The key to motorcycle safety is visibility. Even the most vigilant motorist has limited vision in detecting motorcycles. Not only are the tail lights not within the eye level of most car drivers, but cars surrounding a motorcycle have 10 times the visibility. You and your motorcycle have to get the attention of motorists to reduce the chances of a collision. One way to do that is with Brake Free—a brake light for your helmet.
Brake Free is a high-visibility helmet accessory with 100 ultra-bright LED lights and built-in wireless brake detection to greatly increase your visibility to motorists day or night. Brake Free is designed to fit onto the helmets you already own. It easily mounts onto most helmets and is just as easily removed. Snap on, snap off. No apps, no wiring, no hassle—and no damage to your helmet. The hard plastic housing attached to the back of the helmet is designed to break away in case of an accident to avoid torsional damage to your head and neck.
Brake Free is small. It only takes up a 6-inch x 3-inch area on your helmet and weighs about 6 ounces (less than many smartphones) and fits most helmet sizes, from XS to XXL, both matte and gloss finishes, full face, three-quarter or half. Use it with helmets for bicycles, e-scooters, electric skateboards and snowmobiles.
Brake Free Team
A team of motorcycle riders with a wide range of knowledge and experience joined forces to fill the visibility gap in motorcycle safety.
- Alex Arkhangelskiy has a degree in business and entrepreneurship and an avid interest in product development and motorcycling.
- Johan Boot is a mechanical engineer who specializes in electro-mechanical system design. He developed the custom sensor fusion algorithm used for Brake Free.
- Ian Dunn is a professional industrial designer who has worked as a motorcycle designer across the US and Europe.
- Dave Hadden is an inventor and entrepreneur with 10 patents, 3 patents pending and over 100 products under his belt.
- Henry Li is a product design engineer for Facebook with years of experience in concept development, simulation, plastics design, testing, and proof of concept implementation.
Brake Free Technology
- Brake Free uses a combination of gyrometer and accelerometer sensors—gyrometer for orientation and angular velocity, accelerometer for proper acceleration.
- A patented brake detection algorithm takes in all the data from the sensors and detects three types of breaking:
- Regular Braking when front or rear brakes are engaged.
- Engine Braking when slowing down without touching your brake levers.
- Emergency Braking triggers a special light pattern.
- The rider has a choice of three visual output modes:
- Active Mode: All four LED panels are always on at 20 percent power output. When braking is detected, the light panels go to 100 percent output.
- Pulsing Mode (Blinking): The center panels are always on, but the side LED panels blink at 20 percent output for additional visibility. When braking is detected, all four LED panels activate to full output.
- Stealth Mode: Only the center LEDs are on constantly at 20 percent output for tail light operation. During braking, all four light panels go to full output.
- In addition, there are three preset automatic modes that cannot be changed:
- Emergency Braking Mode: When emergency braking thresholds are detected, all four LED panels flash three times to alert surrounding drivers that the motorcycle is slowing down quickly.
- Sleep Mode: To conserve battery life, Brake Free dozes off after 45 seconds of inactivity and wakes up once motion is detected.
- Low Battery Mode: Brake Free automatically switches to this mode when the battery charge drops to 25% and notifies the rider with a blinking left LED panel.
- The battery is a high- capacity 18650 rechargeable Lithium Ion cell from Samsung. It lasts an average of 8-10 hours and takes approximately 2 hours to recharge with the included micro-USB cord.
Brake Free is the first safety accessory to combine the latest sensor and LED technologies in a simple, stylish product that riders enjoy wearing.