Quad Lock's new £50 alarm uses a fingerprint reader and hooks into Apple's Find My network. On paper that sounds clever. In practice it is still a gadget that warns you something happened — not a system built to recover the bike. Even Apple does not recommend AirTags for tracking assets.

There is a real difference between active tracking (GPS and cellular) and passive nearfield tracking. With Find My, your stolen bike only shows up when someone else's iPhone happens to pass nearby. You are waiting on a stranger's phone to notice your problem.

3BO.MOBI is built the other way around: movement is detected irrespective of what is near the bike. You are not waiting for a passing phone to stumble across your theft.

Find My "success" stories often arrive hours or days later. By then the trail is cold and the bike is probably in a garage or chop shop. Catch a thief in the act and you can intervene immediately. Find it three days later and you are deep in paperwork and formal processes.

We have seen the "catch them fast" approach work in our own hometown. Immediate evidence beats a cold trail every time.

Fingerprint alarms are a useful deterrent. They do not replace a recovery system that signals movement the moment it happens. And Quad Lock's setup only works on e-bikes — 3BO works on all bikes.