It's great that your single unit hasn't failed but that's not much evidence against a recall.
My onewheel at some point started to fail occasionally. The first time I was going at ~15 mph and fortunately I came away with only a few scrapes. After that, I reproduced at slower speeds and was able to not fall when it failed.
I sent it in and they fixed it. This is their explanation which I don't know that I fully believe:
Our engineers completed the repairs on your board! They found that the power button had broken which led to damage to the controller circuit board. Both have been replaced under warranty for you. After your board passed our post-op testings it was picked up by FedEx!
I have a Onewheel and I was ejected after it suddenly died even though the battery reported a half charge. The accident was not my fault and I was injured from it. I don't believe the product is as safe as you imply.
"I have never had a problem therefore there is no problem"
If you actually read the complaint you will see several product safety issues (such as sudden stops) that cannot be solved by wearing a helmet or learning to ride.
Unfortunately the CPSC warning is too vague to know if this is people pushing the device past its documented limits or the device failing within the standard limits.
Are we sharing anecdata now? I also have an XR with about 1k miles on it. For the vast majority of those miles it's been fine. It's had two issues, both of which were terrifying.
The first was just a simple nosedive. For some fraction of a second no power went to the board. I went flying, rolled, used crutches for a few weeks.
The second was when the battery cells became "unbalanced." The closest way to describe its behavior was a bucking horse - lagging, then surging. This wasn't a unique issue for the support guy... He told me exactly how to debug it.
The thing is an injury machine. I'm astounded it took this long.
While adding extra things that can fail to an already dangerous method of transport isn't the greatest idea I don't really see how that's too different from a skateboard losing a wheel or hitting the smallest pothole with an inline skate.
Powered or not, going fast on something you just precariously stand on will send people to the hospital constantly regardless.
Like most things in life if you are patient in learning it and respect the limits it is entirely safe.
Hey, just like C programming! :)
On a slightly more serious note, the point seems to be that people are not, and that can get them killed which is bad. If the thing is that the pushback notification is too easy to ignore/fail to notice, then that sounds fixable.
The training mode at 12 mph is there for a reason.
I'm in the same boat as you, I've got 1k miles on mine (more!) when I sold it. Never got seriously injured, and hadn't really crashed since the beginning. It was all the stories in the riders chats that made me switch to something else. It's fun but I like my collar bone as it is.
I assume you mean the board fully power off while riding?
If yes, then no.
It is possible to overload the motor by going over the maximum speed or going uphill by at too high of a speed but in that case the board will not actually power off.
The only way the board may turn off is if is fully charged and you immediately ride it downhill (regenerative breaking). To protect the battery from overcharging the board it will turn off in that case but the app will warn you before that happens and for newer boards they have implemented the ability to charge to less than 100% if that is how you start your route.
It's possible that the board just fails for any number of reasons.
I had a Boosted Board fail on me once. No idea why. It just powered off randomly while I was riding. Wasn't going downhill, wasn't full battery, wasn't a depleted battery. It was a bit scary to suddenly feel the power go out, but I was able to safely come to a stop. I was probably going about 15 MPH. I never figured out what happened. It turned right back on. This was the first time the board gave me pause. I kept riding for a few months until I did actually get hurt—100% on my own stupidity. I tried to go over some train tracks while leaning too much on the front trucks and was going fast, but not quite fast enough to cruise over them, and the wheels properly got stuck in the tracks, so I got to experience the fun of flying. Fortunately I was not critical injured, just extreme bruising. Helmet 100% saved my life though.
This is the same kind of thing that can happen with a OneWheel—only no user error is needed for it to happen, merely a power failure. OneWheel either needs an integrated solution that allows you to roll out in the event of a power failure, or some kind of redundancy to ensure the probability of a power failure is effectively zero. Anything less leads to (preventable) death.
The difference is that when most things fail (something that will happen), they do not result in instant deceleration. When your iPhone experiences a power failure it usually just doesn't turn back on. If a car experiences a power failure the brakes still work. Even if the brakes DO fail, you can still at least try to come to a safe stop—and it's possible you can.
When the power fails on a OneWheel there is almost no possibility of a safe stop. You are getting launched.
Yes, agree with you both - probability * severity. The severity is high (unless you know how to run off the board - that lowers the severity quite a bit). The probability is unfortunately unknown.
I think the severity of the event is also important. A Onewheel requires power for stability (it's an inverse pendulum), and as a result does not fail-safe. An occasional motor failure on an e-bike would be a non-event, as it fails to a safe state. An occasional brake failure would be significant.
I own a Onewheel (XR) and have ridden nearly ~1,000 miles on it in a variety of conditions.
I've only had one incident and it was entirely my fault (riding at night without proper lights and hit a pothole).
The Onewheel definitely has a learning curve. Like most things in life if you are patient in learning it and respect the limits it is entirely safe.
I think the safeguards Onewheel has implemented are completely adequate (primarily pushback).
I think the big problem is people not wearing safety gear and/or maxing out the board (speed specifically) too early.