Motorcycle Airbag Vest Will Stop Working If You Miss a Payment | Hacker News Reader

Motorcycle Airbag Vest Will Stop Working If You Miss a Payment

jalopnik.com

52 pointsnew_guy26 comments

I wear a Helite Turtle 2 airbag vest when I go motorcycling. I wear it for three reasons:

- There is a mechanical tether. It is a reliable mechanism that is not subject to subscriptions or software of any sort. If I’m clipped in, I’m protected.

- Its air pockets are bigger than the “cool” airbag vests that are designed to fit under your clothing. Bigger air pockets really do translate into better impact protection. AND it has CE armor in the back as well, just in case. Below a certain threshold of air displacement, you’re not much better off than armor by itself.

- The air channels run over my shoulders and are designed to immobilize my head and neck in the event of a crash.

Fortnine has a video whose rationale matches mine: https://youtu.be/N2jZryt607U

The downside of my airbag style is that if I low-side and stay with the bike, the airbag won’t deploy. That said, in this kind of crash, I’m much more worried about abrasions (which is also why I wear a one-piece Aerostich suit).

That was a fantastic video.

These people should maybe call a lawyer and ask if this is a good idea. The first person who dies because their safety equipment was disabled will generate a wrongful death lawsuit to the tune of a hundred million dollars.

I think the relevant legal question is if a reasonable person would be able to conclude that the airbag vest is disabled, and that it won't actually activate in a crash. this seems incredibly hard - you can't rely on printed instructions, since reasonable people don't always read directions, and you could have given it to a friend. so it has to be extremely obvious, like a buckle that locks only if the system is armed - and even then, if someone forces the buckle, it should still be armed, since a reasonable person could conclude that the forcing the buckle shouldn't affect the airbag.

this is even independent of the subscription thing. like if the thing needs a battery and the battery is dead, it needs to be extremely obvious it's not going to work. parachutes have this kind of problem but a reasonable skydiver has parachute training whereas a reasonable biker doesn't have airbag training.

Looking at the actual manual + FAQ for the thing, and the company's comments at the bottom of the article:

- You need to turn it on when you're going to go ride.

- When you do that (in brief summary): You get a green LED if you're good to go, a red one if you're not, and if it's dead you get no LED, obviously.

- If you're in the no subscription state or it's otherwise not connecting to the app, you get two LEDs flashing red when you go to turn it on. You've got a 30 day grace period on the subscription expiration and it won't cut out out mid-ride even if that's when it hits the 30 day mark, just the next time you go to ride it'll give you the error instead of green.

- There's a battery light that comes on with 30% of battery left, which looks to be about 7 hours.

I would say that "when I hit the power button to go ride, I get a green LED if it's working as intended" is about as foolproof as is reasonably possible.

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I'm not a huge fan of the subscriptions for everything model, but IMO their policies are about as safe and reasonable as you could get for the product.

Vest (FAQ at bottom): https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000

Manual for the inflator/controller(?): https://www.inemotion.com/en/support/user-manual-inbox/

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I'm also not a lawyer, but I'm not sure "I picked up a safety device I don't know how to use, didn't read the directions on how to use it, used it wrong, and it didn't protect me" is really the legal standard.

At risk of stating the obvious: There's a pretty much infinite number of ways you could improperly use any safety device and have them not work as intended, plenty of which "reasonable" people could think to do.

And technically the person will be less likely to complete payments if the airbag doesn't operate in the course of an accident.

This is the flawed logic we deal with these days... :/

Especially if wrongfully disabled.

It seems as though missing a payment and losing one's life would make them unable to make any future payments as well. Not great.

If the vest did save one's life, they'd probably be eager to catch up on payments as a symbolic gesture.

Short-sighted business thinking AND completely unsympathetic.

maybe the business model should simply be to bill your insurance once it deploys

"...which in turn uses an internet-connected component called the In&Box that does all of the complex sensing and math needed to know when you’re about to eat shit..."

