Emily Li
- About 300,000 Onewheel electric skateboards have been recalled.
- Future Motion received four reports of deaths involving the Onewheel from 2019 to 2021.
- The recall includes models that lack a haptic buzz alert to warn riders when something is wrong.
About 300,000 Onewheel electric skateboards have been recalled after dozens of reports of injuries.
The US Consumer and Product Safety Commission announced the September 29 recall in a statement. According to the release, the skateboards "can stop balancing the rider if the boards' limits are exceeded, posing a crash hazard that can result in serious injury or death."
Future Motion, the company that manufactures the Onewheel, received dozens of incident reports about the boards, four of which ended in the death of the rider between 2019 and 2021, the statement says. Some of the reported injuries included traumatic brain injury, concussion, paralysis, upper-body fractures, lower-body fractures, and ligament damage.
All of the reported deaths were caused by head trauma, and the riders were not wearing helmets in at least three of the accidents, the CPSC says.
The recall includes all of the Onewheel (original), Onewheel+, Onewheel+ XR, Onewheel Pint, Onewheel Pint X, and Onewheel GT models.
People still using the Onewheel GT, Onewheel Pint X, Onewheel Pint, or Onewheel+ XR electric skateboards should download or update their Onewheel app to make sure it has the "haptic buzz" alert function, the CPSC said. The buzz alerts riders when the board is at its limits or has low battery power, the statement says.
"Haptic buzz is designed to work in conjunction with the existing pushback safety feature to help riders further recognize that the board's ability to balance may soon be exceeded so they can lean back and slow down to avoid crashing," Future Motion said in a statement.
Onewheel provided a website where customers can check the serial number of their device to see if it's eligible for the Haptic Buzz firmware update.