Are people really interested in "hoverboards"?

[Prepper247]

Looks like a gimmick. Glad they've been catching on fire. People look stupid on them lol. Now if they had back to the future hoverboards...that's a different story!

 

[Frankster]

For a minute you had me going and actually believing hoverboards were real and finally available to the average consumer.
My second thought after that was sheer terror upon realizing I really don't like the idea of people flying around on a simple board when I already view half the people driving cars as nutters already.

Thankfully what OP is bringing up ain't hoverboards at all, doesn't matter what the maker insist on calling it. To me it looks like one of the stupidest form of transportations available, you could so easily fall down with but the slightest push, and judging from comments here, there is no lack of people who'd love to give you a shove and laugh after you get hurt.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

What bothers me about them is that people say you shouldn't call them "Hoverboards" and I think they're right but nobody calls them anything else. Somebody needs to think up a new name for them.

 

[Einspanner]

What bothers me about them is that people say you shouldn't call them "Hoverboards" and I think they're right but nobody calls them anything else. Somebody needs to think up a new name for them.

"Garbage Fire on Wheels"

or maybe

"Goes Well w/t Douche Flutes"

 

[MrFalconfly]

This is just a marketing stunt, for a very good technology. This isn't really going to be marketed primarily to hobbyists, but to companies that need to move dense freight in warehouses and that kind of thing. Coat your warehouse floor, and all of your lifts no longer need a giant machine to drive them around, or training to use. Much safer too. You'd only need forklifts for stacking, so you'd probably use a roof-mounted device instead. Safer, more efficient, no internal combustion engine, few moving parts, relatively cheap compared to heavy moving equipment, and that's pretty much where they're going with this.

In the same way that hydrophobic coatings weren't developed so that we could see people throw mustard at their shoes.

Not to be a party-pooper, but I recon the only actually usable tech in that "hover-board" would be the electro-motors.

Fit wheels to the motors instead of magnets you you'll have an infinitely more flexible platform for carrying things.

Hell, Lego in Billund has already fully roboticized their warehouse

Lego is huge. Literally and metaphorically, and in terms of how much stuff they produce every day. There are a lot of warehouses around the world that wouldn't benefit from complete automation, but could still use some improvement, or partial automation with humans doing the floor-level work.

LEGO was just an example.

Here are some more examples.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2016/01/11/robots-in-the-warehouse-its-not-just-amazon/#5cb230c42f80

Also, I'd argue that smaller companies benifit more from robot warehouses, given that they can spend less on warehouse worker wages.

Also, if you want altitude, propellers are a lot better than diamagnetism (and they work over all kinds of surfaces, not to mention, propellers give you a source of thrust, which these Hendo diamagnetic "rotators" don't).

So that Hendo Hoverboard, really is just a very inefficient, very expensive, very limited, quadcopter.

Except that you really specifically do NOT want altitude. The entire point of this is that is JUST levitates the load, so that a failure is not catastrophic, or dangerous. It's just an evolution of using an air cushion. As for copters, that is never going to be a way smart way to move freight. Expensive and fast maybe, only for relatively small, light packages. If you want drones delivering freight, ground effect planes or some kind of airship would probably be the way to go.

How do you get to the top parcels then?

Without lifts, or some kind of flight?

Point being that EVEN quadcopters are more efficient than these "Hendo Hover "Rotators".

When it comes to efficiency, load capability and control, wheels are still king.

 

[Einspanner]

This is just a marketing stunt, for a very good technology. This isn't really going to be marketed primarily to hobbyists, but to companies that need to move dense freight in warehouses and that kind of thing. Coat your warehouse floor, and all of your lifts no longer need a giant machine to drive them around, or training to use. Much safer too. You'd only need forklifts for stacking, so you'd probably use a roof-mounted device instead. Safer, more efficient, no internal combustion engine, few moving parts, relatively cheap compared to heavy moving equipment, and that's pretty much where they're going with this.

In the same way that hydrophobic coatings weren't developed so that we could see people throw mustard at their shoes.

Not to be a party-pooper, but I recon the only actually usable tech in that "hover-board" would be the electro-motors.

Fit wheels to the motors instead of magnets you you'll have an infinitely more flexible platform for carrying things.

Hell, Lego in Billund has already fully roboticized their warehouse

Lego is huge. Literally and metaphorically, and in terms of how much stuff they produce every day. There are a lot of warehouses around the world that wouldn't benefit from complete automation, but could still use some improvement, or partial automation with humans doing the floor-level work.

LEGO was just an example.

Here are some more examples.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2016/01/11/robots-in-the-warehouse-its-not-just-amazon/#5cb230c42f80

Also, I'd argue that smaller companies benifit more from robot warehouses, given that they can spend less on warehouse worker wages.

I don't see how this in any way removes the need for this technology, or the limitations of wheels on a robot, or off.

Also, if you want altitude, propellers are a lot better than diamagnetism (and they work over all kinds of surfaces, not to mention, propellers give you a source of thrust, which these Hendo diamagnetic "rotators" don't).

So that Hendo Hoverboard, really is just a very inefficient, very expensive, very limited, quadcopter.

Except that you really specifically do NOT want altitude. The entire point of this is that is JUST levitates the load, so that a failure is not catastrophic, or dangerous. It's just an evolution of using an air cushion. As for copters, that is never going to be a way smart way to move freight. Expensive and fast maybe, only for relatively small, light packages. If you want drones delivering freight, ground effect planes or some kind of airship would probably be the way to go.

How do you get to the top parcels then?

Without lifts, or some kind of flight?

Point being that EVEN quadcopters are more efficient than these "Hendo Hover "Rotators".

When it comes to efficiency, load capability and control, wheels are still king.

As I said some posts ago, this does not completely eliminate your need for lifts (or if you're going that way, you need to integrate loaders into the warehouse. And not to put too fine a point on it, but you understand that you can mount a lifting platform on top of this right? In the same way that you can place one on wheels, and the wheels themselves don't have to do the 'lift' work?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I'm looking forward to the YouTube Fail videos.

 

[MrFalconfly]

snip

My main point is, what does these "Hendo Hover Rotators" do, that wheels (or tracks) don't?

What can these ferromagnetic levitators do, that electromotors and servos on caster-wheels can't do?

My main point is that, these hover-engines are a technological dead end.

They don't do anything, which alternatives don't already do more efficiently.