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Comment by celestialcheese | Hacker News Reader

Reading this warning, I don't understand why now? Is there a bug with onewheels that are causing this injury/death? Or is it just rider error doing a dangerous activity?

Is the CPSC going to start warning against purchasing Rossignol skis or Santa Cruz mountain bikes because their respective activities are dangerous?

Participation in action sports and high-speed transportation will result in a higher expected mortality rate over the mean. I don't know who in their right mind would think flying down a street at >15mph on a single wheel would be _not_ incredibly dangerous.

Let adults make stupid decisions - whether that's jumping off a building with a parachute, riding a bike down a recklessly steep hill or hurtling my body down Main St. on a sideways unicycle.

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> Is there a bug with onewheels that are causing this injury/death? Or is it just rider error doing a dangerous activity?

The article describes the scooter suddenly stopping operation and throwing riders off. It's not just scooting being dangerous generally, but a specific product flaw.

I don't think this is what's happening, at all. Here's a deep dive into what's actually happening, which is people ignoring built in safety, overpowering the motors ability to keep them upright: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGn7iPN07XI

The motor is at maximum power and speed when this happens.

I had a onewheel that would occasionally just stop. The first time I was going at 15 mph and fortunately came away with only a few scrapes.

I sent it in and they fixed it. This is their explanation which I don't know that I fully believe:

Our engineers completed the repairs on your board! They found that the power button had broken which led to damage to the controller circuit board. Both have been replaced under warranty for you. After your board passed our post-op testings it was picked up by FedEx!

This video is directly produced by Onewheel's marketing department. It does certainly highlight one way user error can lead to injury on a Onewheel, but I don't think this is a credible refutation of the idea that there may be a flaw in the product.

Admittedly a marketing video but still a pretty cool deep-dive by the company - great watch!

I see, assuming that is what's happening here I'm still not entirely certain if this is usage error or a design fault. There's two things I have my doubts about.

Firstly, sure pushback seems like it is noticeable but is it really instinctual to push less when something starts pushing back? A counterforce is good at preventing someone from moving something, but I'm not too sure if it's good at preventing them from trying.

Secondly, I have my doubts about a system of transportation that cannot slow down without throwing off its rider. I mean the automatic balancing is a fun trick, but it's somewhat concerning when the only response it has in case of problems of insufficient power is to accelerate even more and when that doesn't work it does a nose dive resulting in what looks like a sudden stop.

i own a one wheel and it will occasionally just stop, and not at full speed and power.

i love riding it. but it has happened a few times, and only takes once for you to not trust it

if an e-bike shuts off, you slow down. when a single wheel dies, you fall down

I am absolutely no fan of Future Motion, and I ditched my OneWheel in protest. This isn't entirely a product flaw and comes down to physics: the board pushes you back (by lifting the front) to indicate that you are exceeding it's capacity to balance (all balancing products have a limit, with no exceptions). It will also push back when the battery is low. Either way, ignoring pushback is how people "suddenly have the board stop."

Major caveat though: nearly all reputable Electric Unicycles (what I switched to) use a supercap for emergency power and can pull you out of almost anything. FM is too cheap/stubborn/unknown to do the same.

Furthermore, EUCs generally have a speaker and can make audible alerts when you approach the limit. OneWheel pushback can sometimes be really ambiguous, and can be missed. EUC apps also generally vibrate or something during these events. The same can't be said for FM.

The big issue recently has been the OneWheel GT, a.k.a. Ground Torpedo. The foot sensor "ghosts" and causes the board to miss disengagement from the rider. This results in the board careening off (at 35mph) into whatever/whoever is in front of it. The last I saw was one having made a good bend in a wrought iron fence. FM has generally denied that it is a widespread issue. I suspect it's the Ground Torpedo that has cast so much attention towards FM.

The last nail in the coffin (which has nothing to do with the CPSC issue) is that FM are aggressively anti-right-to-repair. The Ground Torpedo has volatile RAM in the Battery Management System that bricks the device if it loses power (due to self repair, or even complete discharge). The claim is that people are installing inferior batteries, the irony is that it is FM who install cheap crap.

Don't buy a OneWheel. Fuck Future Motion.

What would you recommend as an alternative?

