Every single Onewheel is being recalled after four deaths
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.
Loose definition of a recall. Newer models are getting a software update. Older models are told to be thrown in the bin and get $100 credits to buy a new one
$100!? LMAO, ok. That'll fix ya right up. And it's a credit so basically useless unless you buy their crap.
Especially considering the lowest price model is $1050 before tax
FFS that is crazy expensive
To be fair, they are pretty cool. I dunno about $1k cool, but still nifty.
Not as cool as an old cheap motorcycle, imo.
That's assuming cool old cheap motorcycle doesn't have issues lol. My brother picked up a Honda CB450 years ago for about $700, and that thing had nothing but problems.
Fixing them is half the fun (maybe more for me).
Oh absolutely agreed, if it's bought for that purpose. My brother bought his for a primary mode of transportation to save money on gas, and yeah that didn't exactly pan out lol
I agree they are cool but starting at $1k…not that cool.
I have rode them a few times but feels like $400 device to me.
Depends, as a toy, yes, as a means of transportation, not really. I live in a dense city so it's my main means of transport, cheaper than a car, and even bikes once you consider how often they get stolen, at least in my city. With a one wheel you can just carry it inside and not have to worry about some guy taking it.
Not worth my life though, hopefully this update fixes things.
That makes sense, I was only looking at them as a toy. What do you think of electric scooter? Far cheaper and I feel some what safer?
Yeah, they are definitely safer and easier to ride. It's just what do you do when you get to the destination? For a one wheel or skateboard you can just bring it inside the store and carry it around, or stash it under the table at a restaurant or the seat on a bus/train. Sometimes I'll even hide it in some bushes at the park since it's so small and unnoticeable. For a scooter they usually won't let you bring it inside a store or onto a bus/train, and I don't trust locking it up outside since I'm in a city with a lot of bike theft. If that's less of a problem then a scooter might be the way to go.
Ah good point. I just got a scooter and was amazing how tiny it folds up. I didn’t think there would be an issue with taking it inside. Been a while since I held a one wheel but don’t remember them being tiny either.
The problem is only if you're being reckless and pushing through pushback. Can a car manufacturer be blamed for a death is someone crashes their car after losing control while driving 120mph with no seatbelt? Seems like a user error to me.
$100 off of a $2000 replacement, the rest of which will have to be done out of pocket. "We're down with offering a recall, but we had to make sure it lines our C-suite's pockets first."
And you wouldn't even want wanted to replace them either because they're completely unserviceable with digitally locked parts and a board that will brick itself if you disconnect the battery to do any sort of service.
They come out of the factory as e-waste.
I mean car recalls often don't have the cars go fully back to the manufacturer, just to a dealer to have the part fixed or firmware updated.
For XR users they are flat out saying not to use your board until the firmware comes out, and for everyone else they're saying not to use them until you can update the firmware.
Honestly it's a little shady that the CPSC let them avoid issuing a recall until a firmware update was ready, but it sounds like they would have forced them to fully recall all models if they hadn't been able to come up with haptic feedback.
That doesn't exclude it from being a recall though?
Tell that to the NHTSA with Tesla lol
Aren't the early models the only ones that can actually be modified and repaired using consumer available parts? Seems kind of fishy to me that those are the only ones that are being binned.
Someone discovered they can gain repeat customers if they issued a "recall" and offered a money tree seed to those who have been the longest holdouts on updating.
Our salesmen got hurt on one of those last weekend.
Onewheel is a garbage, monopolistic company that spits on consumer rights.
Yes, you said company already.
Yeah but i love my GT so... also, I dont remember ever seeing any VESC anywhere near as good
I'm not super involved with the community but I thought vesc was starting to match futuremotion software, aren't the floatlife guys using vesc as daily drivers or something?
I don't know about garbage, but what actual monopolistic practices have they shown? Haven't they just cornered that market with a unique and superior product?
Watch Louis Rossman's videos for more details, but no. Onewheel is extremely litigious and were able to get a patent for the entire design of single wheel vehicles, so they can basically sue anybody for patent infringement just for making any kind of single wheeled vehicle.
It would be like if Ford got a patent for any machine with an engine and four wheels, and could sue any company that tried to create their own car.
They also have spent a ton of effort purposely making their Onewheel boards as tough to repair as possible. The earliest models of boards used a bunch of off the shelf parts and could be swapped, modded, and repaired by regular folks. They started writing their software to purposely brick any new boards detected if plugged in, so users couldn't buy a battery or motherboard from a broken Onewheel of the same model and use parts from it on to repair their current Onewheel.
