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Test drove a Solowheel Glide 3 today


JimB

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On a completely random note, I met someone in the park the other day with a Solowheel Xtreme. First time I've ever seen one of these unicorns in the wild.

I had a go and have to say.....the ride was terrible. Extremely soft to the extent that you feel you're about to faceplant whenever you go forward. I felt like a beginner again trying to acclimitize straight from my V5f+.

Beautiful wheel but not impressed at all (and that's before you find out the speed and price.......)

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42 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Didn't know Inmotion is Chinese too. Not sure where the Korea idea comes from, read it somewwere here I guess...

Yeah, someone said the same about Rockwheel on here, but same thing, still another Chinese EUC co :ph34r:

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On 7/20/2017 at 10:26 PM, WARPed1701D said:

The problem, and the reason for the upset, is how the company is operating. Not the store. Not the staff. SoloWheel, rather than innovating and producing quality competitive wheels that people want to buy seem to be strong arming the market, suppressing competition, and ultimately hurting you and I by working to force out the other options. We now end up paying 60% more for basically nothing but a logo change on what was once a great wheel at a competitive price that offered an excellent option for mid-range buyers. Now it is a great wheel that no one would touch if they knew of the other options out there. The KS 16S (400W extra motor, nearly double battery capacity) can be had for $100 less now. It used to be nearly $500 more.

I for one am annoyed that Solowheel has made a great brand (Inmotion) and great wheels (V5 and V8) technically unavailable/unaffordable to US buyers without a whole lot of hassle with imports.

I am the owner of a V8 (purchased from @Jason McNeil)  I love the product, and was anxiously looking to buy Inmotion's next big thing.  It is truly sad to see that their US sales are now captive to Solowheel.   I didn't really pay much attention to Shane Chen, since you never see his products anywhere.  I'd generally like to give inventors the benefit of the doubt ... but ... I just read through Shane Chen's EUC patent (https://www.google.com/patents/US8807250) and I am truly surprised that he can defend this thing in court.  Not that it's badly written, but there is so much prior art which duplicates his claims that I'm surprised he was ever granted the patent.  He must have had some trouble with the USPTO, because he filed in March 2011 and only received the patent in August 2014 (3.5 years which is a long time).  But check his claims: balancing issues are covered in prior art, e.g., Dean Kamen's 6,302,230 patent, and in Honda's 2011 patent (https://www.google.com/patents/US20110067936), and appear as early as Charles L. Gabriel's 1977 patent (https://www.google.com/patents/US4109741).   He's been going to court, but his opponents (Airwheel and IPS) are minnows, so I think all he does is threaten them, and force them to settle.  Poor IPS is a bunch of dedicated engineers, and Chen was probably their first encounter with a patent troll.  Shane may have tried his bluff with Inmotion as well, and that is how he was able to get them to hand over their US business to him.   Anyway, it's not good for us in the US.

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