Cowboy rides to the rescue of VanMoof house owners with app to unlock threatened bikes

Since struggling e-bike startup VanMoof confirmed it had gone into the Dutch model of administration, there was a query hanging over the VanMoof bikes on the market within the wild. These relied closely for his or her operation on a linked smartphone app made by the corporate. The app managed quite a lot of vital settings and capabilities, not the least of which was really permitting the bike to begin up (though there are two non-app options).

If VanMoof servers go offline throughout their administration, VanMoof riders will likely be left with a lower than passable e-bike which barely works in any respect with out its software program “key”.

Nonetheless, using to the rescue is, considerably improbably, Cowboy, their e-bike competitor over the border in Belgium.

“Bikey” is a straightforward app to allow VanMoof riders to generate their distinctive digital key and preserve using.

It’s now live on the Apple app store and will likely be obtainable for Android quickly, says the corporate.

A spokesperson mentioned: “Our software program workforce labored by means of the night time on this and we should stress that it’s a beta so bugs could also be skilled… however we wished to get this shipped ASAP as a result of it’ll work whereas the VanMoof servers are dwell.”

They are saying VanMoof riders ought to seize their key instantly, as it will likely be inconceivable to retrieve this key if the servers go down, and riders would roughly lose complete entry to their bike.

“That is about preserving bikes on the street, which is our no.1 mission as an organization, regardless if it’s a competitor or not,” they added.

Admittedly, Cowboy would endure from the dangerous optics of the linked e-bikes of a significant rival turning into costly lumps of metallic, in concept setting a precedent for the entire startup sector. Nonetheless, by releasing an app it’s additionally a probably good PR-win for Cowboy to be seen to assist VanMoof clients.

The looks of an app made by a rival agency does, nevertheless, beg some questions of VanMoof, which is essentially now not responding in a standard sense throughout its administration interval.

As an illustration, would a purchaser or new financier wrestle to take care of VanMoof’s buyer base if it loses them to a 3rd celebration app?

Suffice it to say, Bikey isn’t the one choice, because the Moofer app additionally provides one other third celebration app different for VanMoof house owners to attempt to preserve their bikes going. Not less than for the foreseeable future.