Aside: if anyone's trying to talk someone they care about out of purchasing something like this, I suggest tricking them into getting a skateboard first. I think that would ground most people in reality. Fuck around enough at low speed in less-than-lethal environments, you'll get onto a first-name basis with Newtonian Physics, and it'll clarify, on a viscerally intuitive level, what these types of machines are <i>really</i> about.<p>The first thought that comes to my mind looking at this device is "these are <i>failure-is-not-an-option</i> situations". There's many ways to fall off a skateboard without dying, and to me it's <i>viscerally</i> obvious, absolutely none of them will ever apply here. You can't recover onto your feet, because these lithium-battery things are like 300% faster than your top sprinting speed. You can't fall onto your arms either, because your inertial speed is faster than your autonomous reflexes. (You learn <i>all</i> about your autonomous reflexes). It's just your face, and skull. This is the first thought that comes to mind: there's no way to bail, 0% chance. It's just completely not-an-option to fail on such a device at cruising speed. And I'm grounded enough to realize, I'm not a person who never fails physical feats. That's not what a human is.
I have emails talking with Future Motion support as early as 2017 when my Onewheel+ was nosediving randomly at medium/low speeds (ie. Idling back and forth at a red light).<p>I could never get them to acknowledge it was a defect. I put over 2,000 miles on the board, so I was no stranger to how it should ride. All of my close calls came from it just suddenly powering down on me and are why I lost enough trust in the board to get rid of it.<p>If not for that defect, it would have been the best tool for commuting in the city. It could ride off curbs, over torn up roads, through grass, and best of all, I could actually bring it inside any building without needing to go through a freight elevator
I have a Onewheel XR. Mine took a nosedive at pretty low speeds and I broke my arm. Onewheel blamed me, I had a lot of experience on the XR and a lot of time skateboards and skates. The device problems, I’m happy they are acknowledging that. I don’t like that it is a voluntary recall. I don’t want store credit, I don’t trust Future Motion or their products.
Every middle aged former skateboarder turned bartender or liquor sales person I know who's gotten on one of these fuckers cracked their face open. You have been warned.<p>I just looked at one and it stole all my hyphens.
To be a rare positive voice, I own their newest model, the Onewheel GT, and I absolutely love it. It feels like snowboarding around town. I've put hundreds of miles on it without a single issue.<p>For safety, I wear motorcycle armor and wrist guards with it, and I keep my maximum speed at ~15mph. Injuries are almost always caused by people not wearing simple safety equipment and trying to go way too fast.<p>I'd never <i>recommend</i> an adrenaline-adjacent activity, since I don't want it on my conscience if a person gets hurt. But Onewheeling might be my favorite part of the day: it's like having a cabin on the slopes of Colorado, where you're able to step out the front door and immediately have the experience of snowboarding.<p>So, I won't recommend it per se, but it's as fun as advertised, and you'll know it if you need it.
To add a perspective I haven’t seen yet in this thread, I’ve been riding one of these for 6 years and it’s basically my favorite way to get around.<p>For me, it has more utility than a bike. I usually go around 15 mph and I’m careful to not nosedive which happens when you go really fast (~20+ on a pint) or accelerate too quickly.<p>Though, I learned the behavior of the board the hard way. I wouldn’t recommend it to most people even though I love it personally.<p>I hope Future Motion increases the reliability and safety of the board and keeps refining their product.