I sure hope that isn't a real-time operation happening "in the cloud" while riding. 1) Latency? Crashes happen fast. 2) Spotty service on back roads where motorcyclists like to be?

What is needed is a purely offline solution to this purely offline problem. Please someone make that and put these fools out of business.

This story comes up on HN every now and then, I think at one point someone from the company showed up and explained how the license is checked before you leave the house and how there's warnings etc. when the subscription is expired.

Edit: Here's a previous thread on the same topic, though I can't find the one where I recall someone explaining how it works in more detail.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27054629

Just the fact that a code path exists that can disable the device would scare the shit out of me if I were a developer for that company.

What if its hacked? What if there is a bug? What if there is a Ops fuckup that mass disables devices? What if there is an Accounting fuckup that mass disabled devices?

I would prefer such a code path not even exist to worry about.

No story here. Not sure if this fine post made the news too soon, before TFA got updated.

The vest is $800 all-in, perpetual forever. The mfr claims this is the price of other similar vests.

Or, $400 + subscription or until the mfr goes out of business, presumably soon.

It seems like a fair pricing model.

The vest requires the battery operated, internet connected (for enablement, not operation) component to work at all, so we can well assume that the rider will have ample opportunity to check the subscription status and not be surprised.

The terms that surround nonpayment seem to lend themselves well to "stop paying in the winter when you put it away, resume in spring".

Yep! That's one reason I find it a completely fair model. Pay for usage. If you believe that the technology will get better (as I would) and you won't even accumulate $400 of usage before. you'll want to replace it, then subscription seems the way to go. (say you ride 6 months a year, that would be ~ 6 years).

It's interesting if the company actually makes less money per unit this way (total revenue per vest is less, esp after considering the cost of managing the subscription, nevermind the eventual hack which will give owners free lifetime service), but because the price looks like "$400" they sell a lot more, seriously undercutting competitors. And lastly, by being a subscription they can claim recurring revenue which is great for growth hacking. According to crunchbase they took a seed round, so this does make sense.

I think you are extremely optimistic if you think the $800 lifetime option doesn’t try to check in with a licensing server every time your turn it on.

If they're going to do something like this (and honestly, their pricing model isn't terrible. $798 upfront vs $858 over 3 years or $930 over 36 months equates to 2.5% or 5.5% APR simple interest -- way cheaper than credit card debt, and without having to maintain their own financing system or repoing from people who default), they should add some actuator to make it impossible to put on when the subscription isn't paid. I don't think that's necessary for a lot of products, but for something that's a matter of preventing severe bodily injury... yeah it shouldn't be in a state where you think it's working, but it's not. I'd guess that they can only get away with this legally because helmets are the only safety equipment that are required by law.

You'll own nothing and be happy. -WEF

It already sounds sinister when you read it. Even more with this vest

OnCrash ( checkSubscriptionStatus() ) { saveLife() }

Well, in a libertarian utopia, you merely need to negotiate with the parent corporation during the couple seconds while in mid-flight from being tossed by your motorcycle to negotiate proper pricing for saving your life. There is a _slight_ excise rate applied to the normal protection fee, merely 100,000$. You can pay in installments if you survive the crash.

Physical-objests-as-a-service? Yeah, it's 2021. Why not.

[deleted: I failed at reading comprehension. mea culpa]

This is very disingenuous quote! Here is a longer one:

> Under NO circumstances is our system disabled or rider’s cut-off if they are mid-flight on a ride, as suggested. We provide a 30-day grace period from the time a payment is missed..

So the title is _almost_ correct -- the airbag vest will stop working if 2 payments are missed.

edit: deleted

You're probably right; I've removed my original comment as misleading.

I'm embarrassed I failed to parse that quote correctly. (My first parse was "30-days grace period" in the common usage of the phrase, as "before contractual penalty fees apply". Not "before you *die*").

From May this year

Reply on news.ycombinator.com