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Comment by JoshGlazebrook | Hacker News Reader

The funny thing is all these "hoverboards" are the same exact device from China. You can get them off alibaba for $200 or spend $1,500 for some American branded version that is the same exact thing.

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Yeah, I was reading a little about it and it's fascinating. It's a case of the full product development capabilities moving into the actual factory, so no outside company needs to design or own the product. The actual factory stamps it out and the outside company just brands it and sells it retail. And when combined with nonexistent intellectual property protections, in this case, no one even seems to be sure which company or factory originated the design. And no one cares.

The downside is there is no way for the consumer to rely on a trusted brand with good quality. It's a total crapshoot.

> no one even seems to be sure which company or factory originated the design

It's all from the same factory in China.

> brand with good quality.

It's all from the same factory in China.

From what I understand there are differences in the quality of the components, but it's impossible to tell which brand has which set without doing a teardown on it.

Link for the curious?

You can try Alibaba or Aliexpress usually:

http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB...

Tons of reviews on Youtube, a lot of people take them apart and find that modelX is the same as modelY and so on. If they look close to the one she has, it is the most rebranded model. Check out Amazon and search for 2 wheel hoverboard, peoples reviews tell you too.

I believe this was invented by a Washington State-based company, Inventist. They also came up with the Electric Unicycle (EUC).

http://www.inventist.com

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