Comment by detritus
11 hours ago
I always viewed the current generations of 'cheap Chinese hovebords' etc being a direct descendant of the Segway, and that Kamen and his believers weren't quite as ridiculous as we thought them at the time - they were just ahead of their time and expecting too much from too low a point in the technology curve.
They had the right idea but over-engineered the solution.
They could never cut the price down because of it. The knockoffs used much simpler ways to balance yourself, including just changing the form factor to something more conventional that doesn’t even need balance correction (scooters and e-bikes).