Comment by Gazoo101 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gazoo101 | Hacker News Reader

I read the article with fascination, and googled his name to get a website with some media upon which I found a link to a page with a non-clickable link to this video (likely the same as has been featured earlier):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD7ClbhLNOc

As a fellow passionate creator, it pains me to see a video production like this. Having never seen this product before, I'd argue what interests most people first and foremost is seeing the product in action, and what's possible with them (which wouldn't be possible without).

It takes 18 seconds until the video actually shows them being used while worn. 25, if you want to see them running in real-time. The first time you actually get a sense of how they compare to anything else (bikes / cars) isn't until one minute and 16 seconds into the video. It boggles my mind. I understand that not everyone can be a video da vinci, but this video could be 1000 times better in so many ways.

It's literally the ideal product for a click-baity - WE OUTRUN A CAR/BIKE/OLYMPIC MEDAL WINNER - type video. Sure, have a little bit of a lead in, but then show him squaring off against 3 other commonly known modes of transportation etc. etc.

And don't even get me started on that constant heart-beat and increasingly present jet 'woosh' noise O_O.

I had to turn the volume to its minimum, this woosh noise is borderline painful.

You are spot on, most of the video shows somebody running alone. It is uninteresting, just having shiny boots does not make such a clip attention grabbing..

Someone running alone on various types of terrain and various levels underbrush. This is fairly important, and very interesting.

It shouldn't be the start of the video, though. Right after showing how cool they are, is when you show utility (you can run in the woods as well!)

The rubber bands are a really dangerous catching hazard.

He has great control (lots of practice I expect), but it also seems a longer lever should give greater acceleration - it's not quite hitting it. Hence no clear comparison and obscuring sound effects.

OTOH the story isn't about boots, but tilting at windmills, a perenially relatable theme. There's magic in realising an imagined experience.

The marketer in me shuddered when I saw that - if I were in the States I'd literally offer to redo that for free. As you mention, short of being an intentional spoof, it's about as skewed as a promo as you can get.

Goes to show how much marketing is enormously important for a product. I only realized he compared to vehicles after reading your comment, because I had closed the video before it showed up.

I’ve seen his work in the past and cosmetics aside, I think the real use case or value at least could be learning from his design experiences and applying to research in robotic motion. I feel like companies that were a bit before their time, like this, Segway, etc, are about to become much more relevant as we need mobility solutions for different robotic tools.

It looks fun in video, but to expect to see it to go 'viral' is too much. I've tried parkour-style-running-fast around streets few times as a teenager. I once slipped and was about to knock my head on a concrete corner. This looks 10x times more dangerous.

He needs to be giving these to professional parkour athletes.

Nobody wants to run around looking dorky. That would be fun for about 5 minutes. Absolutely not worth what these cost.

Start doing double backflips and 15 foot gaps and you have a sport.

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