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Comment by PuissantSheep | Hacker News Reader

For those of you who don’t “see the point” of a device like this, what you are failing to see is your own personal use case.

The use cases I can see for others are “anyone who might find this useful or fun”. To me, that means

1) people with medically compromised joints who would like to engage in experiences that their bodies don’t currently allow.

2) people who want to challenge themselves by making these joint additions add more resistance.

3) people who want more strength and/or power for any reason. “Fun” is a valid use case.

These joint enhancements exist for hips, knees, and with this, now ankles. The logical end for this is a powered exoskeleton (and, after that, power armor).

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> 1) people with medically compromised joints who would like to engage in experiences that their bodies don’t currently allow.

And medically compromised muscles, nervous systems, etc. I know someone in that situation who loves scooters. They say it's like flying - they finally can move at will, instead of the lifelong difficulty and pain of walking.

I find running incredibly boring, because the scenery changes so damn slowly around you. I would happily put in the same effort for the same time, but go substantially faster to make it more fun.

Not sure I would buy this product, but I see more than 0 use for it.

> because the scenery changes so damn slowly around you

Have you considered running faster?

But seriously though, I’ve gotten pretty decent at running (3h15min marathon PR) and the difference between hiking a trail and running the same trail is kinda bonkers. These days I can run a trail in 2 hours that took me 6 hours to hike 10 years ago. Hits totally different. The whole dynamic changes.

Hiking feels immensely boring now

PS: If you run fast enough you don’t even notice the scenery.

I mean... I run as fast/far as fitness permits. I'm not going slowly on purpose!

If you go at light speed across the universe, the scenery would also not change, until you collide with something.

When you collide with something at light speed, you become the scenery (and the former scenery is no more), no?

Getting off topic but this is exactly why, after never running for fun in my life, I got into cycling (a hobby that admittedly can easily turn expensive even if it doesn't have to).

Instead of running 10km in an hour, I could bike from Silicon Valley to the ocean and back in 3-4 hours, and have views over city, hills, oceans, suburbia, etc.

Get a bike ;)

> 1) people with medically compromised joints who would like to engage in experiences that their bodies don’t currently allow.

They say:

> Engineered to augment natural lower leg and ankle movement

Meanwhile, most people who can't walk/run as they would like have issues from their knees upward.

Worse, having heavier lower leg means more strain on the upper leg.

Yes, there's probably a narrow niche of people with lower leg only issues that can be helped by this device, but most people have issues upward ; and this device have the potential to create issues upward on people not yet concerned by them.

If it was a medical company I'd agree a bit more. But it's Nike. They'll sell that to any person who thinks walking is too hard even though it's not in his best medical interest.

It sounds great, but I’m skeptical that it will actually help without messing up the natural motion.

There is nothing natural about the motions of running in modern running shoes, and yet people learn. Getting the behavior right will be difficult, I'm sure, but not impossible.

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