An out-of-warranty battery almost left this paralyzed man’s exoskeleton useless
www.theverge.com
He couldn’t walk using the machine for two months.

"Michael Straight, a former jockey paralyzed from the waist down, was left unable to walk for two months after the company behind his $100,000 exoskeleton refused to fix a battery issue. "

“I called [the company] thinking it was no big deal, yet I was told they stopped working on any machine that was 5 years or older,”

  • 🔰Hurling⚜️Durling🔱@lemmy.world
    81·
    2 months ago

    Honestly, the law should be that the batteries need to be designed to be replaced by off the shelf options. Basically, add instructions on how to relatively easily to replace the battery cells with the same ones found inside laptop batteries that can be ordered off Amazon or similar places.

      • corsicanguppyEnglish
        7·
        2 months ago

        Imagine what smartphones would look like if they still had to be powered by AAA batteries.

        That’s a false comparison. We have Lithium and NiMH batteries available off the shelf for common things that aren’t phones. The technology is available for a COTS phone battery replacement, as long as it matches a common form-factor.

        And if phones can’t work around a common battery form-factor but yet all look like fucking candy-bars, then I call bullshit.

      • kent_ehEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        But people don’t want that.

        Until something goes wrong and they discover (usually too late) that they actually did want that.

          • kent_ehEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            On the other hand, there is a very valid reason why things like batteries are so expensive to replace and why you can’t find replacement batteries for a lot of products a certain amount of time after production ends.

            On the other other hand, there are tons of commonly available industry standard batteries that a manufacturer could choose to use, if they wanted to.