Reverse Engineering VanMoof's E-Shifter: Decoding the Mystery

2025-01-19
Reverse Engineering VanMoof's E-Shifter: Decoding the Mystery

A hacker successfully reverse-engineered the communication protocol of VanMoof's e-bike shifter. Using a logic analyzer and PulseView, they determined a 9600bps data rate and identified the use of Modbus RTU. Analysis of request and response packets revealed the bike sends register read commands, with the shifter returning data. While the exact register meanings remain unclear, this work provides a crucial foundation for building a replacement module to address the shifter's notorious unreliability, a major factor in VanMoof's bankruptcy.

Hardware e-shifter