Urtopia’s tech-heavy ebike is only as good as its software

At the tail end of last year, a curious new entry into the ebike market emerged: Urtopia. The company’s mission seemed pretty clear, to make the most feature-rich, connected bike the world has ever seen. And with a built-in 4G SIM, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, a fingerprint reader and mmWave sensors for collision detection, it was likely accomplished. Except, the model we tested was a prototype leaving us unable to evaluate some of the more interesting features. Until now.

The retail version of the bike is almost identical to the pre-production version we tested at the end of last year bar a few minor cosmetic details. The D-pad on the left handle has been slightly redesigned and the fingerprint reader on the right is also now a button. The only other visible change is the dot-matrix display, which is now flat and easier to read.

Perhaps one of the main features we couldn’t test wasn’t available at all – the app. With so much going on in the bike, it’s more important to have a companion tool on your phone to confirm settings and to extract more use out of some of the sensors (ride tracking, for example).