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A $1k Wheelchair

newmobility.com

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Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#231

Post by zeroq »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #222
singhrac wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn’t upvote this enough. A lot of drive-by cynicism I see these days is really just a lack of curiosity and bad faith assumptions (this guy must be an idiot, etc.). I see it a lot in practice especially when discussing early-stage business ideas.

> just a lack of curiosity and bad faith assumptions The word you're looking for is "arrogance." HN comment sections are no better than reddit, if not worse, with people arrogantly making all sorts of statements that are demonstrably false with a simple google search.

HN demographic is worse in the sense that you have more people who think if they earn more than they peers their opinion weights more.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#232

Post by nothercastle »

metadat wrote: post #190
nothercastle wrote: post #122

The BOM for this wheel chair is probably 200-300 of just wheels and bearings maybe more. People who say this can be bought for 200$ are completely out of touch. You can’t even buy a decent bike for much under a grad new and bikes have much better scale.

https://bikesdirect.com/ Lots of good bikes in the $300-500 range. I've had one for more than 12 years and thousands of miles without issue or drama. I paid $300 for a single speed road bike from BD in 2012, it looks fancier than it is with a carbon fiber fork. Added some Gatorskin tires and it's worked ever since, I only clean and lube the chain every 5 years so far. Made in Canadia.

Most companies have a basic of the basic bikes in the 400-500 range but these are built with cheap parts that won’t last more than a season. A step up from that would be a 700-100$ bike that’s more likely to last. For daily wheelchair use don’t expect the 500$ level parts to be good enough.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#233

Post by bigiain »

lostlogin wrote: post #200
Suppafly wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is possible that the YouTuber guy is a total idiot and decided to make a $1000 wheelchair instead of buying a $200 one, but that shouldn’t be a default assumption, haha. Seems insane to assume that but we see it in tech all the time where someone unknowingly spends a ton of money on reinventing something that already exists.

> someone unknowingly spends a ton of money on reinventing something that already exists. I think it’s worse than than. Amongst the people doing the work, someone usually knows that there is a product out there that already does the job, but the higher ups think they know better.

That works the other way too.

Somethings the higher ups don't know anything in detail, and just believed the new hire guy who said "I can't believe you're still using jQuery! We need to throw this all out and re write it in Angular!".

And then believed the next new hire a few years later who said "I can't believe you're still using Angular - they screwed up the 2.0 to 3.0 migration so badly how can we trust them any more? We need to throw this all out and re write it in React!".

And then believed the next new hire a few years later who said "I can't believe you're still using React, Facebook are awful! We need to throw this all out and re write it in Flutter!".

And then believed the next new hire a few years later who said "I can't believe you're still using Flutter - Google are bound to graveyard it any day now! We need to throw this all out and re write it in React - its new features are _amazing_!".

And today they're 2 years into the latest rock star new guy's 6 month rewrite of the entire front end using Rust and wasm. He's _almost_ got it working on his laptop, it'll be ready for testing with the staging backend platform any day now.

Meanwhile the company's B2B sales team are doing several million dollars of MRR from clients using the "legacy" jQuery front end from 2012. And the backend Java guys are all WFH and haven't had a single bug fix of feature request ticket in 3 years. They cosplay "scheduled maintenance" every 3 months by sending out notification emails to all customers and then just writing reports to management claiming successful updates with zero downtime and no measurable increase in latency or error rates. Half of them have second jobs or side gigs that pay more than their salary there.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#234

Post by nothercastle »

r0fl wrote: post #166
andybak wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bike cost £75

A decent bike for a child costs more than that these days in North America. You either bought this bike used, stolen, in 1989 or are trolling.

A good Kids bike is easily 300-400. If you want one that weighs less than your kid that’s what you have to pay.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#235

Post by roywiggins »

sterlind wrote: post #193
codedokode wrote: post #164

As I understand, it doesn't even have a motor? Why cannot we have an electric wheelchair for everyone today? How do you climb uphill (or from an underground passage) without a motor? Also, I don't know anything bout wheelchairs but googling shows that there are Chinese electric wheelchairs below $1000 (don't know anything about their quality).

