Segway Drift W1 - The first self balancing e-skate

These new Segway self balancing skates look super uncool... but I'd love to try them.

I see Segway's track record of "so-sexy-you-have-to-fight-off-the-admirers" personal mobility vehicles continues unabated. Seriously, though: someday, someone will craft the personal mobility paradigm that wins and can evolve with changing tastes. Maybe this is it, I doubt it.

What are thoooseee 👀

The promo video with a giant watermark like it's stock footage is so bizarre:

Hey Daniel @segway, What was the most difficult part about building these skates?

The official video gives a better view of what it's like to use these things: https://youtu.be/UO4JsKrWZzY Interesting to note that at a couple of points during the video both users look to nearly lose their balance, which is not something generally associated with Segway tech. Overall, these look really fun and, having been an early adopter of rollerblades waaaay back, I'd definitely love to try these out.

I'm keen to see anything happen which can make better use of existing transport corridors and allow each traveller to choose their own route, time of departure and destination. But it looks like Segway Drift W1 riders would need to share existing pedestrian corridors with unpredictable, fragile pedestrians who will resent anything travelling faster than a pedestrian sharing their space.

Pros:

Self-balancing will help a wider range of people ride them, looks like you don't need special boots or shoes

Cons:

Short wheel base will make it hard to keep self-balancing going on rough terrain, and will require a lot of power/short range compromise

terrible marketing... twirls and bubbles. ugh and what is he wearing? http://uk-en.segway.com/getmedia...

What a kick in the nuts to Dieter Rams’ principles of good design. 3- Good design is aesthetic, 5- Good design is unobtrusive, 10- Good design is as little design as possible. They really need to recycle their industrial designers, their CEO and their C-Suite in such a way they actually comprehend what good design is, if they don’t want to churn out product with glasshole design principles.

Like electric rollerblades that you don’t have to put on or take off? These look too good to be true - I hope I get a chance to try them out!