Something with two wheels and a handlebar (bike/scooter).

imo the scooters while more portable and cheaper.. at least the examples i have access too.. lime/bird etc. have a problem due to hard low diameter wheels. They can get hung up on random gravel or small sidewalk 'cliffs' leading to potential over the handlebars ejection.

I went with an ebike for my neighborhood 'runner' (i don't currently commute).

I'm on an InMotion V5F, which is the slightly more recommended entry-level EUC. I understand that Begode is a better brand once you get into the midtier, and KingSong is the best high-tier brand. My only complaint is that I wish it went a little faster (I guess that's always the case no matter the top speed). It's much easier to transport when it's flat (i.e on foot) as it has a "leash" and just rolls along next to you. It has ~18miles of range. It took me about 8-10 hours (basically 50% of the battery) to successfully balance, with pretty extensive prior experience with a OneWheel.

They are objectively safer so far as the forwards/backwards balance goes. The theory is that it's all around safer because of the psychological effect of the steep learning curve. You do still want a motorbike helmet and BMX/skating pads (the community is way more pro-safety, which is nice). You'll need to try soft-sole and hard-sole shoes, one of the two will be unusable for you due to foot/sole fatigue. Once you get to mid-tier, you generally see incrementally more biker gear.

You don't look as cool on it. It doesn't have the same emotional impact. It is way more fun.

You could also look at electric skateboards or scooters.

EUCs do not seem like a very good alternative to the OneWheel. I think a huge draw to OneWheel is that it looks like a skateboard, but has one big wheel so it handles most terrain without trouble, helping to avoid the pebble paranoia you usually develop riding on a normal skateboard.

I did find the Trotter MAGWheel T3 as an alternative, but it reviews badly from its "prototype without any polish" experience in use.

It sucks that there seemingly does not exist a good alternative to OneWheel, other than changing to a different product category entirely. I wish we can get to see some true competition in the one-wheeled skateboard category soon.

roller skates!

Electric unicycles are a lot of fun. I've ridden both and strongly prefer EUCs, and that is coming from a seasoned snowboarder and skateboarder.

I can't prove it but I'm fairly certain my OneWheel Pint just "powered off" a couple of times while in normal operation. Luckily I was going slowish so I was able to run-off and catch myself.

It does seems possible the CPSC is noting an actual product glitch. If the microprocessors aren't hardened for it or using redundant chips, then it'd be possible for them to bit flip occasionally. Among many other possible design flaws.

The pushback is entirely inadequate as if you’re leaning forward enough you won’t have time to even feel it. It happened to me - I was using it to search for my dog that ran away for the first time ever. Because I was in a tizzy I wasn’t wearing my helmet, for the first time ever. Someone told me where she was - I floored it to get around a slow bicyclist. I nosedived.

Luckily I had “fangs” on it that are a set of small wheels you can add to the front. That bought me the time to fall correctly and all I ended up with was a severely skinned arm.

It should always have enough power to go “whoa, you’re trying to go too fast” and gradually slow you down while keeping the front up.

Mine’s been collecting dust and I’ve been meaning to sell it. I’m assuming that’ll be pretty difficult now.

Isn't the way it keeps the nose up by speeding up though?

No, it uses battery power to self balance once it detects you standing on the board, the nose will stay up at a standstill.

This also means if you run out of battery power the nose will just drop on you.

The force to balance though comes from the wheel torque which are from either speeding up or slowing down.

That's emergent behavior (and that emergent behavior is the principle by which all balancing devices work). All it tries to do is keep the board level. Below a certain torque (which is inversely correlated to available wattage and speed) the board loses the ability to stay level. If overcurrent protection kicks in then the motor will abruptly turn off, usually resulting in a nosedive (because your center of gravity will be towards the nose of the board while speeding up). There are experienced riders who can ride pretty far beyond safe limits by balancing themselves, but that's incredibly dangerous.

I promise you will have no problems selling it if you list it...

This can be ridden through as well, the bumpers are consumables that will slide on pavement. This is what I'll typically do if I push the board too far, though I have pitched the front into a sidewalk crack where it stopped dead and I kept going.

But I've got decades of board riding experience that has taught me to keep my center of mass over the top of the board. This is an important skill to deal with unexpected bumps on snowboards and skateboards as well. Even when the board stops due to colliding with an object I've still got a decent chance of running it out.

