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A $1k Wheelchair

newmobility.com

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Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#341

Post by amiga386 »

andybak wrote: post #152
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.

My bike cost £75

My bike cost £30 (because I got it from a bike charity that sells excess donated bikes to the public to raise funds)

As of today, the cheapest adult bike-shaped-object in Halfords is £116. It's another £35 if you want them to assemble it, although Halfords are infamous for having pictures of incorrectly assembled bikes in their own catalogue

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#342

Post by rs25 »

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 just want to add some context here because i feel like there is a large gap in understanding of what a wheelchair actually is. Please click through these and get an understanding of the level of detail required to be properly fitted for a wheelchair.

https://permobilwebcdn.azureedge.net/media/hylifiyf/creative... - note the clinical rationale and notes sections on each of these options.

https://permobilwebcdn.azureedge.net/media/4ozh2ary/tilite-s... - seating cushions and backrests

https://permobilwebcdn.azureedge.net/media/npxlfuoh/tr-tra-o... - current ti lite order form.

https://permobilwebcdn.azureedge.net/media/hjvhuqlw/tilite-p... - component list / prices. There are almost 11,000 individual parts that are available for purchase for years after the chair is sold so it can be supported through the expected life of 5 - 7 years usually.

And through all of this you are working with professional therapists that are trained to properly size all these measurements, because an ill fitting chair can cause more harm than good.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#343

Post by leoedin »

_flux wrote: post #269
orlehuxwell wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

A friend has an e-unicycle (I think the category devices has some other name as well..) and he wanted to try out how it behaves in a track. He sort of knew, but didn't expect it, that when the roll of the device exceeds a certain threshold, the device will shutdown. Even if you're on a curve going with some speed. Broke his wrist. Since then he's also wearing wrist protectors that keep the hand straight. Actually it…

I'm an embedded software engineer with past experience developing robotics and motor control drivers.

Those e-unicycles terrify me. No way I'd trust my life to one. Once you're at speed, every failure mode results in instant passenger ejection. I see people flying through traffic on those things - they're just one sensor glitch or integer overflow away from serious injury.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#344

Post by astura »

hug wrote: post #187
r0fl wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This thread is bonkers. I'm not even American and it took me all of two minutes to find a bike for $118 USD (or about 90 GBP) available from Walmart. Here it is: https://www.walmart.com/ip/1121295 It looks like a perfectly serviceable bike, if not the most amazing experience. I bet you with proper maintenance it could last you decades and thousands of miles. People in this thread who are claiming a new bike is nearly…

>This thread is bonkers

>People in this thread who are claiming a new bike is nearly $1000 are on another planet.

HN is absolutely chock full of people who have entirely lost touch with reality.

Anyways, my sister rode a $200 bike to work every day for like six years. Doing the math, about 19,000 miles. I grew up with a cheap Walmart bike and I had it for over a decade and probably at least 5,000 miles I would guess.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#345

Post by astura »

twobitshifter wrote: post #165
ruune wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These never made it further than "I'm buying this because I like MrBeast/Logan Paul/etc." at least as far as I can tell. These wheelchairs are supposed to become good enough that any regular disabled person that can't walk* will seriously consider them even without knowing who makes them. *English isn't my first language, no idea what a proper inoffensive way to describe the target audience is. I mean no harm :)

those logan paul Prime drinks are now in every convenience store. I don’t notice any logan paul related obvious branding.

From what I understand these drinks are massively popular amongst children (which I guess is Logan's primary demographic). I've never seen anyone over 30 buy one.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#346

Post by sgt »

tredre3 wrote: post #60
skylurk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you buy an under-$200 bike off of Amazon? Especially one you spent all day on?

I don't know about Amazon, but $200 is the price of a reasonable entry-level bike in any large surface store so yes? I know this is HN and people will likely look down on anyone riding a <$2000 bike, but come on.

Most bicycles these days are in the $6-7k range easily. I mean you can cycle with a cheap-o but what about your wheels, your lack of suspension? Your brakes? The feeling of a premium amazing handling MTB is something else.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#347

Post by hug »

astura wrote: post #344
hug wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is bonkers. I'm not even American and it took me all of two minutes to find a bike for $118 USD (or about 90 GBP) available from Walmart. Here it is: https://www.walmart.com/ip/1121295 It looks like a perfectly serviceable bike, if not the most amazing experience. I bet you with proper maintenance it could last you decades and thousands of miles. People in this thread who are claiming a new bike is nearly…

>This thread is bonkers >People in this thread who are claiming a new bike is nearly $1000 are on another planet. HN is absolutely chock full of people who have entirely lost touch with reality. Anyways, my sister rode a $200 bike to work every day for like six years. Doing the math, about 19,000 miles. I grew up with a cheap Walmart bike and I had it for over a decade and probably at least 5,000 miles I would guess.

I mean, it’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, ten dollars?

This thread is now full of people who, with real lived experience, will tell you that $200 bike served them perfectly well, but downvotes rain in from people who spend five times more than a middle-Americans month’s worth of savings on a bike and won’t hear of anything less.

It’s not often that the class divide on HN is so front and centre, but it is here.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#348

Post by ebalit »

K0balt wrote: post #336
lynx23 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orbit reader is the most low-quality device you can find on the market. This is like suggesting a bicycle to someone complaining about car prices.

This is a fascinating potential wedge for an open-source initiative. Could you please elaborate as to what makes a device highly usable and of good quality, vs cheap and unpleasant to use? I’ve long thought that open source would make a lot of sense for assistive devices, and that it has the potential to change incentives within the cartel of assistive device manufacturing.

There was a HackadayPrize 2023 competitor that worked on this [0]. He had to rethink the way those devices are built to bring the cost down.

That would be interesting to know if his solution could match the 4k$ in term of usability or if there is some issue like refreshing rate that make the piezo based system necessary for a good user experience.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXi1tG78AW4

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#349

Post by alistairSH »

bradley13 wrote: post #278
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…

A manual wheelchair is less complex than a bicycle, and I can get a decent bicycle for a few hundred bucks. The fact that basic wheelchairs are crazy expensive has little to do with the chairs and a lot to do with insane bureaucracy.

You probably don’t want to sit on that cheap bicycle for 16 hours a day. Almost guaranteed it won’t fit property and at best will give you saddle, sores and worse cause back knee issues.

Re: A $1k Wheelchair

#350

Post by alistairSH »

throwaway346434 wrote: post #315
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The comfort level and ergonomics demands are completely different. Bicycles are for a few hours of weekly use. Wheelchairs are for 16 hours of daily use.

Bicycles built for long duration use - people do ride for 16-24 hours straight more than you'd think do exist.

Sure, but those bicycles don’t cost 100 bucks they probably cost 5000+. The last bicycle I bought was $7000 and that was midmarket (my recreational cyclist standards).
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