Post by lessismore on Mar 21, 2019 4:32:58 GMT -8
Hi,
I was just wondering if anyone else has these power assistance wheels yet? They were launched in Europe in the 2nd half of last year this- not sure if they're available outside of Europe yet.
I had the previous system (m15) and would be interested to hear of any other user's experience of the new wheels.
My mini review is (I've had them for 3 months but haven't been able to do a lot of outdoor pushing due to the weather this)-
I like them although I think they could do with a couple improvements, some of which could be achieved with firmware updates (users are able to update the firmware at home via the app which is a great feature).
Pro's-
Having the smart phone app instead of the remote is a massive improvement- gives lots of different options and avoid you having to carry around a separate control which was always really annoying.
Being able to customize the ride profiles beyond indoor/outdoor is great- gives you much more control over how the wheels operate depending on terrain and type of pushing.
The cruise control option is brilliant for long pushes and the chair remote control to move the chair when you're not in it is cool although for me it's more a gimmick but I know it would be useful for some people.
They definitely are more powerful and give much greater torque. Getting uphill particularly is much easier than the old wheels and I can go up hills which I never would have got up before with the old wheels.
Con's-
The battery life in terms of days seems to be limited to 2 days. I think you would get the same distance from them roughly in one day but then it seems like there's some sort of switch perhaps In the battery management system to protect the battery cells that causes the batteries to require charging after 48 hours. For example you believe the batteries are on 90% after 2 days usage the next day they will have dropped to 20% and you need to charge them this. Whereas the old batteries I could make last for 4 days. Is not a major issue because it's easy to put them on charge but I was just surprised compared to the old wheels. I think a lot of people had battery issues with the old ones ( although I never did) so with this behaviour they are forcing you to charge them which is considered better for lithium batteries. But I was just surprised because there is always that occasion where you forget to charge the wheels and if you really needed them that day you wouldn't be able to use them without charging.
The app needs to load faster. It takes a while to load this and connect to bluetooth. Which if you just want to change modes is annoying. I think they are trying to set up all of the parameters because once it is loaded it runs very quick and you can access everything. I think they could either do with a basic pre-load giving you access to the drive profile and on and off or have a separate app for the basics. Unless it is just the Bluetooth connection/speed of data transfer that's causing the delay but I doubt that because I've got some cheap Bluetooth devices which operate almost instantly. I've also tried the app on other phones so it's not a problem with my phone specifically.