Self-Balancing Scooters

Submission 11,964

About

Self-Balancing Scooters, sometimes referred to as "hoverboards", are motorized transportation devices which allow riders to stand on the device like a skateboard and lean in the direction they wish to go, using similar technology to Segway personal transportation vehicles.

History

In August 2014, the Chinese company Chic Robotics unveiled its first self-balancing scooter product named the Smart S1. In October, the scooter was featured at the Canton Fair trade show in Guangzhou, China, leading many competitors to make their own variations of the device.

Online Presence

On January 7th, 2015, the CNET YouTube channel uploaded footage of an IO Hawk self-balancing scooter at the CES 2015 trade show (shown below).

On April 30th, fashion model Kendall Jenner posted a video of herself riding a PhunkeeDuck self-balancing scooter around her kitchen to Instagram^[6] (shown below, left). Within three months, the video received upwards of 1.1 million likes and 52,800 comments. On May 14th, Justin Bieber posted a video of himself spinning in a circle on a Hyperwalk scooter to Instagram,^[3] where it gained over 1.1 million likes and 52,800 comments in the next two months (shown below, right).

On the following day, singer-songwriter Chris Brown uploaded a video of himself dancing in a room while riding a self-balancing scooter to Instagram^[5] (shown below, left). On May 20th, actor Jamie Foxx appeared on an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he came on stage riding a PhunkeeDuck (shown below, right).

On June 11th, 2015, YouTuber Ben Schmanke posted a review of a self-balancing scooter, garnering more than 1.4 million views and 1,100 comments in the first three weeks (shown below, left). On July 16th, 2015, YouTube based Let's Play group, The Creatures, uploaded a video entitled "Rollerboard" in which the members of the group react to seeing and operating the scooters for the first time (shown below, right). On June 29th, Wired^[4] published an article about the history of self-balancing scooters, which speculates that Chic Robotics invented the first self-balancing scooter. On July 31st, The Daily Dot^[7] published an article about the Hyperwalk brand scooter, reporting that the transportation device was used frequently by attendees at that year's VidCon.