[humbleferret]

I was curious so looked at a few power wheelchairs...It's wild how expensive they are, especially considering the advancements in electric mobility tech elsewhere. You'd think they'd share some components with e-scooters, e-bikes, or even electric cars – motors, batteries, controllers.

Are the powertrains and control systems in power wheelchairs really that specialised? Or is it another case of the medical device markup and regulatory hurdles driving up costs?

[amiga]

I'm a guy who has disassembled and reverse engineered a standard Jazzy power chair, and what I noticed was the attention to detail regarding failures. The chair is thoroughly designed to shut down at the slightest bit of trouble. There's some redundancy in things like the controller, where it used redundant hall effect sensors that were identical to the others, but ran in an inverted power profile, to detect any weirdness in the sensor outputs.

I ended up adding a long range remote control to it. A remote control power chair is fun to drive around. People do get a little concerned when they see a chair rolling around without a driver

[orlehuxwell]

My mum recently had a curbside crash while she was riding an e-bike. This resulted in her breaking bones in both her hands, which resulted in a surgery in her left hand and various problems (tcl fracture related) with her right hand.

This makes me actually appreciate reliability in e-vehicles motor cutoffs etc. I keep thinking if this could have been avoided with a better quality e-bike or if actually it would be even worst with a cheaper one.

Which makes one think, how often a wheelchair with cheap e-scooter parts would crash people into staris, cars etc

[crooked-v]

> People do get a little concerned when they see a chair rolling around without a driver

Add a hat and a scarf on a wire and you've got a Halloween prop.

[lynx23]

Assistive technology costs are high because consumers barely have an alternative. I am blind. In Europe, a 40-cell braille display starts a 6k. 6k, just for a monitor which displays 40 characters. Prices are largely unchanged since 20 years. Technological advancements are irrelevant. Resellers will squeeze the cow, thats plain capitalism man.

[pbasista]

If that is the case, then there seems to be a place in the market for someone else who can sell these devices for cheaper.

However, as you have pointed out, since it is also a market where people have few choices, there is no incentive for any new player to significantly lower the prices. Even if they easily could. Because they know that they will get the customers anyway.

That seems to be the root cause of the excessive price problem. An existing oligopoly of rent-seeking companies. Or a cartel, if you like.

I think that one of the ways to disturb this market and bring the prices down is for some honest company to join it and price their products fairly.

Once there is one such company, I assume that everyone else will lower their prices as well. Because otherwise they will run out of business.

[zestyping]

If you don't mind educating a curious person — why are Braille displays still worth making when text-to-speech is free, everywhere, and communicates information much more quickly than Braille? I can understand that there might be special situations where you really need a device to be silent, but it's hard for me to see how the cost-benefit tradeoff would weigh in favour of a Braille display except in the rarest of circumstances.

[mistercheph]

Just from googling -- an orbit reader 40-cell appears to cost $1,700 USD, is there a reason this doesn't actually solve the same problem as the 6,000 euro display, or are these not available in your market for that cost? Sorry if my question is off the mark, I don't know a lot about this and your comment piqued my curiosity.

[Cthulhu_]

I suspect a major difference is that those e-scooters, bikes, cars, etc are produced and sold by the millions, whereas wheelchairs are small volume by comparison. Another commenter mentioned the legal requirements, which complicates things.

That said, a quick google says there's 65-132 million wheelchair users worldwide so it's not a small market either.

[nothercastle]

Most of them are probably in countries where 1000 is a years wages.

[space_oddity]

...but the production and distribution of wheelchairs

[space_oddity]

I think a significant portion of the cost is related to the "medical device" label.

[tim333]

It's impressive and a little sad how cheap you can get them second hand.