They are super anti-consumer, anti-competition, and only are as popular as they are because of these practices. They innovate less and less and instead spend tons of effort making sure nobody else can create a better product. They also don't want users modding or repairing their products, because they can't monetize that.
Aw man, that's super lame. Thanks, I'll check out those videos!
No prob. Yeah it was super dissappointing for me too when I found out because I initially really wanted to buy one, but I won't touch that company's products with a 10 foot pole.
Keep an eye on Floatwheel. I'm an avid Onewheel rider and got the chance to try out a Floatwheel the other day and they slap. They're way more consumer friendly, use open source VESC, and will ship free replacement parts for things like bumpers. They're still first gen and are a little fragile for my taste, but definitely something to keep an eye on.
Oh nice! I'll check them out for sure. I live in a mid-sized city so a vehicle like that would work great for me to get around on.
Haven't electric unicycles been around for way longer though? I remember Vat 19 selling one years ago and one of the meal delivery companies in my city uses them on occasion. Do they have a patent on those too?
No, the patent is specifically for the ones that you stand sideways on, like on a skateboard.
Also all electric unicycle manufacturers are based in China, which doesn't care about patents much.
Sounds like capitalism working as intended.
Yep.. I too think they are awesome 👍
Can't wait to see Rossmann's video on this one. Especially the part about how their idea of a recall is to tell people to throw away their device and buy a new one.
Edit-- https://youtu.be/Q_Mk-5XkSmY
Same lol I'll have the popcorn ready
It's out.
Four deaths per 300,000 boards? Hoo-boy! Wait until the CPSC hears about cars!
Cars and bikes would be banned if they were invented today.
We are incredibly tolerant of dangers that we are already familiar with.
There's a lot of things that wouldn't fly if they were invented today. Like could imagine how controversial libraries would be?
It would be shunned as socialism, and major publishers of books and DVDs would sue whoever came up with the concept into oblivion.
I mean shit look with how much contempt IP holders have against archive.org for trying to make sure nothing becomes lost media
What about motorcycles? Surely they would be okay.
Alcohol comes to mind.
We did ban that, and it didn't really do much. It just created a black market, much like weed today.
I'm here for the Onewheel black market.
Alcohol, bringing society down since forever.
The difference as far as I could tell from the text would be that car accidents are usually the users fault while this is attributed to the products failure or bad usability.
Funny that you should mention that myth.
Thanks for that link, very interesting. I didnt cite the 94% though, I didnt even know about that statistic. Also, even if it isnt 94%, its probably close to that. Even if its just half of that, you cant blame the other half directly on the cars malfunction, those accidents are probably caused by many factors. So like I was saying, in this case the fault seems to lie entirely with the product.
Yup, I'm not here to argue with you, but just share that information. The fact that other countries have different safety standards for vehicles and better road designs, and have decreased fatalities dramatically, points to design as a stronger factor than driver error. (And I'd argue that driver error should be mitigated by design, not just waved off as a personal, moral failure.) What's really odd to me is the very different societal response, and different approach by different regulatory agencies, to design flaws that have killed a handful of people versus design flaws that kill tens of thousands annually.
Thanks for that, really interesting data
That's a false equivalence if I've ever seen one.
many interesting conversations here and looks like a lot of folks who ride these often without issue.
I'm a motorized skateboarder for well over 15 years now. I've ridden one wheels a few times and while they are intuitive and versatile they are also the most dangerous option in an already very dangerous category. it's anecdotal, but all the worst injuries I've directly and indirectly confirmed were all from riding one wheels. I have lived on the edge and done plenty of dangerous things but owning a one wheel will never be one of them. the number of times I've had to be very nimble very quick would not have been possible on a one wheel. they simply lack the quick stability required to safely jump off from either foot and run out in any direction.
all that to say I'm not surprised that they have done some version of a recall and I'm wondering how they can legally sell them at all. yes, they are impressive vehicles and can be used relatively safely. but they are absolutely objectively more dangerous than 4 wheels.
I'd honestly just buy an electric 🛴 scooter first. A one wheel seems like a solution in search of a problem to me. But I've never been a skateboard guy.
What's the benefit of a one wheel over a four wheel skateboard?
