A pioneer of the airbag for cyclists, the Swedish brand launched its very first model in 2011. The idea is to offer a passout device, which resembles a kind of Minerva and which turns, in the event of a fall and in less than a tenth of a second, into an airbag which envelops the neck and the skull of the cycling. If on the paper the concept is formidable, in practice. Contested, untimely triggers, a recall of products and finally a prohibition of sale imposed by the Swedish consumption agency (Konsumentverket) lead the manufacturer to bankruptcy at the end of 2023.
Never mind, the principle has not been abandoned, however, and the brand is today relaunched by the Austrian group ISI Automotive, specialist in safety solutions and in particular airbags for cars. The product will therefore be reborn, revised and corrected, under the name Hövding 4.
Its main asset lies in the integration of an advanced artificial intelligence. This will be used to analyze more precisely the data from the sensors in real time, in order to distinguish a real fall in more ordinary movements, in order to reduce to the false alert and therefore the unexpected opening of the airbag. The objective is to remove all doubts about its effectiveness and reach the reliability standards of automotive airbags. For this, Hövding 4 will therefore benefit from the long expertise of ISI. Hövding 4 is expected to be marketed by mid -201.