Future Motion, the maker of the Onewheel electric skateboard, is recalling every one of them, including 300,000 Onewheel self-balancing vehicles in the US. Alongside the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the company now seeks to remedy the products after four known death cases — three without a helmet — between 2019 and 2021.
The recall comes a year after Future Motion took issue with the CPSC’s calls for recall and claimed that it tested and found nothing wrong with the Onewheels. At the time, the company issued a press release in objection to the CPSC and called the agency’s statements “unjustified and alarmist.”
Now Future Motion is moving forward with a voluntary recall it chose not to do almost a year earlier. The company is asking owners to stop using their Onewheels until they take appropriate action. For the newer Onewheel GT, Onewheel Pint X, Onewheel Pint, and Onewheel Plus XR, a software update with a new warning system is the remedy.
For early adopters, however, the CPSC and Future Motion are telling owners to stop using and discard the original Onewheel and Onewheel Plus. We asked Onewheel chief evangelist Jack Mudd in an email how many of the original units are affected, but Mudd refused to answer. Mudd also wouldn’t tell us why the company claimed there were no issues and publicly resisted issuing a recall back in 2022.
Mudd did say that the software update for the other models is rolling out worldwide, not just in the US.
Some crashes occurred due to Onewheel skateboards malfunctioning after being pushed to certain limits. The Onewheel GT, Onewheel Pint X, Onewheel Pint, and Onewheel Plus XR will receive a firmware update that will add a new warning “Haptic Buzz” feedback that riders can feel and hear when the vehicle enters an error state, is low on battery, or is nearing its limits and needs to slow down.
“This update is the culmination of months of work with the CPSC,” reads the company’s recall website. Last November, it called the CPSC’s warning about Onewheels “misleading” but stated it would “work to enhance the CPSC’s understanding of self-balancing vehicle technology and seek to collaborate with the agency to enhance rider safety.”
To install the update, owners must connect their Onewheels to the accompanying app and run a firmware update — the process is fully explained in a new video.
For early adopters, however, owners can receive a “pro-rated credit of $100 to the purchase of a new board,” according to Mudd. The credit will only be issued after owners confirm that they have disposed of the old model.
Alongside Future Motion’s blink on the decision to recall Onewheel, the company shared a new video on YouTube highlighting the new Haptic Buzz feature as well as best practices when riding. “We’ve been working closely with the CPSC for over a year in order to develop this new safety feature,” Mudd says in the video. He adds that ignoring pushback or Haptic Buzz “can result in serious injury or death.” It took engineers a while to whip up Haptic Buzz; perhaps it’s something that would not have been ready in a timely fashion after CPSC’s first whistle last year.
Instead of relying on a “Haptic Buzz” that the rider can choose to ignore, maybe the board should just automatically stop/slow down under these conditions. If engineers insist on the “buzz”, it should be used to alert the rider that the software has overridden user input for safety reasons. Giving reckless, careless, or ignorant riders the option to blow off a warning doesn’t seem like a great idea.
Wouldn’t slowing down, while you’re leaning forward just forcefully dismount you, face first, on the pavement?
I’m going to repeat what I said to another user:
Do you seriously think I was talking about slowing down abruptly enough to hurt people? Do you understand that it’s possible to slow down just by cutting power to the motor and coasting to a stop? Have you ever ridden a bicycle or driven a car?
You shouldn’t be so rude when you’re just dead wrong
you move forward by leaning forward. The board’s acceleration counteracts the leaning while driving you forward in the process. If it stopped suddenly, the front end would suddenly lean too far forward and hit the ground.
Due to the board’s, uh, ingenious one wheel design, when you lean forward, the motor must accelerate forward to counteract the force and keep self-balancing. Same with leaning backyard, the motor must accelerate backward (either slowing down or reversing) to keep you balanced. So, if you’re already leaning forward, it’s physically impossible for the board to decelerate without losing its self-balancing properties. In addition to that, if the motor is already on its peak speed and can’t accelerate any further, if you lean forward even more, the motor won’t have enough spare acceleration in order to counteract it and keep self-balancing, leading to crash. The firmware update seems to add some buzz/vibration to alert the rider when the motor is near its limit.
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Do you seriously think I was talking about slowing down abruptly enough to hurt people? Do you understand that it’s possible to slow down just by cutting power to the motor and coasting to a stop? Have you ever ridden a bicycle or driven a car?
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Yes. Poorly and briefly, but yes.
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Of course. Like all humans, I immediately learn the inner workings of every piece of machinery I come in contact with.
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Not quite. My idea is inherently unchanged: I still think it’s a bad idea for the OneWheel to allow the rider to continue riding when the OneWheel software recognizes a problem.
I did underestimate the importance of the “Haptic Buzz”. Okay. Give the rider plenty of warning and time to stop safely before any other steps I suggested are taken.
Again I ask: do you seriously think I was talking about slowing down abruptly enough to hurt people?
I don’t care what your answer is. I’m done with this.
I haven’t even ridden one, and even I’m aware that’s a terrible idea.
The motor is the one thing keeping that wheel see-saw balanced, and if it stopped being able to do that, one end would crash in the pavement and rapidly decelerate. The rider, on the other hand, would not–they would go flying instead.
I think this is the whole point. Riders were asking more of the boards than the boards could do, and when the board was unable to comply the rider would lose their balance. Haptic feedback tells the rider “nah, not doing that” so they’re aware the board isn’t going to do the thing and can adjust their balance accordingly.