I have one of each. I would say the benefit of the onewheel is a much cushier ride (giant, wide pneumatic wheel vs 4 smaller polyurethane wheels) and more maneuverability. The onewheel can tackle all types of terrain, which gives you a real sense of freedom while riding, whereas the 4-wheeler is pretty much limited to pavement/concrete (although you can put 7" pneumatic tires on 4-wheel boards that can accommodate them). Onewheeling is much more akin to that snowboarding feeling except you can pivot more since you only have a single point of contact with the ground, but there's not as much (any, really) of the lateral slide that you get on a snowboard, which can be both a plus and a minus.
If I want to go fast, I definitely grab the 4-wheeler. If I want to take a more leisurely pace/go explore offroad, I take the onewheel. I totally get and agree with what @fosho said about having to be very nimble & quick in a pinch, which is definitely true unless you're not going that fast on it to begin with. I rarely, if ever, exceed 15mph on the onewheel, but I can easily hit twice that on the 4-wheel board. Having to dodge something on that thing at that speed can be just as catastrophic as having the onewheel turn into a catapult at 15 mph. Both have their risks, and almost all of them can be tied to speed.
Fun fact, a sudden 30mph stop is about the same as falling from a 2-story building. (I used to teach PHTLS)
Although it’s true you’re going about 30mph when you hit the ground from that height, it’s much more harmful because of the continued acceleration due to gravity. An equivalent scenario would be hitting a brick wall at 30mph which then immediately begins accelerating into you at 9.8 m/s^2.
I can't help feeling a lot of these new motorized doodads are total deathtraps. I used to have a 40mph kaabo electric scooter and although it was mega fun, I sold it before it had a chance to kill me. Small wheels, poor geometry for stability, small caster angle, intoxicatingly high power - it's a recipe for disaster.
Thanks for the explanation!
the only benefit is the smaller turning radius. not something worth the much larger risk.
They just look dangerous. I get that they're auto balancing, but still.
Cool take, I also have one:
MOTORCYCLES ARE DANGEROUS.
Motorcyclists should be legally prevented from buying, owning, and operating them. The freedom to put one's own life at risk is not a freedom I believe in.
Everybody should be forced to choose between 5 travel options over land: Walking, bicycling (standard construction), car, bus, and train.
No other option should be permitted to the public, the public must be protected from themselves.
it sounds like you're being sarcastic. but the reality is that the line exists somewhere. motorcycles, with seats and handles, are safer than motorized skateboards at the same speeds. you'll have to come up with an example that better fits where you're implying motorbikes do.
Sounds like they are pushing a max speed limit update and the old ones cant be updated.
The speed limit is unchanged.
Prior to this update, the board gave "push back" tilting the nose up with the last of it's available torque when the user was going too fast and emitted a high pitched beep trying to let to user know to slow down or face a nose dive. The problem is, it was fairly easy to not notice the push back and the beep is completely inaudible when going 20mph due to wind noise. This update adds a physical vibration within the motor that the user can't help but feel when they're close to exceeding the limits of the board.
Who would have thought that the device that looks like a skateboard fucked a pogo ball might not be designed with user safety in mind?
I've had an XR for years and never had any issues. People push these things to the limit and don't understand the float life.
If you want to go fast don't get a onewheel, you'll eat shit
No, they literally failed or never took Intro To Engineering Safety / Ethics.
It is flat out irresponsible to sell a board with a fine line between normal operation and critical failure with an anemic, easy to miss warning system, that straight up cannot kick in in some failure situations or will exacerbate the problem.
They were irresponsible morons for not including an audible alarm initially, and they were wreckless and greedy assholes for having the capability of haptic feedback but never enabling it.
As someone who has to read multiple engineering safety textbooks, this is literal textbook bad engineering and there's a reason the CPSC isn't going after EUC makers who included alarms on every single model.
I would still put blame on the dummies who ride these things inappropriately. I see people riding these without any protection and I cringe. I have eaten shit sooo many times on my onewheel that I cant even imagine why someone would even risk it.
I just watched a clip, and I'm trying to understand both the use and why it's so dangerous. It certainly looks like fun, but what are the benefits?
I can see how not wearing a helmet and other PPE would be stupid. When it hits a certain speed does functionality suffer, or is it just "if you suddenly stop at this speed something in your body is breaking?"
