I could see this being useful. Not everyone who uses a wheel chair is paralyzed. Some have balance issues, or limited strength. Dividing the effort between arms and legs could give increased independence and it would be more ergonomic than scooting with the feet like a lot of people end up doing in wheel chairs.
Sure, it’s not super different from a recumbent bike (and seems to lack a steering mechanism) but if the pedals could be folded out of the way it could be easier for a person with mobility issues to get in and out of.
It’s not necessarily about usefulness but rather quantity and economics of scale.
The number of people needing wheelchairs in the first place is pretty small compared to the population, and adding the additional caveat of those that can still use their legs fully to power what is effectively a bicycle, results in a venn diagram with an extremely tiny use case.
The cost of a decent basic wheelchair (not AliExpress/Walmart shit) is already high. Adding the complexity of a bicycle on top of that just makes it more expensive. And then there’s insurance which almost certainly would tell you to kick rocks before they would even think of covering a fraction of the cost because it isn’t necessary.
I could see this being useful. Not everyone who uses a wheel chair is paralyzed. Some have balance issues, or limited strength. Dividing the effort between arms and legs could give increased independence and it would be more ergonomic than scooting with the feet like a lot of people end up doing in wheel chairs.
Sure, it’s not super different from a recumbent bike (and seems to lack a steering mechanism) but if the pedals could be folded out of the way it could be easier for a person with mobility issues to get in and out of.
It’s not necessarily about usefulness but rather quantity and economics of scale.
The number of people needing wheelchairs in the first place is pretty small compared to the population, and adding the additional caveat of those that can still use their legs fully to power what is effectively a bicycle, results in a venn diagram with an extremely tiny use case.
The cost of a decent basic wheelchair (not AliExpress/Walmart shit) is already high. Adding the complexity of a bicycle on top of that just makes it more expensive. And then there’s insurance which almost certainly would tell you to kick rocks before they would even think of covering a fraction of the cost because it isn’t necessary.
Maybe this is a picture of some real hospital equipment? I didn’t check for pixels.
It looks real, the top left poster reads “bone decalcification”. However it seems that it’s only for braking.
I think wheelchairs with a gear system and electric propulsion
You just increased the price by at least 100x for only double the production cost.