Traditional power chairs are much bigger and heavier than lightweight manual chairs. They're a nightmare to transport unless you have a custom van with an elevator. They also can't handle curbs. Ultralight manual chairs are often foldable, and light enough that you can transfer out of your chair into the driver's seat of a car, take the chair apart and put the pieces in the passenger's seat of a normal sedan. That le…

Power-assist chairs are pretty neat though, I knew a guy who basically DIYed one, I think from a kit, starting with a manual chair. He could wheel for miles on it and keep in shape.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#236

Post by skylurk »

sizzle wrote: post #207

Tapping into the collective wisdom of wheelchair enthusiasts of HN. What would you recommend for my parent, they are using a crappy Medicare approved Medline wheelchair that’s like $300 on Amazon. They can’t use their right side of their body really due to a stroke paralysis. They can wheel around with one arm and leg. The wheelchair is like starting to fall apart. What should I I get them that will last many years?…

I know nothing about wheelchairs, but have you considered one with a joystick?

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#237

Post by roywiggins »

sethrd_ wrote: post #195
kkfx wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, materials seems to be very common, and indeed even if they are precious alloys to be lighter it's still a very high price. Research have to be payed of course, but again you can sell a product, no more than that. I've heard many time about "special design", "this price is really right" and so on, all the time it was wrong. Oh, that does not means it's a bad product, it's simply overpriced and the price might ev…

I've mentioned in other comments the difference between "hospital" style wheelchairs and full time use wheelchairs used by people with spinal cord injuries or other mobility issues. Full time wheelchairs are 1/3 or more lighter than the hospital style, more rigid which makes pushing more efficient, more comfortable, and easier to maneuver. You cannot compare these wheelchairs to what you might sit in at the emergency…

Amazing that a group of people who are generally the type to be sitting on $3000 ergonomic office chairs are insisting that $50 wheelchairs ought to be enough for anyone.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#238

Post by roywiggins »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #224

$1000 is exorbitant for a non-motorised wheelchair. Here's [1] amazon.in offering a lot of options at ~$50. I bet these guys could import it from India and it wouldn't cost them more than $200. [1] https://www.amazon.in/s?k=wheelchair&crid=22DWLE90LFB7O&spre...

How many ergonomic office chairs go for $50?

Wheelchairs take several orders of magnitude more abuse and need to cope with several orders of magnitude more complex needs than your average office worker and your average nice ergonomic office chair is hardly cheap.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#239

Post by roywiggins »

pjdesno wrote: post #225

Just wondering - why is it that a bunch of tech bros who would think nothing of spending $2-300 on some fancy-ass keyboard because it’s incrementally more comfortable to their fingertips than a $15 one from Microcenter think that a person doesn’t care about the quality of a wheelchair they’re going to be stuck in for all their waking hours?

More to the point, why are a bunch of techies who are probably sitting on $3000 ergonomic office chairs wondering why a good wheelchair might cost a few thousand?

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#240

Post by pbhjpbhj »

bee_rider wrote: post #32
rtkwe wrote: post #26

It's odd seeing the number of dismissive comments missing that there are whole categories of wheelchairs for different purposes. It's like asking why XPSs exist when there are Chromebooks, something most people commenting here would immediately realize as a silly question because they suit different needs and functions but the idea doesn't come up because it's an unfamiliar problem.

That sort of “I googled for 30 seconds, and found a cheaper option, why does this project exist” type response is anti-curiosity and anti-learning. It is possible that the YouTuber guy is a total idiot and decided to make a $1000 wheelchair instead of buying a $200 one, but that shouldn’t be a default assumption, haha.

Asking a question is "anti-curiosity"?

The piece raises at least a half-dozen possible answers, not all of which are compatible. The author pushes the "low cost" angle quite heavily at the start, so there being much cheaper options is reason enough, IMO, to ask the question what the point of the project is.

They say the chair won't make money, but it's a for profit company. They say they want it to be employee owned and to make their employees lots of money.

The author basically says 'it's a good second chair' (not a quote) that lacks in some features their own chair has. The piece also talks about cutting out expensive considerations like assessment by a physio and assessment of pressure points - that doesn't sound great, although if it's just a second chair, maybe those matter much less.

It seems more like the YouTubers decided to make a $2M wheelchair - real estate, machinery, employees, etc. Then see if they could spin it out to a short lead-time, online customer-specified production.

Good luck to them. Hopefully it will turn into a great example of a cooperative that's producing well-engineered affordable wheelchairs.

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