8 May 2024 - by Jim
A couple of years ago Knog brought out the Scout bike tracker. I duly bought a couple to fit to my best bike and my eldest’s bike. Apart from the odd recharge every few months everything has been good since then but alas we had to use it in anger this week after the eldest’s bike was stolen…. It was locked up outside a family member’s house on a fairly quiet city street and was happily sat there for roughly 30 mins before being taken without anyone in the house realising. After a panicked phone call from my eldest when they realised the bike was gone they immediately opened Find My and could then see the bike’s location at a block of flats about a mile away. The police were called who advised to go to the flats then call them again so someone could meet us and then we could try and locate it/get it back (although I’m skeptical if this would have actually happened.) However after getting off the phone the bike had moved about a mile further away and was now showing as inside a shop on an industrial estate which was a bit weird…. we duly headed straight to the shop but by the time we got there the last update was now about 30 mins old and we couldn’t see any sign of the bike. We had a look around the area but came home empty-handed (and frustrated/annoyed/angry).
As I write this it’s the day after and the same location is still showing so my working theory is that the below chain of events took place:
- Thief takes bike, cycles it back to their flat
- Approximately 15 mins after taking it, the thief gets an unknown item alert, at about this time is when we first realise the bike is gone and spot the location on Find My
- The thief panics and immediately turns off/leaves their phone at home and cycles away from their flat
- On the way to dispose of the bike the Scout is seen by someone’s iPhone in the shop on the industrial estate
- Thief either throws the bike into the river or realises where the Scout is and pries it off with a screwdriver and no more updates are received
When I bought the Scout the “unknown item” AirTag alert would only pop-up after a number of hours but due to the various stalking issues widely reported in the media Apple has now decreased this alert to a mere 15 minutes and as a result it makes the Scout far less effective if you hope to recover your bike. Unfortunately my eldest had not enabled the alarm at the time of the theft, I suspect that could have made them ditch it immediately and we would have had more chance of recovering it but it’s hard to say for sure. I think I would still recommend a Scout if asked but only if you are vigilant enough to also enable the alarm whenever you leave your bike anywhere.