Stop Trying to Reinvent the Wheelchair
I’m so fucking sick of tech bros trying to sell their shitty tech idea as the next revolution in wheelchair design. Got an eight pound folding wheel no one wants? Stick it on a wheelchair.
Need to get rid of a bunch old Segways? Turn ‘em into a thirty-five thousand dollar not-a-wheelchair that’ll (allegedly) throw you into a river.
And now thanks to CES 2025, if you have an absolute hard-on for LiDAR and nowhere to stick it, you can just jam it into a glorified Rascal scooter and call it “innovation”.
The ev1 (no, that’s not a typo) has LiDAR that:
quote: ...fluidly modulates the speed and brakes to avoid collisions in tight spaces, unseen obstructions, or tipping over hard-to-perceive edges. Say goodbye to the need for hyper-vigilance just to maintain basic safety. end quote
Because if there’s anything your average scooter user is known for, it’s their hyper‐vigilance around basic safety. Just ask anyone who works at a large theme park. Given the flaws LiDar currently has in self‐driving cars, I look forward to this thing yeeting someone’s absent‐minded grandma into a turkey leg stand.
As much as I’d love to give Strutt and the ev1 the Omeo treatment, I can’t find any specifications around the device, how much it might cost, or when it might release. What I can find, is the company’s explanation for why they want to make these devices. From their About Page:
quote: Populations are ageing, and buildings and urban environments are not yet well designed for disabled people, so we relished taking on this complex challenge. Our company is a hive of research, ideas, prototypes and testing environments - we combine our dedication to people‐centred research and co‐design with inventing groundbreaking new purpose‐built technologies from the ground up. end quote
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: disabled people should not have to purchase access to a world that everyone else gets for free. Saying you want to make the world more accessible by creating a new mobility device only makes the world more accessible for those that can afford it. If these people actually wanted to make the world more accessible, they’d take some of that VC Money and use to lobby for more accessibility in public spaces.
I don’t think that companies like this (and they people behind them) actually care about wheelchair users and the challenges they face. Instead they care about the clout that developing mobility aids gets them in the tech space. Capitalist ambitions wrapped in altruism are not new and shitty tech ideas aimed at wheelchair users is just the latest iteration of that.