History of Dean Kamen's Segway
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History of Dean Kamen's Segway
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Re: History of Dean Kamen's Segway
#2Segway was killed by being few orders of magnitude too expensive.
What it aimed to do, regular electric scooters done a decade later by the virtue of being cheap enough.
Re: History of Dean Kamen's Segway
#3As a 21 year old cable guy in 2001 who had yet to go to university, I wasn't the only one on the web at the time who thought The Invention was some sort of hoverboard-like flying machine or other fantastical device. Waking up early the day of the big reveal only to find out it was a just stupid scooter with a pun-y name was such an incredible let down.
Re: History of Dean Kamen's Segway
#4The marvel of the Segway was that it was self balancing. Unfortunately many people judged it as as too expensive.
Re: History of Dean Kamen's Segway
#5Segway was killed by being few orders of magnitude too expensive. What it aimed to do, regular electric scooters done a decade later by the virtue of being cheap enough.
It wasn't just price. A lot of the reaction was a combination of the hype (people expected a lot more) and people thinking you looked stupid on one.
Interesting a third argument against it was that "nobody" would need/want an electric mode of transportation like that vs. walking or using a bike. Price was of course a factor, but it was not the main argument brought up as far as I remember.
Re: History of Dean Kamen's Segway
#6Segway was killed by being few orders of magnitude too expensive. What it aimed to do, regular electric scooters done a decade later by the virtue of being cheap enough.
It wasn't just price. A lot of the reaction was a combination of the hype (people expected a lot more ) and people thinking you looked stupid on one. Interesting a third argument against it was that "nobody" would need/want an electric mode of transportation like that vs. walking or using a bike. Price was of course a factor, but it was not the main argument brought up as far as I remember.
> Price was of course a factor, but it was not the main argument brought up as far as I remember.
Maybe because this product was mostly discussed in depth by rich people. Poor people just seen it as dumb gadget for the rich that will never stop being dumb because it costs as much as a car.
If it was priced like "hoverboards" it might have application beyond mallcops and tours.
Re: History of Dean Kamen's Segway
#7While the Segway failed, one of its successors, the electric unicycle, revolutionized how I get around the city. They're more fun than a bicycle or scooter, they have great range, and they're compact enough that you can take them inside wherever you go, which solves the theft problem. The EUC industry is developing rapidly, with large improvements in reliability, performance, and features each year. There's a pretty steep learning curve though, which means that they'll probably never see wide adoption.
Re: History of Dean Kamen's Segway
#8While the Segway failed, one of its successors, the electric unicycle, revolutionized how I get around the city. They're more fun than a bicycle or scooter, they have great range, and they're compact enough that you can take them inside wherever you go, which solves the theft problem. The EUC industry is developing rapidly, with large improvements in reliability, performance, and features each year. There's a pretty…
Are they legal to ride in your country? And to you feel safe on it?
Re: History of Dean Kamen's Segway
#9While the Segway failed, one of its successors, the electric unicycle, revolutionized how I get around the city. They're more fun than a bicycle or scooter, they have great range, and they're compact enough that you can take them inside wherever you go, which solves the theft problem. The EUC industry is developing rapidly, with large improvements in reliability, performance, and features each year. There's a pretty…
Are they legal to ride in your country? And to you feel safe on it?
His safety you are worried about? I feel really unsafe as a pedestrian around those things. These are super fast and small, people love to abuse that and use it to jump between sidewalk and street. Some guys here expect you to run from them on a sidewalk, missing me by inches.
It's harded to be that aggressive and dangerous on a bike. I use to be really afraid for my wife when she went out during pregnancy. Assholes on those drove around her recklessly all the time.
Re: History of Dean Kamen's Segway
#10I met some of the people working on regulatory advice so Segways could be used in Europe. This would be about 2003 or 2004, at Campus Party in Valencia, Spain.
The story they told me is that Segway was going to be successful in the USA as a mobility scooter for the elderly, giving range and speed to people who could not walk or cycle far and fast, while not still requiring a traditional wheelchair.
From memory, the strategy was to get the Segway classified as a mobility/accessibility device, which would gain regulatory exemptions and access to funding from public health. They were lobbying the EU with their left hand, and running Segway demonstrations at TV-friendly events like Campus Party with their right hand.
I don't know how much these people believed that this would work in the EU. I didn't believe it. But they weren't getting paid for believing it, nor for persuading me. They were getting paid for telling everyone about it.