Great thing, it seems.
Now let’s wait for the inevitable army of various do-gooders trying to ban or restrict it.
Already started. I believe NYC just passed an ordinance against them.
In the UK the Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed that it’s illegal to use them on both pavements (as they’re classed as powered vehicles) and public roads (because they can’t be registered as road-legal vehicles):
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/12/hoverboards-illegal-pavements-roads-scooters
So they’re only legal on private property.
I’ve only seen them being used once on the high street in my home city. I had to pull my 3 year-old son out of the way because the 2 morons riding them were too busy taking selfies to watch where they were going.
It’s more complicated than that. Unless they passed something specific in the past few days, they were already illegal per state law, the kind that targets NYC specifically without saying so explicitly. Basically it’s that they can’t be registered, similar to mgfarley’s comment re: UK. In fact, there’s been some discussion about legalizing them.
“After two days, I could casually ride around the office and slalom through coworkers.”
And irritate the fuck out of everyone.
These things are all over the internet with pricing somewhere between 100 and 1000 dollars. there is no way to know if the more expensive ones are anything but just more expensive. Also it is difficult not to look like a douche riding one.
i hate when people call these scooters skateboards, they are anything but skateboards.
wait what? is the charging circuit really that crap? even cheap devices have specialized circuits to maximize battery life and limit overcharging. better devices charge in such a way as to keep the maximum capacity over a large number of charge cycles. without such circuits your battery and range are going to drop quickly. 
Hey, they needed to spend the extra money from the $500 price tag to put in those LEDs.
As a guy in his early 50s, I’m proud to say that I also survived the Swagway. Though, I have to admit it was only about 20 minutes of ride time. Doing turns is not too hard, but going backwards felt like an accident waiting to happen. They are pretty heavy and it seemed like they could take quite a beating and keep on going. It was fun to try, but don’t really see a lot of utility to the thing and can definitely see how people could be jerks on them and annoy the hell out of everybody around them.
More landfill.
Goddamn the world is full of dumbasses.
7.3 billion and counting ; )
Any modern rechargeable device that does not have overcharging protection probably has other major deign flaws.
Michael, did you pay for your swagway or was it provided for free or at a discount with the understanding that you would review it?
Borys’ website says they shift the line between advertising and entertainment. It seems like they actually just blur the line and hope that violating FTC disclosure rules don’t apply to the web. It ticks me off because the disclosure would make me feel better about trusting what I read here.
I’m assuming it was provided for free - see also: his “review” for the Ring Doorbell:
BB’s admins have claimed in the past that they’ll tell us when something is a paid placement… But maybe Michael didn’t get that memo?
To be honest, given how many of his posts are glowing descriptions of some product, I’ve started assuming that almost any time I see his name on one.
I don’t think Michael is here because he’s a kindred spirit. I’m guessing he paid for credentials to the BoingBoing CRM. I understand that BoingBoing is a business and it’s hard to make money, but nothing would be lost with disclosure.
I asked Cory once if his reviews are paid for and he responded quickly and unequivocally - nope. He almost always buys the books he reviews and always discloses if he writes about something that is given to him.
