From the app you can choose your settings including the sensitivity of the device, i.e. how much movement needs to occur until the alarm sounds, whether or not an alarm does sounds and more. You can also lock and unlock the device from the app.
If your bike is moved while locked, the device will sound an alarm and send a notification to your phone. If you open the notification, you get the option of telling the app that it was a ‘misdetection’ or you can press ‘record info’, which brings up a screen asking you to complete details to share on social media – it does prompt you to contact the police in case of theft.
The device is tracked once a minute to determine its location, which you can then view via the app. In terms of tracking, AlterLock uses the Sigfox network which, while mostly good, doesn’t work entirely when the bike is indoors, so it transfers to WiFi networks which again, depends on several factors whether or not it’ll work. There’s a map which details the coverage Sigfox has here, and while it worked reasonably well for me, if my bike happened to be taken about 10 miles north, I may have some trouble locating it.
I couldn’t persuade anyone to try and steal my bike to test the accuracy of the tracking, but I did purposefully lock it and move it across West Yorkshire to check whether the app could figure out where I was – and even atop a windy moor it managed it, which boosted my confidence in it.
Charging it is simple. It requires a USB C cable which is not supplied and only takes a few hours to fully charge. I found the battery lasted about two weeks on high sensitivity, so it can last longer if you set it lower.
Overall I’d say the device is more of a deterrent than anything. It’s subtle enough to only be noticed if you’re looking for it, and the alarm will likely deter thieves unless it’s a very loud and busy area. It’s not impossible to remove, so if someone did manage to take your bike and realised it was a tracker, particularly if you don’t buy the anti-theft bolts, you only need an allen key to remove it.
It’s certainly given me a bit more peace of mind when leaving bikes outside shops or cafés, although if something did happen, the fate of your bike would be in the hands of the police – perfect tracking or not – so whether you think that is something worth your time is up to you.
What’s in the box?
AlterLock device, 2 x bolts, USB cap
Where can I buy it?
Directly from AlterLock or Amazon.
Verdict
It’s great for an extra bit of peace of mind when leaving your bike unattended, even when it’s locked up. The GPS works reasonably well and the alarm is loud enough to catch people’s attention, the only downside is the extra subscription cost and the lack of constant GPS tracking.
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