Solowheel Commercials Playing

[Mono]

7 hours ago, Meng Yang said:

Sadly, the most important piece of safety gear was also missing. 

Are you referring to the brain? Never to be forgotten at home while riding.

[Meng Yang]

Yup. Helmet is always the most important piece of safety equipment for any sport indulging in speed.

[Mono]

1 hour ago, Meng Yang said:

Yup. Helmet is always the most important piece of safety equipment for any sport indulging in speed.

I don't wear a helmet when running or EUCing or cycling, which I do with few exceptions at about similar speeds. I tend to not forget my brain at home though.

[Meng Yang]

Yeah. I normally don't wear helmet with my V8 too, but has started to do so when riding the Tesla at 45+ kph.

[WARPed1701D]

7 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

FYI, Solowheel bought Inmotion. That's why all Inmotion wheels have disappeared in the USA. Solowheel is rebranding them and hiking the prices.

They brought them?!? I thought it was just an agreement in the US that they branded and sold their wheels. Very disappointed if they actually own them.

[steve454]

I thought it was the other way around, that Inmotion bought Solowheel.  

[Master Blaster]

From their current website found in the "Support" section:

Are Solowheel and Inmotion related?

Yep, but they are third cousins more than siblings. Solowheel has a number of production partners, and Inmotion’s commitment to top-tier manufacturing earned them a spot as our primary production partner for the Glide series.

[Marty Backe]

51 minutes ago, WARPed1701D said:

They brought them?!? I thought it was just an agreement in the US that they branded and sold their wheels. Very disappointed if they actually own them.

Unless my memory is failing me, that was what @Jason McNeil told me in the July timeframe. I could be wrong.

[steve454]

Retail Locations

If you look around, you could probably find some of our legacy units in a few retail locations. If you want to grab your own G2 or G3, then look no further than our very own e-commerce store.

[Master Blaster]

I was trying to find some corporate information about Solowheel Inc and stumbled across this WSJ article about professional baseball player commuting to the field on a Solowheel, just thought you might enjoy it, my apologies if it's already been posted on the forum elsewhere.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303561504577492903926310484

[Master Blaster]

InMotion was at the big European trade show in Germany with the V5F and V8 models, this was early Sept 2017

https://www.imscv.com/en/news/311.html

 

[outcast00096]

Interesting.  They had a big talent try out thing they put on Facebook and Instagram. I was there. I rode one. Pedals were tilted up, didn't like it. They must have called all the newbie riders in, interesting choice of riders. I know for a fact there was a Ninebot rider with about 500 miles experience. I also had about 700 miles experience at the time of the try out. 

[Master Blaster]

OK, one last tidbit on the Solowheel/Inmotion question and then I'll quit ?

 

This is is from Justina (EUC Europe)

Nothing official yet

Recently, a potential merger of two giants - Solowheel and Inmotion - is a hot topic. Although nothing is official yet, the US market (as it is supposed to be primarily affected) is preparing for some changes, while nothing should change in Europe and other continents.

We will keep you posted and let you know as soon as any of the companies releases an official statement.

Just a quick reminder: Solowheel is a brand owned by Inventist Inc. - an American company, holding many patents for electric unicycles manufacturing process. They exist from the begging of the electric unicycle market. INMOTION (Inmotion Technologies Co., Ltd) is a younger player. The firm has gained the popularity peak after releasing Inmotion V8 and V5 electric unicycles.

Both INMOTION and Solowheel are known from providing an outstanding quality of their products, designing their own hardware and integrating innovative solutions - from special lithium batteries, creating lighter metal alloys for motors, to even a built-in handle button, which disables the drive when lifting the wheel.

Who will be affected by the potential merger?

Let's assume for a second the alleged merger will be finalised. What would happen?

 

In Europe and other continents (except North America), nothing should change. The Inmotion brand stays unchanged and separated from Solowheel.

 

In the United States, however, all INMOTION models may be rebranded with Solowheel logo, receive new names and new pricing to fit Solowheel standards. The official US distributors have already changed their offer to include the potential changes. From their websites, we can conclude:

• Inmotion V8 will be possibly re-branded to Solowheel Glide 3,
• Inmotion V5F will be possibly re-branded to Solowheel Glide 2,
• Inmotion V5 will be possibly re-branded to Solowheel Glide 2 Lite.

