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Comment by a-wu | Hacker News Reader

I think the biggest impact of this is the price. There are other similar products out there (Bowhead and Outrider come to mind), but those are really expensive. In a world where mobility product prices are through the roof (my power wheelchair costs north of $50k), selling something like this for under $5k is quite incredible.

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It's because it's not a wheelchair, so it doesn't need to meet the regulatory standards, nor does the insurance middleman pricing kick in.

And one might argue, it isn't a usable product without assistance. Per the video, she couldn't even lower the handle without him to exit, and it certainly isn't getting in/out of even wheelchair converted vehicles by itself.

Not to mention electrical power (Vs. gas in the competition) definitely could result in the user being stranded, even if it has a power-usage monitor (given how environmental factors can impact non-air conditioned batteries).

I mean, speaking for myself mainly here, but I wouldn’t really feel comfortable in _any_ off-road situation without a buddy with me. And most of my friends who handcycle regularly generally always have someone with them.

But then again I don’t want to exclude the population who are capable of doing this independently.

Able or not, it is usually a good idea to have a buddy when you do this sort of thing.

That thing gets a flat tire or rolls over and a buddy is going to come in real handy.

> Per the video, she couldn't even lower the handle without him to exit

This really looks like something that can be improved relatively easily. Instead of disconnecting, the pole could slide along the bar when released and click back when raised again. In other words, it's either an early implementation issue, or a cost saving trick, not a spec problem.

This is V1 and it is pretty good. Maybe they can address those concerns in V2?

Sure but neither do the Bowhead or Outrider vehicles I mentioned. The cheapest Outrider starts at $10k and Bowhead doesn’t even mention base pricing on their site, so a 50% reduction in cost is still really good. Although I will say that I’ve tried an Outrider and those vehicles are way more complex.

Edit: Actually I checked again and Outrider has a semi-off-road vehicle for $5k now which is pretty cool.

The fact that it's made from off-the-shelf parts designed for more mainstream use-cases (e-bikes) probably also helps a lot. Economies of scale and all that.

> my power wheelchair costs north of $50k

Holy mother, I had no ideas they could be so expensive!

Out of curiosity (and unfortunately because I might need one myself before too long :(, I just had a quick Google here in the UK, and I can't find any more expensive than $3k. I'm not sure if you meant "normal" electric-powered wheelchair, or something else?

Yeah I use a rehab chair. It’s specifically designed for the non-ambulatory whereas a lot of the cheaper wheelchairs are designed for the semi-ambulatory. My specific model is the Permobil F3 which another user found starts at £10k in the UK.

Thanks, I'm totally ignorant of what is out there for mobility so figured I'd be looking at the wrong thing :)

There's cheaper power chairs out there.. the Air Hawk is like $2k, though obviously not for everyone. These aren't going to be fitted or customized for your injury/ability, so they'll be worse but cheaper.

Yeah but if I'm going to sit on something for 14 hours of the day for every day of my life it better be comfortable and not give me pressure sores. Also my level of injury necessitates lots of additions.

Oh, totally! There's a reason that such mobility aids are so expensive. My point was that things like the "Not a Wheelchair" can be cheap because they aren't used full-time, the same as for the Air Hawk.

There's a lot of people that use wheelchairs for part-time use. When I was considering getting one, I could walk a couple minutes but couldn't go farther without injuring myself further. Having something cheap that could get me some freedom back would have been worth it, even if it's not perfect.

>my power wheelchair costs north of $50k

What kind is it? Here in the UK the typical price I'm finding is ~£1000, with high end models ~£3000

https://www.uk-wheelchairs.co.uk/electric-wheelchairs-power-...

https://www.careco.co.uk/cat-wc09/powerchairs.htm

I use a Permobil F3 with a lot of additions. The price I mentioned is the insurance price in the US and in many cases self-pay will bring it down but it's often still prohibitively expensive. I had to self-pay for an add-on on my current chair and that was $2400 itself. Oftentimes in the US, manufacturers will only sell products through a licensed DME so you have to pay a markup there too.

Yes, I was clearly looking in the wrong places. I can see the Permobil F3 listed in it's base spec for ~£10,000 over here.

The wide-spread use of ebikes makes components for this kind of thing much more affordable.

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