This is just my personal opinion, but as a both a programmer and a cyclist, and as someone who saw the OneWheels all over SF --<p>I just can't trust that any organization will write code well enough to get on one of these things, especially where there is split-second interaction with SF traffic, and where my face being broken is one of the consequences.<p>(I might trust certain people, but not organizations.)<p>I don't know if they did anything bad or not, but the very concept seems suspect. I want my body to learn the laws of physics, as on a bike. I don't want my body to have to interact with software that gets updates over time.<p>You can level similar criticisms at modern planes -- planes worked before software, and people learned over time how to fly them in bad conditions.<p>They had skin in the game!!! People writing code in a company somewhere aren't personally liable for your face breaking, or the plane going down in flames. I didn't follow very closely, but the recent Toyota/Boeing issues basically seem like typical organizational blame deflection. No skin in the game.<p>Unlike mechanical systems, this type of software has no end-user/operator repair.<p>When software is doing too much, then the pilots and operators lose agency.<p>---<p>So I believe a bicycle (or unicycle) has more agency than a OneWheel. The human is forced to learn it, and it's a STABLE target for learning.<p>Humans have an intuitive sense of physics, and it can be honed to incredible degrees<p>This reminds me of those viral videos of indoor cyclists that were going around >10 years ago<p><a href="https://youtu.be/WB3qTVg3hhs?t=158" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/WB3qTVg3hhs?t=158</a><p>It's a perfect example of why you shouldn't underestimate the human's brain ability to learn -- software is not that flexible or reliable; AI is not that flexible or reliable.<p>I mean think about SLOW the self-driving cars are after 10+ years. Their reaction time and judgement is shit.<p>I'm not an exceptional cyclist, but I've learned to make decisions safely in 15+ years of riding around SF, through diverse conditions and terrain. It's obvious to me that these capabilities are beyond software.
I remember seeing ads for the one wheel the first time, and thinking it must be some kind of joke. Surely no one would have the nads to sell that in the USA? How are they <i>not</i> going to be steamrolled by the liability lawsuits?<p>Maybe that was part of the business plan in the first place, and they're also sponsoring the inevitable class action big lawsuit through another subsidiary company. Buy the victims off with a little money now in return for large shares of the settlements. 15 years from now when the courts decide they're due money for being stupid enough to get on the thing in the first place, the original company will have been long bankrupt, and the State (ie Taxpayers) will be on the hook to relieve the suffering of the poor victims.<p>Not to mock people injured on these things; but seriously, just <i>look at it</i>. You embraced the risk when you stepped on it.
Mine is rotting in my garage. I couldn't sell it or give it away given what I know about it.<p>$100 credit for a new board - no thanks. I'm not giving these assholes another cent and I don't want anything they've touched anyway. Resisting the recall is a full and likely permanent breach of trust.
I've never trusted the design of that thing -- not even to get on it once. It's just so.. dumb. It doesn't have a failsafe mode. At least put some small wheels / rollers on the leading edge so when it inevitably nosedives, it wouldn't dig in. Terrible design.<p>I ride an electric skateboard (boosted stealth) -- it makes sense to me. If the battery runs out, or if it loses connection to the remote, it turns into a dumb, heavy skateboard. When it fails mechanically (snapped belts, burned out motors), it turns into a dumb skateboard. You can carve to lose speed, you can drag your foot to slow down, you can even slide it like a regular longboard.<p>Even with all that, I sometimes imagine what could happen if the software glitched and cranked the throttle 100% forward or back - makes my skin crawl. Luckily I've never heard of that happening with any of their boards in however many years.<p>All that said, I think these types of "last mile" small-scale mobility devices are a very good way to help people decouple from cars, make transit more accessible, and generally take back street space from the monoculture of heavy, dangerous, energy-intensive vehicles.
A few years ago, I used to see a middle-aged guy riding one of these every single day from his office to his apartment in Downtown LA. Then I suddenly stopped seeing him.<p>According to a street vendor who saw the accident, the guy's Onewheel froze up on him riding down Grand Ave from Bunker Hill, he went flying, and he suffered severe brain damage. He's been in a coma since then, and his family's lawsuit against the manufacturer is still working its way through the courts.
I used to use an electric skateboard in the 2010s - very early on in the e mobility movement. Though I knew (and still know) how to skateboard I found it to be pretty dangerous due to the speeds you’re now capable of. Unlike long boarding where you’re forced to learn to slide in order to stop anyone can go 20mph+ and get themselves killed.<p>The one wheel in a sense is worse because inherently there’s no way to use it without electricity and people overestimate their ability to travel on high speeds on it.<p>That’s why I ended up going with e-bikes and escooters. I think the nature of the motion lends itself to be inherently safer.
I broke my pelvis and elbow while learning to ride a OneWheel+. I overcame the motor’s resistance when attempting to accelerate from a low speed and went flying off the front. Recovery was rough, but not the end of the world.<p>I still ride the thing. Mostly trail riding; I find the concentration required doesn’t mix well with bumpy streets.<p>I’ve also had injuries snowboarding and doing other sports.<p>The recall thing makes sense, but offering $100 to destroy a $1700 toy seems kind of lame.
