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Comment by mrfusion | Hacker News Reader

Questions (the video didn’t answer)

Will it work on carpet?

What stops you from slipping?

What holds you in place? Does the motor move you backwards to match any forward movement?

Btw once we get all these vr accessories were really going to need wireless charging and a giant mat to dump all your stuff on when you’re done playing to charge it.

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I think the video was actually pretty clear in that they haven't really figured a lot of stuff out yet, and the funding is to do just that. It was very clear that the funding is for R&D, not for a final product.

If you have to put everything on a mat, I wouldn't called that wireless charging. That's like saying you can have a wireless network connection as long as your laptop is sitting on a special pad.

I think it has to work over a range of at least a few meters before I'd call it wireless.

My 10-yr old daughter described the current form of "wireless charging" as using the shortest possible cord.

That's incredibly insightful. The way I see lots of people charge their phones, you have a long cable so you can continue using it when it's charging. with the wireless charging, you have to leave it locked in place while it charges at 500ma for hours. It's neat at starbucks where I can pick up a quick extra few percent on my battery bar, but otherwise pretty useless.

It's not useless. It's great for charging overnight while sleeping, without the hassle of plugging in the cable before you go to sleep.

I imagine some specific types of disabled people might really appreciate it too. Plugging a cord in required a fair amount of dexterity and grip strength; far more than using the phone itself requires. But Qi charging? You could probably nudge it into position with your nose if you had to.

Great point! I never stopped to consider it as an accessibility technology.

I used to be ambivalent-to-negative about wireless charging pads, until I figured out that I could get a little desktop stand to set my phone in while I'm doing things on my PC.

I can just plop the phone down without having to fiddle around with uncovering the charging port and finding the cable, and I can still comfortably see and touch the screen if I need to.

Now I'm ambivalent-to-generally-positive, but it's still not exactly a life-changer.

> Will it work on carpet?

That one is answered in the FAQ of the campaign (=no)

What the FAQ doesn't answer though, even if it's in there, is why they need the $50,000. Their answer is just "because we hope you find it a fun adventure"

Moving hardware from the prototype stage to mass production to retail requires a sizable infusion of cash.

Hyneman probably has $50k down between his sofa cushions though?

He does explain in the video that as much as anything they're after a corpus of people to act as a focus group, which seems reasonable.

One more question: lateral stability? Ok a few more questions... When you try to jump or crouch, or sidestep, etc... are you going to snap an ankle? Can you jump in this? Quickly spin around?

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