On New Remote Design

In the beginning, there was the remote. It was big, plastic, and had a familiar way to control an electric motor -- a trigger.

But then electronics got smaller, and lighter. Yet the remote stayed the same size, mainly because it’s a nice size to fit in our hands. That’s where electric skateboarding comes onto the scene.

Unfortunately, around the same time, a lot of police have been shooting people holding wallets, and other objects, *thinking* that they were holding guns.

Which prompts the joke, when people see me holding the original Evolve remote, “Don’t get shot by someone thinking that’s a gun.”

I’ve asked many people if they thought they might mistake the remote for a gun. But nobody thinks they would. Partly because this is Florida and people here *love* their guns. But partly because it’s a big clunky, plastic thing, with a red trigger, and not even a barrel. It’s obviously not a gun. simply in the shape of a gun.

Still, wouldn’t it be nice to have a remote, in, you know, a different shape?

I guess the people at Evolve and Boosted both thought the same thing. Now that I’ve had the chance to use both of their new remote designs, I’d like to comment on them and say … You’re doing it wrong!

The first point, they got right. The new remotes aren’t in the shapes of guns. But they are small, black objects that are mostly concealed in the rider’s hand. I think about how men have been shot for taking out their wallets. Amazingly, both of these small remotes, I feel, are more likely to be mistaken for guns than their clunky, gun shaped predecessors.

Of course, both remotes have plenty of lights on them. And the lights are where we might realize they’re definitely not guns. But still. They’re doing it wrong.

Because skateboarding. Part of skateboarding is falling down. When you’re skateboarding and you fall, you don’t get any time to react. Not even to throw away the remote. When you fall with a remote in your hand, you fall on the remote. I’ll throw up some pics of my old Evolve remote so you can see. It’s all scraped up.

Sooner or later, I’m going to fall on these new remotes, too. And when I do, I’m very scared I’ll break them. The only logical solution is to work the remote into skating gloves. Why haven’t they  figured this out yet?

I’m talking to you, Sanjay Dastoor. I’m talking to you, Jeff Anning. I’m putting a picture of my scratched remote on Instagram. I’d like to see what yours looks like. Have either of you ever fallen on one of these new, small remotes? Did it break? I’m curious.

I’ve put a lot of thought into the remote. Because you really want use of your hands while you ride. Watch a professional skate video. They don’t even wear kneepads anymore. You can protect yourself with just your shoes and your skate gloves. The only solution is to build the remote into the skate gloves. The way these guys are designing remotes, it’s discourages the use of gloves, because it’s hard to wear gloves and work these remotes.

Make the hockey puck on the gloves so that it spins to adjust the potentiometer, the control over the electric motor. Add a kill switch if the hockey puck is pressed against the palm, as it would be in a fall or slide. The buttons can go almost anywhere. Trust me, bra!

I have to add that the Boosted Remote has one big advantage over the Evolve remote. It has a battery indicator. Both for the battery in the remote, and the battery of the board. That’s huge! The Evolve remote only indicates low battery for both the remote and the board.

All the time I’ve been riding my Evolve board, I’ve been doing guesswork. I’ve been using the gps powered MyTracks to see how far I’ve rode, in order to know how much charge the battery had. In other words, it’s guess work. If there’s one further way for Evolve to evolve, they’ve gotta get full on battery indicators.

Despite having this extra feature, the Boosted Remote is arguably worse. It has a trigger button, which you have to keep pressed in order to use their remote. While you’re pressing it, you’ve got to turn something like a mouse wheel to control the motor. The end result is more awkward than it should be.

The problems with both remotes are minor, to be sure. You’ll still be luckiest, coolest kid on the block to have either. I’m just saying, there’s room for improvement still.