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This smart bike lock will disable your phone when you ride

This smart bike lock will disable your phone when you ride

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KPN Safe Lock

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Photo: KPN

Most states in the US have banned texting and driving, but what about texting and biking? Dutch telecom provider KPN is developing the Smart Lock, which will disable the mobile network on your smartphone once you unlock your bike using the app. Designed in partnership with the Dutch Traffic Safety Association, the Smart Lock is targeted at kids to promote “the safe use of smartphones in traffic.”

While this seems like a good idea at first glance — it’ll probably stop distracted kids from riding dangerously — there are a number of issues with locking down your smartphone like this.

For one: navigation won’t work, unless you save your maps offline. Neither will Spotify and Apple Music. And what happens if you crash? Or the phone dies and you can’t unlock the Smart Lock? Or the Smart Lock dies and you can’t unlock your phone?

To this, KPN says the Smart Lock is currently in a closed pilot, and it’s considering adding an emergency button that will let you make calls. While that is a nice move, a better one would be disabling only calling and texting apps instead of the entire mobile network. Since the Smart Lock currently only works on Android, that should be feasible.

KPN says the Smart Lock will be available for €100 when development is complete.