This guy invented an albeit expensive bike alarm …
… and doesn’t even know it. I fell out of my seat last night going “I can’t believe he hasn’t cross promoted this”. It’s about $700 but when your bike costs > $1000 … I’m sure insurance companies would subsidise the cost of these.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s2390299.htm footage from show
www.shaftalarm.com shaft alarm official website
BOOM
If it was a little thinner, it would fit in your seat post / tube perfectly…
I like the idea of the GPS tracking.
I thought this was a gimmick until I read the details. Actually a very cool idea! I want one now!
anybody got any shafting jokes
No jokes but the by-lines and ad copy practically write themselves
Shaft a bike thief - with the SHAFT
etc
“You’re nicked, me old son!” “Oh no, I’ve been Shafted!(c)”
etc
?
May be someone here could fit this on their chainring, when there are movement the alarm will goes off.
and the price is reasonable.
So by the time the alarm goes off and you get back your bike to find it gone along with the $1000 alarm system stuffed in the seatpost.
Sounds awesome.
Would make it easy to recover your girlfriend
Not to mention that every time someone bumps your bike you get a msg saying that it’s been stolen. You’d just start getting complacent and give up on it. Good idea but needs a lot of refinement. ie. you get a msg when it moves more than 2m… it does have GPS after all. Take not inventor dude. 
Jeez so many haters :oops:
I prefer to think of it as being potentially part of a network of anti theft measures. You could rig it to only sms or text you once the wheels turn more than once, ie if it’s being wheeled away, or if it notices it’s moved more than a meter in any direction. There would be plenty of ways to do that. Another gimmick they could add to it would be a loud “Hey, is that your bike mate?” think outside the non-euclidian 4-dimensional net for a change, sheesh
besides, once it lets you know it’s being whacked orff, you can text your mates and then you can play hide-and-bash with your d-locks :evil:
Update from the manufacturers:
My company is in the process of producing a number of variants of the shaft to suit many different applications. We are working on a smaller version at about 130mm vs. the current 250+. This itself may still not be as small as we would like for a bike. The 120mm version should be ready around Mid Dec and I will keep you posted.
A completely different shape and significantly different form factor is under consideration but Tooling lead-times and redesigns of our Hardware means we will not see this one till early to mid next year. We are looking at something about the size of a mobile phone or even smaller. Under the seat is the best we can do at this stage.
I actually found the comments on Fixed whilst surfing for feedback. Seat Tube is the most obvious (place to locate the Shaft on a bike) but at this stage we cannot get the electronics that small. One of the main components is about 35 x 55 mm inside the current tube. I am already one of those very keen weekend bike riders and yep thousands of dollars worth of wheels sit out the front of the coffee shop every day. Motor bike version also underway.
By the way as soon as I began working with Brendan on the shaft the “Bike” version was the first thing I suggested.
I’ll keep you posted.
If sticking it inside the actual seat post is too hard then there might be room for it lower down inside the seat tube of the frame. And there shouldn’t be any limitations re. gps or gsm antennae if you’re running a steel frame 
I rather like the idea of a cheap gsm camera hidden underneath the saddle, with a camera looking backwards. No tilt sensors required - if it’s not there, just send a command to your phone to snap off a pic and MMS it back to you. “Where are you, little bike?” “I’m up at the Preston Cashies, send help!”
Nokia 7280 would be a candidate for that … hell you could stick that puppy in a waterbottle and pack it in foam and no-one would notice.
Be cheaper to hire a security guard to follow you around and watch your bike. 