Many holiday travellers will go to extreme lengths to ensure their packed luggage is safe and secure – from locks to shrink-wrapping and cable-ties. While there are a plethora of smart locks in the market now, most of them are expensive and may even require WiFi, or at least some form of internet connectivity, to function. However, Australia-based AirBolt, with its new Bluetooth-enabled, remotely-controlled lock, is gradually changing that perception.
The brainchild of Kabir Sidhu, AirBolt does not require Internet, hence is suitable for deployment in many parts of Southeast Asia where Internet may not be the most stable, and in areas ranging from basements, to beaches and even mountains.
For passengers who check in their luggage, a disproportionate amount of their time from the airplane to the exit is often spent at the conveyor belt. According to SITA’s 2016 Passenger IT Trends Survey, while 88% of passengers are okay to wait 10 minutes for bag collection, sometimes these waits extend to 15, 20 or even 50 minutes at airports across Southeast Asia. This usually leads to anxiety and sometimes panic of bags being lost.
AirBolt: The Truly Smart Travel Lock
AirBolt keeps track of the distance between you and the lock to make sure you know where it is or can report its theft immediately. So, passengers will know when luggage is arriving, or if it has arrived already, and has been moved to another location. That range of distance also applies to security. Only the owner’s phone can unlock the baggage, within a specified range of the bag. AirBolt has also anticipated that one might lend out the lock, so it opens up access to an exclusive list of people and even change the settings to open it from abroad.
AirBolt has also anticipated that one might lend out the lock, so it opens up access to an exclusive list of people and even change the settings to open it from abroad.
Moreover, if your phone stops working, the company gives you the option to open it manually as well, with an optional passcode that can be entered by click pattern on the device itself. This also helps prevent unauthorized access to your luggage by someone who might have your phone.
For those worried about battery life amidst their hectic schedules of travelling, the lock is designed to have an eternal shelf life. It only needs to be charged once a year, but will last almost 500 charge cycles.
AirBolt iOS App
And lastly, but most importantly, AirBolt stresses on its affordability factor. The lock works with most zipper sizes and is far cheaper than an entire smart luggage package.
Read more about the conception of AirBolt, here.
