The 2 wheel self balancing electric scooter

The 2 Wheel Self Balancing Electric Scooter

With the release of the new 2 wheel self balancing electric scooter, 2015 has been an exciting year for gadget fans. All over the world, people are taking to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to post photos and videos of themselves zipping around on this 2 wheel contraption which basically looks like a board with a wheel on either side.

A cross between a skateboard and a segway, this mini Segway (without the handle) type thing is blowing up in popularity, fuelled in part by the amount of celebrities that have been seen on one.

From Justin Bieber to Soulja Boy, Kendall Jenner to Jamie Foxx, all have tried their hand at this nifty little gadget, and seem to have had a lot of fun doing so.

Nicknamed the 'swegway' (because of it's likeness to the Segway, but a 'cooler' version) we're not sure entirely where this particular electric scooter originated from or who invented the first. Most likely it originated from some factory in China. The first glimpses we saw of it in the media were a product called the IO Hawk, a scooter that sells for a whopping $1800. This was back in January of 2015. Since then many cheaper versions of the same product have come on the market and the average price at the moment seems to be around $500.

How does it work? Basically you stand on the two panels and shift your body weight slightly forward or slightly back and it senses this bodyweight change and moves backwards or forwards. It can also turn left or right. This scooter is proving to be so popular it's actually being touted as the personal mobility device of the future. Who wants to walk when you can glide, right? Plus it's a lot faster than walking, travelling at speeds of 6mph to 10mph.

Where can you buy one? These are available on quite a few different websites but under different brand names and at vastly different prices. For instance the IO Hawk mentioned above is $1800 while the Phunkeeduck is about $1500 and much cheaper is the Monorover R2 which comes in at just $400-$600 (depending on where you buy it). What's the difference between all these? None at all. In fact they're all almost exactly the same except for a few small, barely noticeable differences. It just depends on your budget and whether or not brand name is important to you.

More info: http://www.mylittlehobby.com/