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It's odd seeing the number of dismissive comments missing that there are whole categories of wheelchairs for different purposes. It's like asking why XPSs exist
by rtkwe 2y ago
It's odd seeing the number of dismissive comments missing that there are whole categories of wheelchairs for different purposes. It's like asking why XPSs exist when there are Chromebooks, something most people commenting here would immediately realize as a silly question because they suit different needs and functions but the idea doesn't come up because it's an unfamiliar problem.
- m463 2y agoI sort of think of left-handed people. I am right handed, but overused it and switched to a left-handed mouse. There are basically infinity right-handed mice, but basically zero left-handed mice, most of which are hedged ambidextrous mice. so looking at office chairs and standing desks and all kinds of ergonomics oriented towards healthy sitting, it seems amazing that there isn't more competition for people who sit more than anyone.
- HPsquared 2y agoSounds like a nice application for 3D printing tbh. Take the electronics from a regular mouse and fit into a left-handed housing with a range of shapes/sizes etc available! Call it "second hand"
- Miraste 2y agoAt least one guy on reddit did this and is still sending out the files for people who ask: https://old.reddit.com/r/MouseReview/comments/enxzgg/lefty_g305_project_choose_my_color_scheme/lo33h6y/?context=3 https://old.reddit.com/r/MouseReview/comments/enxzgg/lefty_g... It seems like a massive pain though. Rebuilding a non-symmetrical mouse the other way would take electronics tinkering as well as 3d printing, and probably a ton of work to get all the connections and tolerances right. I am left handed, and I use trackpads with my left hand, but I gave up on lefty mice years ago and use an ergonomic one right-handed.
- HPsquared 2y agoI'd assume the electronics are very modular and probably just clip into place in a single unit. You do need a battery compartment or something though, and the buttons need to fit well. Wheel can come from donor mouse.
- Miraste 2y agoUnfortunately they are not. Mouse motherboards are generally shaped like the mouse, i.e. right-handed, and the side buttons are on ribbon cables too short to move to the other side. Impossible to reorient without serious work.
- HPsquared 2y agoSounds like someone could buy a bunch of different mice and x-ray them to look for the easiest candidates. Looking for symmetrical-ish electronics, most of all.
- amarcheschi 2y agoI felt comfortable with "neutral" mouses that aren't shaped right or left that I could use either with right or left hand
- vasco 2y agoMost left handed people I know (me included), use the mouse with the right hand. Might be a bubble though, but I never thought to get a left handed mouse, or left handed scissors or most left handed things. There's a few things that really don't work (I play my drumkit with hands reversed), but most things are fine.
- dfxm12 2y agoI tried using a mouse in my left hand in left handed mode back in the day. Eventually, I got tired of changing the settings on shared computers at home/school, and I realized it wasn't any more or less hard to use the mouse with my right hand. Today, I use a right handed vertical mouse. Interestingly, I play guitar right handed, despite being inspired to play by Kurt Cobain. My girlfriend got me left handed scissors as a joke, but man, they actually feel better. My sister used to use a neutral mouse, with her left hand, on the left side of the keyboard but in "normal" or "right handed mode". Now she has a laptop with a big touch pad in the middle.
- volkl48 2y agoI do what your sister used to do. (Left hand mouse use, buttons left at default). Even game that way. Started using it that way as a kid, by the time I learned it was possible to switch the buttons that seemed less natural than leaving it as default. Also made it much easier to use shared computers in school labs and the like.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoI am lefty and occasionally use the mouse left-sided when I have right arm injuries. What I don't do is swap the buttons. That way, nothing has to change, I can switch to the preferred side at any time, and coworkers aren't stymied when they need to drive the computer.
- -mlv 2y agoA lot of left-handed people are actually cross-dominant or selectively ambidextrous.
- j2bax 2y agoI switched to an Apple Trackpad and it basically cured my wrist issues that I was experiencing.
- otteromkram 2y agoI use dual mice for variety sake. The Logitech G300s has been solid as a lefty. They used to be cheap enough that replacing them every couple of years (depending on usage) was feasible, but I'm not sure if the market has driven up prices since then.
- anotheruser13 2y agoElecom makes a nice left handed trackball. Employers don't often provide ThinkPads, so I usually use a standard mouse on the left side without swapping the buttons.
- MisterTea 2y agoIt's not odd because as you pointed out this is a tech oriented site and not a wheel chair oriented site.
- bee_rider 2y agoThe hope is that it is a site full of thoughtful people who’ve done at least a couple difficult projects. For that sort of person, the first instinct should not be to try and invalidate a project based on a couple seconds of googling. We should know that sometimes the problem takes more than a couple seconds of research to get to the real problem statement.
- MisterTea 2y ago[flagged]
- rtkwe 2y agoIt's not but the concept that there may be more than one sub-type of a product (here: manual wheelchairs and their subtypes: "medical" [0], transport, etc) because there are many different scenarios for using any product is a universally applicable idea. You don't have to know much to see the cheaper types, see that they're physically different and figure out that there's a reason for there to be different types. It's an endemic problem in many fields but you see it a lot with programmers. It's the same class of cognitive bias that births ideas like "the law should be like a program, that would be much simpler" that were (still are?) big in tech circles. Lazy pattern matching and thinking that understanding one complex thing (programming) makes one automatically better at unrelated fields (complex manufacturing). [0] The type most people are most familiar with, large wheels, collapsible, handles for assistance from others. Generally not used by people who are able to move under their own power. [1] similar to "medical" but without the large back wheels so they're only mobile with another persons help or by scooting around using your feet.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
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- bee_rider 2y agoThat sort of “I googled for 30 seconds, and found a cheaper option, why does this project exist” type response is anti-curiosity and anti-learning. It is possible that the YouTuber guy is a total idiot and decided to make a $1000 wheelchair instead of buying a $200 one, but that shouldn’t be a default assumption, haha.
