Onewheel is the ultimate personal electric vehicle
If you haven’t heard of a Onewheel, it’s like a skateboard and a unicycle mixed together. The riding experience is touted as being like Snowboarding, but on pavement or dirt.
I’ve been interested in Onewheels for many years, but I was always worried about falling off and hurting myself, and, I had my e-bike which was easier and faster to ride long distances.
My interest has renewed lately because:
- There’s only one very short bike path near my house, and I don’t have a bike rack on my car, nor do I like riding on the road. Putting my e-bike on a trailer hitch would be a pain. A Onewheel can just go in the boot or behind the seat in my car.
- I think a ‘last mile’ transport solution would be handy from time to time. Parking really far from something and having to walk a long way sucks.
- There’s now an open source community that has opened the door for DIY servicing and building boards.
The third reason is what really got me hooked again. Onewheel is not a brand but a trademarked product name. The company is Futuremotion, who are based in the USA.
They don’t have a good track record for making their product user-servicable, so if something went wrong with it, I’d have to pay hundreds of dollars to ship it from Australia to America for repair.
In addition, I’ve seen many reports of peoples boards just kicking them off, and the Onewheel app gives almost no diagnostic information to explain why.
Lastly, being a for-profit company, they’re incentivized to make their product with the minimum quality components to maximise profits.
The used pint I bought on Facebook marketplace.
With my history building drones, I know that manufacturers cheap out on batteries and controllers, instead relying on software to prevent the system from exceeding it’s operating limits.
When I’m flying a drone, there’s almost no injury risk to me personally, but on a skateboard going 20kph, I could actually die.
So, I don’t want the bare minimum components, I want it to be over-engineered.
The name of the controller that is effectively the board’s brain is called the VESC, which stands for Vedders Electronic Speed Controller, and was designed by Benjamin Vedder.
I suspect it’s very similar to other ESCs from the drone world, just adapted to the specific needs of personal electric vehicles (PEV).
It’s open source, so with the help of an enthusiastic community it has grown from a pretty rough hobbyist experiment into a product that outstrips FutureMotion’s own Onewheel in every respect.
In the VESC space you can make your own, or buy from a builder - they take all the components from various makers (and some of their own) and assemble boards for customers.
Some make a single board, like the Floatwheel. Others do custom builds and design various accessories, like Fungineers and VOW Systems.
I’m pretty lucky to be in the same city as VOW Systems, so I reached out to Stanley early on in my learnings. He was very helpful and welcoming. I checked out two boards he had for sale, and was really impressed with all the development he’s doing.
Stanley is designing better footpads, integrating motors and controllers, improving boxes for batteries and electronics, and a lot more - all from his garage. It’s amazing what can be done now with a computer, a 3D printer, and a smart, dedicated enthusiast.
One of Stanley’s custom boards.
I suspect he could create and assemble nearly the entire physical board with components built in-house, with only the electronics (VESC), motor, and rails being bought in.
It’s really exciting, I think there’s a great opportunity for VOW to become the vendor for VESC boards in Australia. I reached out to him about helping with his journey, because I think the product is awesome, and I think I could offer my knowledge to turbocharge his growth. It would be a fun project for me.
After I met Stanley I was deciding whether to buy one of his boards. The investment was significant, at least $3500, which considering I’d never ridden a board before, was daunting.
Instead I scoured Facebook marketplace for a deal and found a Onewheel Pint for just $700. The board had done 1200km, which is about half of what the battery is rated for before it degrades significantly.
I am the third or fourth owner of this Pint. I think they’re popular with beginners because of the lower price. However, they’re actually a bit harder to ride than larger boards like the XR.
This is due to the rounded tyre. The board balances forwards and backwards automatically, but keeping it from rolling toe or heel is challenging and requires similar muscles to snowboarding.
Fortunately, I made a mistake which helped a lot with my learning. I was so excited to try the board that I didn’t check the tyre pressure - which was at only 4psi. As a result, my first ride was much easier, as the tyre was wider. (flat)
If you’re starting out, I suggest dropping the tyre pressure to 5psi and slowly increasing it by a few psi each ride. Your range will be much lower, but it’ll help with confidence.
Once I had some confidence balancing, I went on my first ride around my local walking track.
I immediately felt comfortable riding at speed, in fact it’s easier once moving. I did about 7km with a few stops to rest my feet and came home for a rest.
Over the next few weeks, I’d make time to ride two or three times a week. Recently I stepped up from ‘Redwood’ the beginner mode, to ‘Pacific’ and then to ‘Skyline’.
This increased the top speed which meant I was riding less in pushback, which feels unnatural.
Most recently I upped my tire pressure to 22psi and the board felt amazing. I went to Southbank and had a great time. The sensation of snowboarding is fully present when gliding between obstacles and carving left and right.
It’s a pretty magic flow state experience, especially when coupled with some headphones to add some groove.
I tried Sony Linkbuds Open, but found them uncomfortable, hard to position, and difficult to hear over the wind noise. I tried some Soundpeat Pearls instead, and they’re much better.
The wind noise is gone, and they’re very comfortable. Sound quality is also just as good as the Sony. They just look a little weird, kind of like … earrings. Hence pearls I guess. They were only $50! I’m very happy with them.
The perfect ICE and EV combo!
The pint now lives in the boot of my Porsche, and I often use it for last-mile transport. It’s super convenient, and means I can park wherever I want and ride the rest of the way in minutes, and carry it around with me too.
Despite everything I said at the start of the article about Onewheels being lower quality than VESC, my Pint has never let me down and I’ve now ridden 400km on it.
I’m still planning to upgrade to a VESC board built by VOW systems, but for now the pint is great fun for very little money.