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A $1k Wheelchair

newmobility.com

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Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#251

Post by orlehuxwell »

amiga wrote: post #132
humbleferret wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious so looked at a few power wheelchairs...It's wild how expensive they are, especially considering the advancements in electric mobility tech elsewhere. You'd think they'd share some components with e-scooters, e-bikes, or even electric cars – motors, batteries, controllers. Are the powertrains and control systems in power wheelchairs really that specialised? Or is it another case of the medical device mar…

I'm a guy who has disassembled and reverse engineered a standard Jazzy power chair, and what I noticed was the attention to detail regarding failures. The chair is thoroughly designed to shut down at the slightest bit of trouble. There's some redundancy in things like the controller, where it used redundant hall effect sensors that were identical to the others, but ran in an inverted power profile, to detect any weir…

My mum recently had a curbside crash while she was riding an e-bike. This resulted in her breaking bones in both her hands, which resulted in a surgery in her left hand and various problems (tcl fracture related) with her right hand.

This makes me actually appreciate reliability in e-vehicles motor cutoffs etc. I keep thinking if this could have been avoided with a better quality e-bike or if actually it would be even worst with a cheaper one.

Which makes one think, how often a wheelchair with cheap e-scooter parts would crash people into staris, cars etc

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#252

Post by Netherland4TW »

roywiggins wrote: post #249
jillesvangurp wrote: post #242

I just did a search for wheelchairs on the German version of Amazon. I'm not in the market but I was just curious. https://www.amazon.de/-/en/gp/bestsellers/drugstore/28602980... There are lots of models with very reasonable prices and features; mostly well below 1000 euros. Including a few electric ones. Manual ones seem to be generally well below 500 euros. At 1000 euros we're talking some seriously tricked out mod…

it's funny seeing comments like this on the same website where people insist- not unreasonably- that buying $3k ergonomic office chairs and motorized sit-stand desks for office workers is a must. Why can't they sit on piled up packing pallets? It's much cheaper and still kind of chair-shaped.

I don't believe the parent comment is saying people who need wheelchairs should get a cheaper worse option, they are pointing out that reasonable options in Germany exist for less than a grand whereas in the US, these reasonable options are borderline unaffordable

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#253

Post by flower-giraffe »

There should be an IKEA for medical devices relying on scale to absorb design, testing and regulatory compliance.

The AirPod hearing aid feature and other OTC hearing aids from headphone manufacturers demonstrate it’s possible to leverage modern consumer electronics improvements for devices with a higher engineering barrier to entry than a wheelchair.

I think paying a premium for anything via insurance is detrimental to markets and only benefits bottom feeding bandits and deferring or deflecting the cost.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#254

Post by jillesvangurp »

roywiggins wrote: post #249
jillesvangurp wrote: post #242

I just did a search for wheelchairs on the German version of Amazon. I'm not in the market but I was just curious. https://www.amazon.de/-/en/gp/bestsellers/drugstore/28602980... There are lots of models with very reasonable prices and features; mostly well below 1000 euros. Including a few electric ones. Manual ones seem to be generally well below 500 euros. At 1000 euros we're talking some seriously tricked out mod…

it's funny seeing comments like this on the same website where people insist- not unreasonably- that buying $3k ergonomic office chairs and motorized sit-stand desks for office workers is a must. Why can't they sit on piled up packing pallets? It's much cheaper and still kind of chair-shaped.

We're not talking about tech bros here but ordinary people desperate to get any wheel chair at all and then having to settle for some garbage quality insurer approved over priced thing that may or may not ship on a 6 month schedule.

I don't think these wheel chairs have any magical properties over the stuff used in Germany. Other than that they are really expensive.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#255

Post by pkphilip »

650REDHAIR wrote: post #223
pkphilip wrote: post #214

$1k for a manual wheelchair? and that is considered cheap? I have no idea why a wheelchair should be that expensive. We get them here in India for far less - you can buy pretty good wheelchairs for much less than $100. You can get powered wheelchairs for around $500. https://www.amazon.in/b/ref=dp_bc_aui_C_3?ie=UTF8&node=11365...

Those are not good wheelchairs for independent people to spend 16+ hours in. I work in EMS and see all kinds of "budget" wheelchairs and they'll all shit. The parts alone for this lightweight chair have to crack $300.

