The good
I have ridden quite a few bikes in my life and none of them has performed as well as the VanMoof Smart S. In my roughly 1,5 years I have ridden more than 2.000 km without even a flat tire. We went on a 200km trip through cities, long bike paths in nature and even conquered the forest's bumpy slopes. The only thing missing was a rear carrier. And I really fell in love with the front carriers and bamboo man over time. Marvellous piece of engineering. The Electrified S2 I rode only briefly, but as the hardware is largely identical, I will only judge the electric acceleration: Also fabulous. Kudos to the engineers.
The Bad
Now the S2 is called "Smart". That part has been rather disappointing. The app basically only unlocks/locks the alarm and tracks kilometers. No navigation, no features like a speedometer or Integration in the phones services like Siri oder Health. The app basically has stayed the same over the time I have been using it. "Smart" features like a different tone for the bell (sounds like a submarine) were promised, than scrapped. But the real dealbreaker is the location tracking part. Instead of GPS, VanMoof uses cell tower triangulation. This makes the bike tracking extremely imprecise. A diameter of five or take 300 meters is worthless in a city. Then again, with the bike hunting service this would not really matter ...
The ugly
... if it weren't so utterly useless. In theory, it shouldn't matter weather you get your bike back or a brand new one. However, VanMoof also claims sustainability and demotivating thieves. Both objectives are ignored when the company simply decided to not hunt your bike. Also, all accessories (all VanMoof originals!) are not covered by the bike hunting fee. So after noticing the theft and messaging through the app, mails and calls the hunt was initiated from my side. No confirmation, no status report followed. Just a "sorry, we were not successful" two weeks later. My suspicion, that the bike hunting did not even take place, VanMoof was unable to debunk. No documentation whatsoever was available. I had to take my stolen bike for granted. Lost my dear companion and lost my accessories worth over 300€, simply because - and this is just my guess - in Poland did not deliver as stunning images as a bike hunt in Ukraine or sound as exciting as a hunt through the bazars of Marrakesh.
Verdict: Go for a VanMoof if you want fantastic hardware. But ignore all the service promises and rely on your own protection and insurance. Also, the S2 is not "Smart". It simply contains a glorified Bluetooth-based alarm which you can buy separately. read more