There is another safety related recall going on right now - this time in the world of cycling. Shimano (the biggest parts manufacturer) is recalling more than 2 million cranks (and it's likely they will recall even more in the future). It seems companies are seriously afraid of US agencies in this area.
I bought one, thought I mastered it, ended up in the ER, sold it. Onewheels require a full face helmet and pads. Even under ideal conditions, the device can fail of function different than expected causing the rider harm. I was riding mine off a 2-3 inch curb, which was on a familiar path I took daily, when the nose slammed and I flew off fracturing my rest. The sensation of a OW is amazing at low and high speeds, but the risk isn't worth the reward.
This could very well be the wrong "vibe" thread to ask such a thing, but I'd guess those who are here would likely be an informed audience to solicit: has anyone heard of, or tried, to build Byte Sized Engineering's one-wheel: <a href="https://www.bytesizedengineering.com/projects/openwheel" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.bytesizedengineering.com/projects/openwheel</a> (and also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkXIBCzrUr0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkXIBCzrUr0</a> )?
Not that I wish anyone hurt, I do wonder if there isn't some abandonment of common sense - moving things result in accidents, there's no way to prevent that, and if you don't want to get hurt don't use them. For example, I was cycling through a large park this evening, empty because the weather was gloomy and it was a Saturday evening. Cars, cyclists, walkers and joggers use the road through the park but only myself and one other cyclist were on the long straight heading towards each other. When he was about 20 meters in front of me he suddenly fell into the grass on the side of the road. No potholes, no animals, no gust of wind, no broken parts, ... just over he went. A lapse of concentration? No idea. He climbed back on and continued. Point being that even with perfect conditions people still manage to come a cropper.
It seems that the problem is that the Onewheel is a fundamentally flawed design that should perhaps not even be legal to sell.<p>Basically the issue is that the only control available is turning the wheel, but an unstable scooter actually needs two controls: one to balance the board and one to control the speed.<p>Having a single control means that they are tied and thus that, discounting air resistance, if the user continuously leans forward, then the board has to continuously accelerate up to arbitrary speeds since turning the wheel to balance also results in acceleration.<p>Furthermore, it seems that they don't even have a motor powerful enough to always be able to balance the user along with air resistance, so if the rider continuously leans forward eventually the motor is no longer powerful enough, the board loses balance and the rider probably falls down and dies.<p>Not sure how they could even think of selling a design like that or how they are surviving the lawsuits.<p>The simplest fix seems to be using four wheels instead of one, which also removes the need of active balancing and is a normal proper design. If "leaning to accelerate" is desired instead of a more normal handle with a throttle control, then it should be achievable by adding suspension springs and detecting their extension.<p>Not sure if it's possible to have a proper design with one wheel; a thing that comes to mind is having a sort of "landing gear" that can come down and make the board stable on demand. An alternative could perhaps be an internal reaction flywheel, but not sure if that works and is feasible.
I sold my Onewheel because I was seeing more reports of this sort of stuff. Personally never experienced it in about 2.5k miles ridden. I guess I was lucky. The way I've seen people take drops on these things, or modify the electronics can't be good. I've honestly wondered if those little front wheels (called Fangs I think) would become a standard thing.
I haven't personally seen a Onewheel crash, but someone did pass me on my (non-electric) bike with a powered skateboard the other day, and not 10m past, one of the wheels dug into a pavement defect, board stopped, he didn't. Low-ish speed, got away with some scrapes and a bruised ego, but no bones broken.<p>The fact with these things is, you don't have leverage to stop. On a bike with proper posture, your center of mass is a fair way behind the contact patch of the front wheel and you can brake <i>hard</i> to the point of wheels skidding and not nosedive. Though a front wheel motor hypothetically going from full power to sudden lockup probably would send you over the handlebars.<p>Someone passed me on an e-scooter with 6" wheels, going at least 40km/h (I was going about 30km/h and the passing speed was significant). Disaster waiting to happen.