- singhrac 2y agoI couldn’t upvote this enough. A lot of drive-by cynicism I see these days is really just a lack of curiosity and bad faith assumptions (this guy must be an idiot, etc.). I see it a lot in practice especially when discussing early-stage business ideas.
- chipdart 2y ago> A lot of drive-by cynicism I see these days is really just a lack of curiosity and bad faith assumptions (this guy must be an idiot, etc.). You're talking if guys pitching overpriced and underquality gear is completely unheard of, or if flawed business ideas are a rare occurrence. I get it, support and enthusiasm is always nice to have. But if you descend into the real world you'll see that more often than not you'll see a mix of fraud and overconfident people pitching undercooked ideas that they under deliver, and you're criticizing those who might as well have experienced that first-hand for a few times.
- bee_rider 2y agoWell, I guess since I disagree with you, I must be an inhabitant of this non-real world. Dang, I wish I’d thought to deem myself the arbiter of reality. But from here, floating in the imaginary clouds, the error of the cynics was pretty easy to spot. It was that there are different types of wheelchairs and the cynics were just googling up the bargain-basement mass produced ones. I guess in the real world everything (including medical devices) is one-size-fits-all?
- kelnos 2y agoThere's another choice, though: instead of being a drive-by cynic, just move on and don't comment. It's not like these people are providing a valuable service, steering everyone away from the dumb scams. They're just pattern matching and assuming everything they doesn't seem to make sense (in their generally not-well-informed opinion) must be bad. It's unnecessary, and is noise just as often as it's not.
- fotta 2y agoIn this case the OP is targeted towards people who are already familiar with this type of chair, so I can sorta understand why the reader who has only ever seen the hospital style chair is confused.
- rtkwe 2y agoIt's the lack of curiosity in not taking the small extra mental step of thinking "what niche does this clearly physically different product address?" that's the most galling/disappointing. Or having done the search and found very cheap alternatives thinking, "clearly the person setting up a business creating and with a partner that using these products daily missed that this already exists" immediately instead of looking at why JerryRigEverything might not be an idiot wasting his money.
- maxglute 2y agoI think its just how cheap / rudimentary the basic model look for 1K. Like it seems there's a viable Indochino / send measurement to Asia manufacture model and get bespoke product back for fraction of the cost. Or some sort of modular break down kit that you can take to a bike shop to tune to custom needs for less. I admire Jerry's effort, but I think people correctly sees $200 product that cost $1000 in US, and somehow it's considered "affordable".
- rtkwe 2y agoI haven't seen anyone pointing to an actual equivalent product available for $200 with shipping. The collapsible medical chairs I've seen when searching are not equivalent devices, they're heavier, more tiring and less durable and comfortable than the kind of chair in the article. This type of chair is semi-custom made to fit the user so they don't injure themselves or have unnecessary extra medical issues from using a chair all day and out in the world.
- maxglute 2y agoI don't think/know there's equivalent manufacturer over seas, just insinuations it could probably be done much cheaper over seas, customization included. High performance light weight wheel chair "feels" like there's a lot of overlap with making bicycles and I find it hard to believe you can't find a shop in an East Asian bike factory that already has the machines and labourers with years of experience bending aluminum pipes to avoid amortizing capex costs. Dude wants Made In America, quick shipping time (which I wager is important) which is fine, but it's going look like a $200 product that cost $1000.
- Suppafly 2y ago>Dude wants Made In America, quick shipping time (which I wager is important) which is fine, but it's going look like a $200 product that cost $1000. We sorta have that with everything though, you can source direct from china for a fraction of the cost, but the often pay several multiples of the actual cost for someone else to import it and provide the level of support and QA you expect from products.
- joe_the_user 2y agoI think the dismissals come because wheelchair users are already painfully aware of the options. Yes, there are different kinds of wheelchairs, there's no reason a premade, presized wheelchair has to cost thousands and they don't. The premade chairs certainly serve a need - for those who can sort of walk but need the chair to go distances (etc). But the reason for custom wheelchairs is they are for people who spend all day, everyday in the chair. And that's where the need and the pain is greatest and so exhibiting a "ready made" chair just isn't going to impress them.
- enneff 2y agoIf you look at the dismissals in this HN discussion you’ll find none of them are coming from wheelchair users or even people familiar with wheelchairs.
- blargey 2y agoNevermind that the article is clearly written by a wheelchair-user, for a publication about wheelchairs / related assistive implements, and clearly explains the pros/cons of the pricing and direct-to-consumer sales model, and includes their positive impressions on having used the chair in question as a daily-driver.
- piuantiderp 2y agoIndividual preference is offensive to a certain kind of worldview.
- roywiggins 2y ago"I don't get it, you can buy a laptop from Walmart for $75, what's the problem"