Is the CPSC going to start warning against purchasing Rossignol skis or Santa Cruz mountain bikes because their respective activities are dangerous?

Skis balance just fine without power. A skier will slow gracefully due to friction.

Likewise, mountain bikes don’t fall over when power (leg or EV) is removed. They coast to a stop. A rider can dangle their feet to slow and balance.

A One-Wheel/electric unicycle doesn’t naturally balance when power is removed. During use, the rider is leaning forward and the board is fighting that forward fall by accelerating forward and pushing the board/deck back level. When power fails, the nose of the board/deck necessarily plunges into the ground, tossing the rider forward. “Training wheels” on front and back would mitigate this, but would look dorky, so nobody (that I’ve seen) builds them that way.

They sell accessories for the onewheel that puts little wheels on the front and the back, they don't really work reportedly. Maybe down to the thing I can't stand about escooters ... the wheel diameter is just too small and too dense/inflexible. If a decent sized chunk of gravel is going to cause your wheel to just stop rolling .. well that's not great.

I put some aftermarket “fangs” on and they bought me a second to fall correctly.

> Is there a bug with onewheels that are causing this injury/death?

Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=onewheel+injuri...

Edit:

I should have explained this more. There are whole threads on YT on how these things are super dangerous and causing a lot of injuries. Especially with random lockups.

There are videos about the poor construction, lockups, dangerous to self repair, etc.

I found them when I started to look into buying one of these myself.

Here is a reddit thread full of stories...

https://www.reddit.com/r/onewheel/comments/robnkf/lets_talk_...

Old, but Casey Neistat broke his collar bone...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ay5M82IcUI

Lawsuit over wrongful death:

https://gearjunkie.com/news/onewheel-wrongful-death-lawsuit

Nosedives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24T4xrSf1Dg

Electronic issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3ddOMvBws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5b3fHL6ko0

Onewheel CEO SBF moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2PrcgfsX14

This is not a link to a video describing a specific bug in the product. It's just a link to a search of "onewheel injuries" in YouTube, which presents a variety of videos detailing all manner of injuries that come from operator error and the inherent dangers of OneWheel operation. Try searching for "mountain bike injuries" and see what you get.

Is there anything else? (I'm sincerely interested. The CPSC article clearly infers a situation in which it suddenly stops. Is this confirmed?)

> (I'm sincerely interested. The CPSC article clearly infers a situation in which it suddenly stops. Is this confirmed?)

The first few seconds of this 2-year-old video shows it happening to Adam Savage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys3ivCUxIvY

What I'm finding after some light digging is that this "nosedive" problem has seemingly been injuring people for years. There's apparently even a small ecosystem of add-on products that purport to address it: https://www.badgerwheel.com/shop-online/badgersense

> Using an intuitive redline display, the power gauge lets you know at a glance how much power the motor has left before a nosedive is imminent.

What a quote.

That Adam Savage footage… Ok, thanks, never getting on one of these things.

It is just a flawed concept basically.

These search results do not appear to describe a flaw in the product. I watched a bit from one of the crash compilations and would describe every crash I saw as rider error. Many of them were attempting stunts, holding cameras while riding, or both.

It may be easy to make such errors, but the same could be said of a unicycle, skateboard, BMX bike, or any of many other vehicles generally seen as safe enough for sale to the public.

Not even 4 deaths a year, I have to say this is still a magnitude safer than swimming or skiing. It's dangerous to some degree, but enough for a recall seems over the top. Just the statement itself seems unusually targeted. First they came for the magnets, now the uniboards?

> Not even 4 deaths a year, I have to say this is still a magnitude safer than swimming or skiing.

The only meaningful comparison would be a _rate_, not total number of injuries.

Google says there are 40 skiing deaths per year in the US. It would be very easy to believe there are 100x more people skiing than uniboarding.

This passes my back of the envelope test for "dangerous".

If you've got better numbers, I'll listen.

My take on it is that if it's no more dangerous than the term "20+ MPH electrically-driven skateboard/unicycle hybrid" sounds, then it's perfectly fine to market it to adults.