I don't ride these but I and many friends ride electric unicycles, EUCs. There's a known safety concern: if you're riding at the maximum supported speed, and you lean forward, you're going to fall forward because the device can not speed up to catch you. Similarly, if you lean back to brake but are leaning too far for how quickly the machine can stop, you will fall backwards. At high speeds this is catastrophic. You can also draw too much power due to things like incline, music, etc. OneWheels would presumably have the same limitation.<p>EUCs have default warnings at high speeds, but you can disable or change these warnings (making them higher or lower). You also need to monitor your battery health; I wouldn't trust an old battery.<p>Ultimately the rider determines the risk. I'm the only rider I know that wears a helmet. Many friends or acquaintances have broken their legs badly or been hit by multiple vehicles. I ride slower and safer, generally, but even I've done some minor damage to myself.<p>I'm inclined to get rid of the EUC in favor of a scooter or ebike. Two points of contact with the ground is so much safer.
This seems like a cheap (or maybe even profitable) recall.<p>For new models, it’s just a software update (~free) and for old models it’s a $100 credit on a new board which probably doesn’t consume all of the profit on a sale of a board.<p>Plus this coverage is now a ton of free advertising for a product many forgot about or didn’t know about.<p>Shouldn’t they have just done this years ago? Am I missing something?
I understand that HN swings US and we don't like editorialising titles, but this one sucks. It's every Onewheel in the US. "Every single Onewheel" has a clearly absolutist meaning, and the title should be edited to reflect, or a [US] at the end at least.
First of all, fuck Future Motion on the C&D for REWheel. Also why haven't they still haven't patched the security vulnerability of hardcoded AES key in their devices? REWheel was specifically architected so that it did not share any IP, and they came in and bullied Nish under an archaic clause in the DMCA that's being hotly contested in R2R. The VESC implementation was Whitebox reverse engineered and none of the coders (Mitch, Dado, Nico) ever even looked at any FM binary. All REWheel was trying to do was let users repair their BMS's and re level their boards for aftermarket rails as well as provide safety features so that boards didn't drop users.<p>Besides this recall, here are all the other issues with their boards:
1) BMS discharge protection shutting off board instead of pushback/buzzer.
2) Wires breaking in cable harness leading to BMS communication drop shutting off board during mid ride (my friends have broken bones on the XR because of this).
3) Pint X Balance cable pinching
4) GT motor connector coming loose during midride leading to board cut off.
5) Lack of locktite in controller box screws and nuts (common for power button nut to come loose and short controller in Pint)
6) Lack of proper waterproofing in controller and battery box (should put silicone sealant around connector ports internally and externally)
7) Water getting into Pint motor connector causing short (should put dielectric grease on all connectors)
8) Underspeced charging connector on Pint PCB for hypercharger leading to arcing and damage.
9) Unknown reproducible GT shutoff over certain bridges on later hardware revisions. My theory is that you swapped out IMU because of chip shortage and didn't validate high pass filters properly. Either that or GT motor connector looseness issue. I can go ride one of my friends GT and make it shutoff right now if I wanted to by riding over certain bridges! It's insane!
10) Underspeced mosfets on controller leading to lack of torque and recovery in nosedive situations. My VESC Pint beats the GT on hill climbs.
11) GT axel weakness leading to breakage.
12) Powder coating on GT rails leading to overheating
13) Lack of proper coolant (like statoraid) in GT Hypercore hub leading to overheating.
14) Reverse polarity on XT-60 connections (this is just evil)<p>The above design flaws have lead to multiple injuries and broken bones in Future Motion devices that I have mitigated in all of my VESC boards I have built for myself and the people I love and don't want to see get hurt.<p>OneWheels are great devices. I myself have close to 10K miles on them. I have felt infinitely safer after I started converting my own to VESC boards, removing the discharge path on the BMS (so it couldn't power off the board unexpectedly) and disabling moving faults (so it couldn't drop the user due to a failed footpad). This has been achieved by swapping out both the BMS and ESC to open source, aftermarket solutions.
So the company is issuing a firmware update with some new warning system. Early adopters where for unstated reasons this is not sufficient/possible are up for a $100 store credit iff they show evidence of disposing of their $1000 board. Destroy your unsafe board and you're up for 5~10% off on a new model!<p>If I were were one of these people I'd probably be pissed off. A proper replacement or money back should be the only reasonable response.<p>At this point there's no way this company would ever have me as a potential customer again after seeing their irresponsible handling of this.