However, as this is not official, the final names could differ. By looking at the technical specs, nothing is supposed to change in the hardware itself. Additionally, there are no new models scheduled for this year. 

While changing the unicycle logo is not a big deal, the American prices may be increased. On the distributors websites, we can see the Solowheel Glide 3 (Inmotion V8) is priced 1600 USD, which is about 1400 EUR, and the Glide 2 (Inmotion V5F) is priced 1000 USD (~900 EUR).

 

[Jason McNeil]

On 18/11/2017 at 9:28 AM, Marty Backe said:

Unless my memory is failing me, that was what @Jason McNeil told me in the July timeframe. I could be wrong.

It's a typical completely dysfunctional arrangement: I had an US Exclusivity agreement with Inmotion from October of last year, in it, I even anticipated getting screwed over in this fashion & had a clause in the agreement which read:

"In the event that INMOTION is acquired, taken-over, merged, or sold to an outside party INMOTION will make a provision that this relationship set out in this agreement is maintained."

One day out of the blue, the COO, Bob, wrote to me that they decided that they were going to team up with Shane Chen & rebrand the Wheels as Solowheel. There was no consultation, negotiation or advisory, it was a total fait accompli. I put in a fair amount of investment to promote the brand, giving away free Wheels—the V8 even got featured on UnboxTherapy (2.2 million views), basically the biggest review concern on YouTube. We were putting regular large container-sized orders, so you can imagine my utter chagrin by this unilateral action. The withered Olive-branch that was offered to me was that I could continue selling the V5F/V8 at 60% higher retail price as Solowheel, which I knew wasn't going to fly with our Customers.

To give you some sense of how this Company now operates (left-hand-not-knowing-what-the-right-does), they continue to supply that copy/paste guy in Quebec with V8s, who has no problem selling in US through eBay or Amazon, & they couldn't be the least bit phased that it's killing off any lingering demand for the $1600 Glide 3.

Solowheel Seattle looks dead, there's also no reference to any of the previous Solowheel products on the Solowheel site. What does this mean for the future of the Solowheel brand? It's hard to say, but Shane certainly doesn't seem to be winning much goodwill, look at the current fiasco of the Iota Kickstart project (read comments section), it's running nearly a year late, even though the development is effectively being run by a Chinese Hoverboard company, called Gyroor. I had the good fortune of meeting the CEO/Engineer out in Hong Kong in October, really nice competent guy. They had some working prototypes, nothing very exciting, like a mini-me version of the V3Pro, but without the performance & the features.

What's that saying "Things work out best for those who make the best out of how things work out". Since last year, King Song now have a much stronger line-up, eWheels has a new Exclusivity Deal, despite perturbations in demand, the Wheel market only continues to grow from strength-to-strength. I believe the ultimate winners will be those with the persistent sticking power. 

 

 

[LanghamP]

43 minutes ago, Jason McNeil said:

 

One day out of the blue, the COO, Bob, wrote to me that they decided that they were going to team up with Shane Chen & rebrand the Wheels as Solowheel. 

 

I've always wondered if Chen compelled Inmotion via patents. I've read Chen's EUC patent carefully; of interest (and of only interest) is the side pads providing friction and thusly control. We don't need side pads to ride an EUC.

However, I've also wondered why EUCs aren't affected by Segway, which patents do infringe. The 1st self balancing unicycle was made in the early 1970's, methinks.

But if you wrote that in your contract then you should have a damages "in case of breach".

[mezzanine]

I wish the various wheel brands were publicly traded companies in the US.  I would have as much fun betting on that market as I do riding the wheels.  Well, not quite as much, but still a lot of fun.  I've never closely observed a fledgling industry like this before. 

It hurts so much that Inmotion essentially left the EUC game a year ago for the most absurd of reasons.  I can't help but wonder whether Inmotion wanted a way out.  I would love to know what they had in the development pipeline at the time of the acquisition.  Imagine you're Inmotion and you work on a tight margin with your R&D and production costs, while at the same time you're watching Gotway throw together some components with a huge margin and higher demand.  It would be tempting as a bigger player to get out under those conditions. 

At least the Ninebot Z series is going to be a revolution in rider comfort and safety, IMO.  I think the first EUC related fatality, if it hasn't happened already, will probably happen on one of those because of how stable it will be at speed.