The High-Tech Texan Blog

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Segway Recall

Great. Now I have to schlep my 75+ pound Segway in my car to get a glitch fixed. Or I could just glide down the Southwest Freeway, recharging it every 10 miles.
Segway Inc. is recalling all 23,500 of the self-balancing scooters it has
shipped to date because of a software glitch that can make its wheels
unexpectedly reverse direction, causing riders to fall off.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is cooperating with
Segway on the voluntary recall announced Thursday, said consumers should stop using the vehicles immediately.

Segway is offering a free software upgrade that will fix the problem. The
upgrades will be done at Segway’s 100 dealerships and service centers around the
world, according to Segway spokeswoman Carla Vallone, and the company will pay
to ship the devices to the appropriate center if need be.

It is the second time the scooters, which sell for about $4,000 to
$5,500, have been recalled since they first went on sale in 2002. The 2003
recall involved the first 6,000 of the devices sold, and involved a problem that
could cause riders to fall off the device when its battery ran out of juice.

1 Comments:

  • There is a way for owners to reset their Segways. I had to do this only once. It involved taking apart the vertical steering/handlebar column and unplugging the main connector for a few seconds.

    Don't think there is really a way to upgrade the firmware. Dean Kamen needs to go back to the drawing board.

    By Blogger The High-Tech Texan, at 3:46 PM  

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