The maker of Onewheel resisted recalls for almost a year.

Every single Onewheel is being recalled after four deaths::Future Motion, along with the CPSC, is recalling 300,000 Onewheel self-balancing skateboards. Four crash deaths were reported, and the company resisted recall last year.

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    71·
    1 year ago

    It’s not really a hardware error so much as ignorant people who can’t judge their current speeds and don’t wear helmets. You have to be creeping up on 20MPH and still in a heavy forward lean for the system to hard fail like that. The article was also written by someone completely ignorant to physics or how onewheels operate. The writer at one point stupidly says they could make the ow slow to a stop or disable the motor but keep the balance function powered on.

    • GamingChairModel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      You have to be creeping up on 20MPH and still in a heavy forward lean for the system to hard fail like that.

      Wait so this particular failure mode occurs if you’re in a forward lean when it approaches its top speed? And as soon as it isn’t able to push hard enough to offset the lean the front dips so that it catches the edge and the rider flips off of it?

      If simply exceeding the top speed leads to catastrophic failure, and there’s literally no way to safely engineer in a speed limiter, that’s an inherently dangerous design.