That sounds kind of dangerous to me. If I was going to ride one, I'd be sure I was wearing a helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads. I'd ride it in a very controlled space free of obstacles, uneven surfaces, and unpredictable road users until I mastered controlling it. I'd step up that safety gear a notch if I was attempting stunts.

Some people aren't that careful, but as long as they're injuring themselves rather than others, it does not strike me as grounds for a recall.

Edit: the wheel locking randomly or unpredictably certainly would be grounds for a recall, but the linked Youtube search doesn't show that, at least not without watching a couple hours of video.

It is too easy to nosedive on these things at speed and go superman. Either a balance mistake or hardware failure. There are tons of videos of people nosediving.

There are now third party companies making little wheels that sit on the end edge that are supposed to help protect you. IMHO, that is one advancement that the company should be making as part of the core product and not just outsourcing.

Safety wheels do seem like a good feature that should be standard on these. There's a speed over which they can no longer accelerate fast enough to self-balance, and braking to override the user's questionable decision to go faster would cause a nosedive.

What I'm seeing from a quick search is that there's an audible warning upon exceeding the speed that's safe for self-balancing. Ignoring that is rider error.

.... beep ... superman!!!

Yeah future motion cites bicycle deaths vs onewheel deaths. As if bicycles are not used to cover many many orders of magnitudes more miles traveled. Even with that we should be talking about bicycle deaths caused by a bicycle hardware fail, not being hit by a non-attentive driver.

I think at least part of the difference is that this is a single company that is building, selling and supporting this product. They go out of their way to hold their dominance and not allow for competition and thus improvement of products. The CEO says as much so in his video and in a lot of ways is using safety and control as an excuse for this. Since that is the case, they should own it and provide a product that doesn't randomly lock up as well as have a whole bunch of well documented electrical / construction / design problems.

Imagine that there was only one company that made skis.

When the GT was released, there was a problem with "ghosting", which meant the board would keep moving after the rider had gotten off the board. This was traced to a faulty sensor in the foot pad, for which Future Motion eventually did issue a recall and will replace that gen foot pad at no add'l cost.

It affected a minority of the boards, and the biggest concern was the board crashing into a pedestrian's ankle or smashing into traffic or parked cars. It was certainly a concern, but in no way something that could reasonably be expected to cause death or injury to the rider.

That recall from FM of the footpad was done this summer.

There is no open issue that I'm aware of with the board.

Using them is inherently risky though, like downhill biking or snowboarding.

I can only imagine it's about the feature where it "warns" you when you are leaning too far, which you can choose to ignore. I'm assuming most injuries are from people pushing the angle way too hard

"I don't understand why now?"

Bureaucratic inefficiencies.

"Is there a bug with onewheels that are causing this injury/death?"

There was an issue that the community referred to as "ghosting" whereby the board got a bit out of control. This was fixed with a firmware update. The boards also nosedive when approaching top speed. Some people consider that a bug, but it's just users neglecting instructions and warnings.

I know a couple of people injured by the so-called non-bug and they have both dumped their one wheels and feel duped about it.

I hate to think that the whole idea is fatally flawed, but it should have enough reserve power to gracefully slow you down if the machine is in trouble. They guys I know, one is a very talented board sporter and broke his collarbone. He takes safety pretty seriously and felt like there was no warning and it just cut out on him. North of 10mph? That's a pretty good tumble for most people, you might not just pop up after it.

In the case of my friends, they knew they were going to get hurt, they were setting up ramps and trying to do tricks and things. They entered into it with that in mind and then decided it wasn't for them. Hard to imagine how a total civilian would approach such a device.

"it should have enough reserve power to gracefully slow you down if the machine is in trouble."

You're 100% right. It's an avoidable problem. But they choose not to for bragging-rights and top speeds and engineering resources.

Chaotic innovation in the personal-transport space is better for us in the long term.

Bug is a bit of a misnomer, it’s a constraint by the laws of physics due to the board having only a single wheel. If the board is being pushed beyond operating capacity, there is no graceful way to slow it down without the rider cooperating. If the rider never cooperates and the motor overheats, that’s when you see a nosedive.

then FutureMotion must equip all onewheels with safety wheels on both sides. Also called as Fangs bumper wheels.

physics is no excuse for lousy engineering from FutureMotion and complete disregard of life threatening diving condition!

But then it’s a fivewheel! /s

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