Hendo Hoverboard 2.0 Unveiled For 'Back to the Future' Day
Right in time for "Back to the Future" Day -- with Wednesday marking the particular date that Marty McFly arrived in a future replete with self-tying shoes and self-drying clothes in the franchise's sequel -- Arx Pax unveiled the Hendo Hoverboard 2.0.
While the Hendo 2.0 may not be as versatile as the movie's depiction of a hoverboard, it's the best shot at a real working hoverboard that anyone has come up with so far.
The new hoverboard was unveiled primarily as a reward for the Kickstarter backers who ponied up $10,000 to Arx Pax last year, and the company already has plans for more streamlined versions next year. But as the company teased a week before Wednesday's unveiling to The Verge, the Hendo 2.0 represents some major improvements in design and performance.
The new hoverboard has better battery life, USB connectivity and a wireless kill switch for safety. It's purportedly quieter than the first version, which sounded like a high-pitched mechanical banshee whenever it was activated.
The new board is also built to hover more strongly and is steerable by shifting weight, more like a real skateboard. That's because the four hover pads are attached to a real skateboard deck, in the same way wheels would be on a skateboard. The first Hendo had a huge plastic deck and could basically only go in one direction at a time.
Some of the improvements in design that make it perform more like real skateboards are thanks to Tony Hawk. Just a few months after being the star of a prank video about "HUVr" -- a fake hoverboard that Funny or Die tricked the Internet into thinking was real -- the skateboarding legend got a chance to ride the real thing. After testing out the first Hendo, Hawk offered feedback that helped Arx Pax make the Hendo 2.0 feel more intuitive for skaters.
For those of you hoping to find hoverboards at your local electronics store or skateboard shop, don't hold your breath.
The Hendo 2.0 hoverboards are only going out to Kickstarter backers at the $10,000 level, which Arx Pax CEO Greg Henderson told The Verge were mostly businesses hoping to start hoverboard parks and that makes sense because of the way Hendo hoverboards get off the ground.
Unlike the boards in the "Back to the Future Part 2" or hoverboard hoax videos, the Hendo 2.0 has to use real physics, and that means using spinning electromagnets to create an oscillating magnetic field that repels the board away from a conductive surface. And that means in order to work at all, you have to be skating on a big copper surface.
A hoverboard park, where the owner has invested in the Hendo 2.0 and enough expensive copper to create a platform to skate on, is likely the only way you'll get to see or ride a hoverboard for the foreseeable future. But Arx Pax is supporting those entrepreneurial backers with ramp designs based on Tony Hawk's favorite designs.
"It's very likely that there will be hoverboard parks springing up around the world in the very near future," Henderson said.
If only we could get those self-tying Nikes, too.