Ehh, a small bump in the road can catch you off guard and throw off your balance if you arent prepared. The way it usually goes is you either get injured in the first few times you use it or it takes a long long time to get injured. In those first few times, if you didnt get the appropriate training on how to bail or how to turn corners then thats when people fall hard.
Its very easy to get confident on the board which is the biggest problem. It can be your first time on the board and you would think 'wow this is so easy'. Then the second time you ride you decide no helmet and find yourself hitting a bump and flying off cracking you melon open.
They didn't have the ability for haptic feedback at the beginning, they had to create it. There's no haptic motor in the board, they have to use the main motor to make vibrations without effecting the ride or balance. Should they have looked into it at the beginning, yes, is it as irresponsible as not turning on a system that already exists, no.
If only they had manufacturing control over the product, they could have built it in or something.
They built the devices for years with user complaints and injuries asking for a better warning system.
And then they release a whole NEW product lineup without any safety improvements from years of experience.
This is just simping, you're ignoring the facts and the reality and are somehow finding it understandable that a device manufacturer never manufactured devices with safety in mind, after years of being told to manufacturer devices with safety in mind....
Well, the new lineup does have a safety alarm. Unfortunately it's uselessly quiet. You can't hear it at all over the wind noise when going 20 mph, roughly the speed it typically goes off.
My understanding of Onewheel was that it's for going slower over more rugged terrain (backyard type, not mountain trail) while others were for flatter, paved roads and trails you can go fast on.
It seems to me that people just don't understand how self-balancing systems work.
This is my impression as well. Part of this problem is surely an operator error issue, combined with the inherent way these self balancing machines work. Sure, warnings and limiters can be added in software but this can never actually supersede the laws of physics. Where there's a will to fuck up, someone will find it. And also, like, wear a fuckin' helmet.
So, if you ride your Onewheel to the absolute top end of its motor's maximum speed such that it has no reserve power left with which to balance you, well, you can potentially eat shit. But, try flying down a big hill on a regular bicycle and needing to come to a stop, so you grab both brake levers as hard as you can. Guess what happens if you do that? So, where's my recall on every single bicycle ever manufactured in the world, ever, due to the "design flaw" of having to obey physics? (Yes, I am aware fancypants mountain bikes with hydraulic brakes can now be had with ABS, if you feel like paying for it. This, perhaps, serves even more to drive home my point that no one has seen fit to recall or ban the bikes that don't have this feature, despite it now existing.)
Part of this maybe a flaw in the product design, but another part of it is our perspective of the "acceptable" risks inherent in a particular design shifting dramatically over time, in inconsistent ways.
I think with your bikes example, one of the factors is also that riding a bike is considered one of those fundamental skills in our society. You learn it early and internalize the rules of the machine. When bikes were knew, we absolutely had more tolerance for risk, so we didn't really care that people were getting hurt learning the ropes, and now that it's a staple we take for granted that people will be guided early on by more experienced riders. That's just not the case for something new. There isn't the widespread understanding of the device or any early training. It also helps that a bike is mechanical, so it's a bit easier to predict than something electronic, and of course the difference in safety standards now vs when bikes were new. So yeah, if bikes were just becoming a thing, we probably would feel different about their level of safety.
But I agree that anyone who wouldn't wear a helmet on one of these probably doesn't have much to protect up there anyway or is a literal child.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
The types of biking are very well rooted in modern first world societies, especially in the US. Granted, I work with bikes, so I'm biased, take that into consideration with what I say.
MOUNTAIN biking is for? Mountains. Rugged terrain. ROAD biking is? For roads. Shocker, I know.
"hybrids" are still relatively new to a lot of people, and unfortunately standardization isn't everywhere, but in general most people understand it as "I can go off road but I can't go on a mountain trail"
This self balancing stuff? Still VERY new to many many people.
I do agree that a recall was probably in their best interest, as lawsuits are inevitable. Yes, a safety feature SHOULD have made it very loud and clear that you are reaching the ABSOLUTE limit and to go faster means INJURY AT BEST. Make the physical limitation higher than the software limitations, and have the safety features have a failsafe so it doesn't just cut you off, thus faceplanting you anyway.
It could have been avoided with more education on the fundamentals of the devices and how they function. It could have been avoided with different/better safety features.
One thing is for sure, it's a lot easier for information to spread now, so if your product has a blind spot where "less education" could lead to deaths, you can be damn sure everyone will know about it, and it won't be just an urban legend you heard from your father's sisters' former roommate.