Never touched one, but FWIW it's the only thing I see daily that feels like the future.<p>That being said, I literally only see one, and it's the same one, there's a kid who commutes to my kids school every day in a suburban area.
> The Onewheel GT, Onewheel Pint X, Onewheel Pint, and Onewheel Plus XR will receive a firmware update that will add a new warning “Haptic Buzz” feedback that riders can feel and hear when the vehicle enters an error state, is low on battery, or is nearing its limits and needs to slow dow<p>What the ever loving fuck is the "error state". Fucking websites and laptops can have "error states"<p>Vehicles shouldn't have "error states" or they shouldn't exist.<p>Also if it buzzes when you go too fast people will deliberately attempt to make it buzz.
I have a rad rover 6. It’s a fat tire electric bike with disc brakes that can go 20mph. When I got on it the first time and hit max speed, I was like this is definitely fast enough for me. A lot of people say you don’t need the fat tire but I’m heavy and I live in Michigan and the roads are crap here. I never ride it without a helmet and the side view mirror but even then I have to be attentive. The boosted boards and one wheels always seemed too dangerous for me.
I owned a first gen Evolve Carbon skateboard back in 2014. That thing was capable of something like 24 mph, but I took it over 10 mph maybe five times total, and every time I did it was brief and nerve-wracking.<p>In two years of commuting over two miles to work and back on it every day, I'm proud to say I managed to never have to put my hand on the ground. I had to bail a few times -- broke the drive belt once, and hit a few serious pavement gaps and rocks -- but I never went down.<p>Phew!
I was convinced the smaller one they were about to release was something I wanted to try.<p>Height of the communal electric scooter rental phase, I thought this would be a great way to get around downtown where I worked. Paid the deposit and couldn’t wait.<p>As time went on the excitement wore off because it seemed more dangerous when I would see existing riders going around. I eventually cancelled the pre-order.<p>Here we are years later and three or four people have died. Just like my instinct told me.
I was just checking events in the Tahoe area and noticed that there’s some national off-road one wheel competition coming to Sky Tavern above Reno in a bit…
>>For early adopters, however, owners can receive a “pro-rated credit of $100 to the purchase of a new board,” according to Mudd. The credit will only be issued after owners confirm that they have disposed of the old model.<p>You've got to be kidding me. I hope they're hit with a class action forcing them to replace all of the flawed early units or reimburse purchasers at some ammortized rate.
I sold my onewheel pint a few years back only after 200 miles because of a few uncontrollable crashes and nobody believed me that this is a dangerous product.<p>I warned the next buyer but he still bought it, just like me before crashes.<p>But I did convince him to join the Onewheel Crash Club Facebook group. For everyone who is interested to know how dangerous this is, check that page out.
Had an electric skateboard. Fell off due to wheels slipping in rain. Injured wrists. Took a good 5 years, but not fully back.<p>Skateboard: $700. Hospital bill $6000 - it blew past the deductible.<p>I’m alive but electric scooters are much better since you have big strong handles to hold onto. Even then don’t go at stupid speeds.
I have seen first hand how these things fail , i was riding down a hill with my friend on the on wheel and it just decided to stop flinging him on to stopped bus . If the thing fails there is nothing to hold on to , its either your hands that stop you or your face
I think this is a mandatory software update, no physical devices are moving, and that the article is written misleadingly, even if technically correct.<p>Or am I the only person that doesn't understand this new definition of "recall"??
I feel Evolve skateboards are next. Remote drop-outs and start/stop issues have been known in community for ages. I miss Boosted - they really cared about rider safety :(
> claimed that it tested and found nothing wrong with the Onewheels<p>Is this the hardware manufacturer equivalent of "runs fine on my machine"?
I don't think these should go over 10 miles an hour.<p>That's the only way to make these safe. At 20 miles an hour it's way to easy to lose control
These things are downright dangerous!! Avoid at all costs.
In at least one way, onewheels are the safer of the electric "board" options - the weight transfer _is_ the throttle. Consider slowing down without shifting your weight forward - immediate face plant. While the one wheel is dangerous, electric boards are even more risky.
I'd expect the number of deaths per e-board owner to be higher than that of the one wheel.
so latest death is one with a helmet, and an “error state” after the device is pushed to “certain limits”<p>I’m sorry, what?<p>This is very scant on details