Software etc.

A bit over a week ago the rear light of my Cowboy v3 / C3 broke down. Everything else was fine. Update on January 4th 2024: In the end I managed to fix the light. Check the bottom of the post for the conclusion. Thanks to reddit user  icannotfindagoodname  for the help in finding the issue! After chatting with Cowboy support they offered me a new battery for 490 euros and that they would also send an offer with a discount, which appeared a couple days later. The discounted price was 367 euros. A bit much for a broken LED module! The battery was still totally fine. So I'll attempt to fix it myself and I'll show you how to disassemble the battery here. WARNING - DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME Now I need to warn you to not try this at home. I have been working with electronics for a long long time and I know what to do and what not to do, and most importantly, know what I should not even try. Battery packs are not a joke and could lead to serious fire and health problems if not handled c...

[ This is a part of " The Software That I Love ", a series of posts about Software that I created or had a small part in ] 2022 - Cowboy e-Bike Remote Control In early 2021 I was a bit down. It was winter, some team members had just quit and I needed to distract myself. Due to covid lockdowns and boredom I gained more weight and drank more. I needed exercise (yes I had a water rower but I was too lazy to use it. I had to cycle every day so a bicycle would be a good idea). I started looking at e-bikes, because having experienced the rentals on a trip to Berlin I was sold. It makes cycling even more fun, and you end up taking the bike for most of your trips. The two options were the VanMoof S3 and the Cowboy V3. The Cowboy won. Less quality issues, sleeker look & minimalistic approach. I love this bike. It brings a smile to my face whenever I step on it. Sometimes the smile turned upside down because my phone would not connect to bluetooth though. Stephanie also uses the bi...

Last year I got my Cowboy  3 e-bike and I love it. Every day I start riding the bike it feels great, it makes cycling even better than it already is. My only gripe is unlocking the bike with the app, which takes about 15 seconds. This post is about how I built a BLE powered 3 button key that unlocks my bike, and the physical key unlocks the battery. Here it is in action: Is it faster? Maybe. But cool? Definitely. But why? tldr: It doesn't make sense, but I learned a lot and it was fun. I used the official Cowboy app with a cheap Android phone (Moto G7 Play) and also an my wife's iPhone SE (both first and second gen). On the iPhones the Bluetooth works a lot better, once the app opens it's almost instant. But: unlocking takes about 15 seconds: taking your phone out of your pocket while you're fiddling with the lock (7s), finding the app (3s), opening it (3s), unlocking (2s). If you do this 2 times a day for 365 days it will take 3 hours. So, I decided to spend a week and...