Err on the side of caution, go with the extra safety features. There's a reason chainsaw warnings say don't start it while holding the blade.
n=1 isn't exactly how this works....
I've had an XR and have had 2 falls from it teetering out. I was going 17mph and hit a slight incline, it dropped me like a rock. The other time I left at 100% and it died after 2 miles I felt the pushback and then it immediately sent me to the ground and then it died, at only 12mph.
Neither case is acceptable, I wasn't exactly pushing it to it's limits either.
Fuck going 17mph on a onewheel, I never break 15mph because you're gambling with your (now) fully functioning wrists.
Second time you ate it does sound bad though, I hope you came out unscathed
I always wear at least a helmet and wrist guards. Honestly should also have elbow guards as well.
The road surface ended up eating my elbow, side of my torso, and knee.
It all healed up fine.
I've had.... 5 significant falls. Those two, one on a trail where I hit mud and the wheel cut sideways, one hitting one of those buckled pieces of sidewalk at night, and another on a gold course when I hit a hidden hole that stopped the board dead.
Should probably get knee & elbow guards really.
No you stupid dicks maybe give them a new version after they return their originals and replace them.
This is to stop everyone who has Re-Wheeled their boards. They did win a cease and desist to have the Re-Wheel software removed from the web by the author, but there are versions that still exist. I rewheeled a pint recently, and if I update that board, it will loose the modifications. FM is just up to their usual game of locking down their boards so folks can't mess with them. I'll be getting a Float Wheel when my XR finally dies.
What does that do?
For thr pint, I was able to set the pushback to XR style so the board top speed is much higher.
Do we know if the deaths were related to the technical issues?
Consumer Protection says the boards would fail to maintain balance and crash, if "limits" were exceeded. I'm guessing speed limits.
So the new models get a firmware update to prevent that/provide warning if you're approaching such a limit. The old models, which are more easily modded and perhaps unable to send haptic feedback, get tossed.
IIRC its more just poor notification of low battery.
If you're moving and the battery gets low it can not have enough power to keep the board stable. Early ones I feel like I remember hearing they would just 'stop'.
There's going to be deaths for everything.
The people who use them won't be sending them back, I know for example Adam Savage has one and he has professed his love for it like many other microEV users have.
But I'm sure there will be a lot of dusty ones sent back from those who didn't end up using theirs a lot.
Personally I hate the current state of microEV, it's held back hard and combated by the government very effectively in some places.
I've wanted to dump $2-3k on a good one, but they're neutered here in Norway. To get a proper engine to get up hills you'd be spending more than the price of a moped to go slower than cyclists, unless you choose to break the law.
Just looking at this pic it looks like a lace or something going in that exposed wheel looks lethal, I've never used one but it looks sketchy
I've never understood what gap these things fill that isn't better filled by a bike. They look really fun, but as soon as I think seriously about it I can't see why I wouldn't want the exercise and mobility of walking or biking, and what I can't do with those is satisfied by my car.
Not trying to shit on it, just musing.
It's more fun and easier to store
Skateboard/last mile niche. You can pick up and hold them with one hand when on mass transit, then zip to your destination easily.
If it were a lot cheaper I might be down. Saw a guy cruising along the beach near the water in Oregon and that looked really nice.
You might want to check out the smaller EUCs. There's a bunch that cost half as much as Onewheels, while still having more power and range.
The answer to this is also the answer to where they were created, San Francisco. They're perfect there because:
Cars are a hassle to deal with for traffic and parking. It's dense enough and public transit is good enough that you only really need to walk/ride the last half mile.
The hills are no joke, I'm pretty in shape and even I have to walk a bike up most of the hills. This can be helped by an electric bike but that brings us to
Bikes get stolen fairly often. Especially if you have an ebike this will cost a lot in the long run. With a one wheel you can just carry it in the storeand not have to worry.
For most other American cities that are less dense, more flat and have less thefts they start to make less sense.
That makes a lot of sense. I'm in Milwaukee, so quit different from SF in the ways you described.
Portability. You don't have to worry about bike racks, or how to carry it to the upper floors in apartment buildings and offices, and where to store it. You can just carry it like a briefcase and throw under the desk at the office and nobody would have a problem with that.
Has anyone got the update and know the version number? Can't seem to find it and don't know if mines updated. I'm on version gemini 5076.
Wait, you mean this inherently unstable design is actually dangerous? Shocking, I say!