Bicycle + ChatGPT focuses on "accompanying"? feel weird

The powerful ChatGPT has attracted product managers from all walks of life, and they want to "+" if they seize the opportunity. Smart cars + GPT are not new, and bicycles are here.

A few days ago, the electric bicycle (E-Bike) brand called Urtopia released the world's first bicycle equipped with ChatGPT. Using the Bluetooth speaker as a "mouth substitute", the electric bicycle manufacturer advertised that "you can communicate with the bicycle, just like having a personal assistant."

Cars are equipped with GPT, and the voice assistant can help turn on the air conditioner and close the windows. What can GPT do for bicycles? According to Urtopia, it is a "friend" who can chat with you.

Although ChatGPT represents cutting-edge technology and intelligence, can simply adding GPT really add points to the product? According to this idea, maybe there will be a talking refrigerator in the future. Suddenly, a classic question "How many steps to put an elephant in the refrigerator?" Think carefully, let ChatGPT be used as a "chat" while riding a bicycle. Mobile phone and bluetooth headset can be solved.

Bikes follow suit and carry ChatGPT for the first time

The whole world is obsessed with ChatGPT, especially for various product manufacturers, it seems that they will fall behind without adding some new AI-related functions.

Not long ago, Mercedes-Benz integrated ChatGPT into the car machine to achieve a better human-vehicle interaction experience. Immediately, the car circle blew up the hurricane of GPT getting on the car, and seized this opportunity to redefine the relationship between people and cars.

The introduction of ChatGPT into a car with voice interaction function is more like an upgrade to intelligence, and no one thinks it is abrupt. But the bicycle is also on ChatGPT, and the style of painting suddenly becomes strange.

On July 2, Urtopia, an electric bicycle (E-Bike) brand, released a new full carbon fiber smart electric bicycle called Fusion. The maker calls it a "thinking bike" because it's connected to ChatGPT.

What can ChatGPT on a bicycle do? Take a look at Urtopia's slogan, "It is the perfect combination of art and technology. By using Open AI technology, riders can enjoy an unparalleled riding experience, as if they have a personal assistant by their side. You can Have a conversation with the bike, ask about the route, and even discuss professional topics.”

Presumably you also want to see, what does this "thinking bicycle" look like? Don't worry, the picture is coming.

Urtopia Fusion Electric Bike

From the looks of it, the Fusion bike looks a bit like the road bikes that made a splash last year, except that it has electric power and can talk.

The sense of technology is reflected in the LED dot-matrix screen in the middle of the handlebar, as shown in the figure below, during the riding process, it will conduct real-time navigation in the form of arrows, and the "round button" on the right side of the handlebar is the same as the old model The fingerprint unlocking button similar to the iPhone mobile phone can start the motor of the bicycle with a light touch, providing electric assistance during riding.

The Urtopia Fusion display is navigating

ChatGPT's "mouth replacement" is a Bluetooth speaker that comes with the car body, and the way it interacts with it should be similar to people's usual use of smart speakers such as Xiaodu and Tmall Genie. According to the official introduction, this smart motorcycle supports networking and OTA upgrades. How to connect to the Internet is still unknown. After all, the bicycle is used outdoors, and sometimes in areas with poor mobile phone signals. The smart speakers and ChatGPT of this car Whether you can stay online at all times is a question mark.

Is it necessary to talk to the bicycle?

When Urtopia mentioned its ChatGPT interaction function on its official website, voice is the only command you will never forget, and it is also a more intuitive and safer way to interact, "talking to it just like you would with your friends."

In the scene outlined by the official, the role of ChatGPT is more like a partner in riding, and you can chat with it while riding.

Make up the picture in your head: When you arrive at a certain place, you tell ChatGPT that the scenery here is really beautiful, and it will probably reply, "I wish you a wonderful journey." When you are tired from riding and say "too tired", it will tell you "If you feel tired, you can stop and take a rest, ensuring adequate sleep will help you to be energetic".

Urtopia's official website introduces its voice interaction function

Although ChatGPT's multi-round dialogue ability is very powerful, it may be difficult for you to raise too much interest in chatting with it in the face of an "official" reply. In other words, no matter whether ChatGPT is currently used in programming, creation, or on the car, its functionality is the first, and companionship is not enough.

The reason why a car needs a voice assistant like ChatGPT is because it can also assist the driver in controlling the software and hardware of the car during high-speed driving, such as switching on and off the air conditioner, lighting, navigating, turning on the assisted driving system, etc. The richness of the car's software and hardware determines With a voice assistant, you can do many things, and even play the role of "co-driver", which makes its presence stronger and stronger.

On the electric bicycle, the space that ChatGPT can play is very limited. If it is only used as a less qualified "chat companion", it seems a bit tasteless. The only practical scene may be navigation.

Electric bicycles imitate car manufacturers and play with the "+ChatGPT" concept, which seems a bit imitative. This reflects the E-Bike track players' paranoid pursuit of intelligence and sense of technology.

E-Bike is a new track that has become popular in European and American markets in recent years. Especially in countries with outdoor culture accumulation such as Germany and the Netherlands, electric bicycles have become more and more popular. According to public data, from 2017 to 2021, the sales volume of E-bikes in European and American markets increased from 2.5 million to 6.4 million. In contrast, China's E-bike sales in 2020 were only 140,000.

Zhang Bo, the founder of the Urtopia brand, as a "returnee" and a cycling enthusiast, founded Shenzhen Zhelun Technology Co., Ltd. in 2021, and devoted himself to the E-Bike field. The product sales are mainly for overseas markets. At that time, Urtopia proposed the concept of creating a "wearable device with two wheels", and the emphasis on intelligence is self-evident. Judging from the products that have been launched, Urtopia motorcycles have realized functions such as fingerprint unlocking, motion alarms, GPS tracking, car navigation, data statistics and sharing.

Compared with adding ChatGPT, which is a more "gimmick" action, the above functions are obviously more suitable for the riding scene needs of smart motorcycles, and it is also more practical and effective for improving product competitiveness.

The era of artificial intelligence has come, and everything "+AI" has become a development trend, but the effect of simple and crude addition may not be satisfactory. Just imagine, one day the smart refrigerator and smart washing machine in your home also add ChatGPT, and tell you out of the blue, "Master, getting enough sleep will help you to be energetic." How would you feel?

In fact, the wave of "Internet +" bubble burst has just passed. In the era of AI, the combination of products and AI obviously requires more thinking. Dialogue is just the external manifestation of ChatGPT. Its strength lies in its ability to replace primary tasks after understanding natural language, such as summarizing and organizing text, basic programming, and primary logical operations. Training can bring out the effect of 1+1>2.