Community Chat

[Kachina624]

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@Carter13 wrote:

Has anyone received pre orders from QVC that were suppose to ship on 12/11? Everything I have read and researched says that the brand Swagway is in compliance  with all the rules and regulations and swagway brand is not being targeted on the recall.

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@Carter13.  Swagway was one of the brands that Amazon pulled.

[surfk]

Hoverboards are one of those great ideas that think tank nerds come up with as they're paid to come up with new tech products while working in huge, hip, techie development corporate "cities". They ride around like they're in "Logan's Run" or "Futureword" environment of flat, rubber-tiled floors spanning 300,000 sq feet in Seattle or Tokyo. They're all 24 and have to get from their "work space" to the juice box vending machines 1/4 mile away - fast - as they think about how cool they all are as they cut their cardio exercise by 75% in the name of being uber "cool".

But in the REAL world, they're use is so incredibly limit. Unless one lives in a world where there are no cracks in the pavement and the earth is as flat as a pancake everywhere.

You can't ride them ...nearly anywhere. They're prohibited in so many places and venues. Really the only place legally acceptable in most locales now is on a paved hike/bike trail in the woods.

But why not just HIKE or BIKE while in the great outdoors? You're going to hover by and ...what's the point?

Of course, lithium batteries are powerful. But they're also terribly volatile. They've often the culprit in many airline fires and crashes. So why not RIDE on one in the front driveway? lol

Now Amazon has stopped selling them altogether as they're so unsafe.

And HOW precisely will one travel with a hover board? Airlines don't allow them. So your grandson comes in for Christmas, you give him one...how's he fly back to campus with it? Or when its time for him to come home in the summer, how's he really get the hover board home if he flies?

And does one want the lithium battery in the trunk of one's car? Right over the GAS TANK? lol

Good idea that needs a lot more work.

And all of these hover boards, despite the brand name or price are made in the same factories in China. So don't be fooled by anyone telling you theirs is better or different. Even a costly one (upwards of $1400) still is made in China and comes with some measure of warning. While perhaps a better grade of lithium battery is used in those, its still a lithium battery.

Its just the nature of the beast to be volatile despite the price. In fact super expensive lithium batteries are the ones that sometimes cause those airline disasters. They can be small or large or for a "toy" or "mode of transport" or for computers...they're all volatile and potentially combustible.

I wonder just HOW MANY returns retailers will be seeing this January on these hover boards as people realize they can't really ride or transport it anywhere. lol

[debic]

A little pricey for me.    They don't go nearly as fast as a skateboard or bicycle so they're not nearly as dangerous as far as riding them IMO.   I definitively wouldn't get a cheap one tho.  

[surfk]

I thought it was funny how after I posted my last comment about Hoverboards, Saturday Night Live did a scathing mock commercial about them.

Showing the stereotyped user sorta-skater dude guys on them, they're all excited to tell you how (due to all the laws and restrictions around them) you can hoverboard in your room...and then move it to another room to hoverboard some more there!!!

And an extra exciting feature is how yours can BLOW UP (as the mock commercial showed them sparking and causing fires as people are riding them.

The whole time, there were text warnings as to how Radio Shack, Amazon, etc stopped selling them due to their danger risk. lol

THEN...stats came out this week in the news (CNN etc) as to how injuries due to hoverboards SPIKED this Christmas as people by the hundreds are falling off them and causing them to go the Emergency Room.

I mean, how much more head's up or warning do people need to realize that the current hoverboards reeeeeally need to be worked on some more.

Maybe by Hoverboard 4.0 they'll at least have one that doesn't blow up. lol

In my state, they are working on a genuine hoverboard...perhaps one which will be safer. But more interestingly, it will actually be a board which actually HOVERS rather than just being a lazy man's skateboard as are the current ones out there.

One does have to wonder what places like EVINE will be facing in January as they get tons of RETURNS for sure. They, more than anyone else spent MONTHS and endless on air hours selling them. I can't help but think that they'll be taking a huge loss in the end.

[BlingQueen022]

They're just one more thing to make the Orthopedic doctors get richer and to make Americans fatter.

[qualitygal]

Everytime they show adults falling off of one of these, I just cringe.

[SaRina]

There are news reports nearly every day where I live that talk about a hoverboard explosion or someone getting seriously hurt (across all brands).  I don't think it's amusing to watch the spills that people take on them and I would never, ever think of buying one or condoning one for a child.

[nun ya]

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@qualitygal wrote:

Everytime they show adults falling off of one of these, I just cringe.

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My friend tried to ride one that her kids got, Her Christmas included a broken arm.

[momtochloe]

I just saw this video of Mike Tyson falling off of his daughter's hoverboard:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-mike-tyson-hoverboard-video-20151229-story.html

It's tough to watch, I can only imagine how many people are being injured because of these things.

[surfk]

Now  more large universities are making plans to ban hover boards from their campuses.

I read that some are acting fast to ban them as or before students soon return from winter/Christmas break.

So even the big "sales" pitch that they're being used on all campuses or are everywhere on campuses will come to an end - perhaps shortly - for many schools/universities.

They claim that the decision to act fast is not merely because so many FALL OFF of the boards (often NOT part of the sales pitch) but also, indeed, the fact some many (and do) EXPLODE.

Risk of fires raging through dorms or frat house would NOT go down with the alumni committee ....or parents (...or ,,,students who might wind up suffering 3rd degree burns over their new Xmas toy).

And its as if these campuses are just waking up to the fact that while students might FALL (and crack open their skull) while riding them around campus...they'll most like sue the manufacturers AND their school.

After all, sure, fall risk might be high on these things...but that never stopped a law suit naming a pothole in a campus sidewalk or extremely hard mighty oak growing next to the entry to the Student Union.

"I'd have never fallen into that tree trunk if the university didn't plant trees in 1856 when they first opened their doors!"

BTW: I saw something on E! or one of the celeb news shows and they were asking various celebs what they thought of hover boards. It was amazing how many of the YOUNGER celebs hated them and said they just can't ride them without falling.

So there goes your "hip" factor. lol