Alt-Wheels Briefly #21

Inside: Catastrophic failure of Unlimited drive firmware sends rider airborne.

What Are Alt-Wheels?

Alternative Wheels.

Alt-Wheels are:
– Made for a single rider
– Smaller than bicycles
– Affordable
– Portable

Electric skateboards, electric scooters, electric unicycles, the Onewheel, the Jyroball.

Alt-Wheels differs from “micromobility.” That’s all in this post.

Unlimited x Loaded seems to be sending out complete boards to YouTube influencers. There have been very few actual owner reviews.

UNLIMITED X LOADED RACE | FIRST IMPRESSIONS & RIDE | ELECTRIC SKATEBOARD

Unlimited X Loaded Firmware Update

Unlimited x Loaded Tesseract Race Unboxing & Overview

And his follow-up review shows the wire damage a loose motor wheel can cause:

Unlimited x Loaded Race Complete Review

As far as I know, wire damage like that is not covered by warranty. I think it’s a design flaw but Unlimited wants their motors to fit most standard skateboard trucks. It also looks like the firmware has decreased top speed to 22mph, from 24mph. That might not seem like much but it can be, depending on the trip.

Unlimited X Loaded Firmware Update

Loaded x Unlimited Honest Review

It’s not all unicorns, rainbows, and fluffiness. The next video is difficult to watch for two reasons. First, it’s a 360-degree video, so it takes a lot of adjustment of the circle in the upper left corner to get a street view (which is never level). Second, the rider being propelled forward is one of the worse crashes I’ve seen.

LOADED BOARDS X UNLIMITED ESK8 V1 FIRMWARE FALL (go to 4:20)

I think this is the issue that prompted Loaded and Unlimited to issue a cautionary statement about the firmware needing an update. It can take just a single catastrophic failure like this to destroy a brand’s reputation. I’ve asked in YouTube if he’s updated the firmware and there have been any more failures.

Finally, this brief video …

Electric Skateboard Test: Loaded Boards x Unlimited Tesseract E-Longboard | Illuminated Paper

… that is part of an actual article and is worth reading: What I Learned from Testing Electric Skateboards in 2019

Previously here:

Alt-Wheels Briefly
Alt-Wheels Notes
Alt-Wheels Bulletin