[dead]

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#256

Post by chipdart »

kelnos wrote: post #105
chipdart wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.). You're talking if guys pitching overpriced and underquality gear is completely unheard of, or if flawed business ideas are a rare occurrence. I get it, support and enthusiasm is always nice to have. But if you descend into the real world you'll see that more often than not you'…

There's another choice, though: instead of being a drive-by cynic, just move on and don't comment . It's not like these people are providing a valuable service, steering everyone away from the dumb scams. They're just pattern matching and assuming everything they doesn't seem to make sense (in their generally not-well-informed opinion) must be bad. It's unnecessary, and is noise just as often as it's not.

> There's another choice, though: instead of being a drive-by cynic, just move on and don't comment.

Unfortunately that recommendation is also pushed by snakeoil salesmen.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#257

Post by hmottestad »

Havoc wrote: post #23

For context - he has a ~9m sub youtube channel on phones that must be banking it. This is a side project that appears to be grown out of frustration of disabled wife & seeing the shitshow that wheelchair market is. Seems 10/10 wholesome to have this disrupted by someone that cares

I’ve been watching his channel for a long time and remember back before they were together.

If I remember correctly he first built her a wheelchair to go hiking in. That was kinda the beginning of their relationship. I think there was also a stair climbing wheelchair involved at some point, but that could have been a sponsored thing rather than something he built.

He’s also been working on an electric humvee. So he’s a lot more than just the channel where he scratches and tears apart phones.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#258

Post by lynx23 »

humbleferret wrote: post #116
fotta wrote: post #16

Custom fit lightweight wheelchairs are expensive. My Ti-Lite (one of the most popular lightweight chair brands) Aero Z starts at $3k and goes up quickly with wheels and backrest and casters and various other options that I need for sitting 16 hours a day without creating more problems. Insurance covers this for me every 5 years, but of course that's not a luxury every one has. Most plans don't cover DME 100%. What Za…

I was curious so looked at a few power wheelchairs...It's wild how expensive they are, especially considering the advancements in electric mobility tech elsewhere. You'd think they'd share some components with e-scooters, e-bikes, or even electric cars – motors, batteries, controllers. Are the powertrains and control systems in power wheelchairs really that specialised? Or is it another case of the medical device mar…

Assistive technology costs are high because consumers barely have an alternative. I am blind. In Europe, a 40-cell braille display starts a 6k. 6k, just for a monitor which displays 40 characters. Prices are largely unchanged since 20 years. Technological advancements are irrelevant. Resellers will squeeze the cow, thats plain capitalism man.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#259

Post by urban_winter »

devjab wrote: post #250
zeroq wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of his channel, but when I saw the price tag, it got me thinking for a moment. Wheelchairs are a great example of why niche products are expensive. I think you're spot on with certifications. I was stupid a few times and needed orthopedic equipment. Each time, the price flabbergasted me. But it didn't matter since the health insurance fully refunded it. In a regulated market, if you can influence the ca…

It’s not that small of a market if you consider how many wheelchairs the European public sector buys. Take your average Danish hospital and they’ll have at least 10 wheelchairs placed at every major entrance. They’re basically like shopping carts in a lot of public healthcare places. These are semi-regularity replaced because of wear and tear. If you could supply them with a cheap, solid be easily repairable version…

$1000 is not cheap for an off the shelf wheelchair such as hospitals make available for patients (in the UK, at least). That was my first thought on reading the article - "$1000 for a wheelchair, really?" - and a quick Google shows that you can buy what looks like reasonable quality wheelchairs for less than that. But the ones on the article are custom-made for each buyer, which is clearly a vastly more expensive option.

But, to the point, hospitals don't buy custom wheelchairs.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#260

Post by roywiggins »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #254
roywiggins wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's funny seeing comments like this on the same website where people insist- not unreasonably- that buying $3k ergonomic office chairs and motorized sit-stand desks for office workers is a must. Why can't they sit on piled up packing pallets? It's much cheaper and still kind of chair-shaped.

We're not talking about tech bros here but ordinary people desperate to get any wheel chair at all and then having to settle for some garbage quality insurer approved over priced thing that may or may not ship on a 6 month schedule. I don't think these wheel chairs have any magical properties over the stuff used in Germany. Other than that they are really expensive.

You can buy that sort of chair in America too, often called "hospital" chairs, for about the same price. They are "one size fits all" and therefore don't fit anyone. They are not designed to be used long-term. This link from another comment explains the difference:

https://www.sammcintosh.com/blog/wheelchairtypes0620

If you need a wheelchair for a couple weeks it's fine. If you need it for life, not so fine. People who can't afford a proper day chair or are mired in insurance hell sometimes make do with them, but they can suck ass. They're totally different products and are suitable for different uses.

They're different chairs; $200 hospital chairs on Amazon have no relationship to the price of the sort of chair the company from the article is working on.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41716302

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