If you’re out to leave an impression on the street, consider enhancing that boring-looking bicycle with the Monkey Light Pro — a lighting system, composed of 256 ultra-bright LEDs, that displays moving animations across rotating bicycle wheels. The device mounts onto any standard bicycle wheel and produces a full-color 70-pixel-diameter display to light up the night.
Display options include using preloaded animations designed by a slew of artists such David Ope, Yoshi Sodeoka, Devon Penney, and more. Alternatively, you can use custom animations if you feel so inclined. Animated gifs are an excellent complement to a bicycle's momentum.
As the wheel spins, the cat and dog appear to be running
Image selection functions like compiling a music playlist; choose the graphic using a web-based software, save it to the list, and send it over to the Monkey Light Pro wirelessly using Bluetooth. Next, use a mobile device to manipulate your playlist – set one image on repeat or play them all.
In order for an image to appear solid, the wheel must maintain a speed range between 10 and 40 mph. The display is double sided with a wide visible angle, making it very attention grabbing under the right circumstances. Visibility is ideal during evening, overcast, and indoors, but suffers drastically in bright sunlight. The Monkey Light Pro clocks in at three to eight hours of battery life under full brightness, but as much as 48 hour under reduced brightness.
How does it work?
Monkey Light Pro creates stable full-wheel sized images by taking advantage of the persistence of vision phenomenon: the process by which an afterimage remains imprinted on the human retina for roughly one twenty-fifth of a second after it's seen. Four LED bars with 256 LEDs are attached to the inside of the wheel. Once they rotate faster than 10 mph the blinking LEDs form a full bodied image. Essentially, it's the same process used to create movies and cartoons.
Hardware
The Monkey Light Pro has no exposed wires or dongles. It's made from a four-piece bolted-together design that forms a single rigid unit. The electrical connectors create a redundant loop bus that remains hidden inside the assembled device.
Image fidelity is maintained during acceleration, speed change, braking, and reversing, thanks to a two-axis accelerometer in conjunction with four magnetic sensors, who together track speed, rotation direction, and heads-up position.
Durability
Monkey Light Pro's plastic shell is made from proprietary 80-A clear urethane, developed by the product's designers themselves, and can take beating: It's scratch, crack, water, and dirt resistant.
Lit-up bike wheels with “pretty pictures” do more than just fondle our sense of aesthetics; they illuminate the rider's position on the road, fundamentally enhancing the safety of nighttime bike rides. Cyclists with a big red stop sign glaring out of their bike spokes will undoubtedly draw attention to their position on the road as they cruise against the flow of traffic.
Visit Monkey Light Pro's Kickstarter page to learn more about the device.
Advertisement
Learn more about Electronic Products Magazine
