Suggestion list for new features on future Evolve updates/releases

Hello everyone,

I've had my GT for a couple of months now and I love it!

I thought it would be a good idea to create a list of improvements that we could suggest to Evolve for future board releases and/or updates.

These are based on my experiences and are mainly concerned with safety. I understand that a lot of my suggestions can be dealt with by being aware of the way the board is designed to work and adjusting your behaviour accordingly (e.g. turning off the remote to avoid accidentally hitting the accelerator). However, the GT has a lot of power and the potential to hurt the rider pretty bad so the more safety features and user friendly features, the better.

Anyway, here goes. If this gets enough comments, I will update this post with all the suggestions and send them to Evolve.

Please post your suggestions


EDITED with additional suggestions

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Electronic Speed Controller

• ESC needs a failsafe when it loses connection to the remote. It shouldn’t cut power abruptly but rather it should decelerate gently followed by gentle application of the brakes (if under power). If under brakes when the disconnection takes place, it should keep on gently applying the brakes until it stops.
• The ESC shouldn’t cut power abruptly when hitting low voltage but rather should go into low power mode that limits current draw (and therefore speed and acceleration). Basic hobby grade RC ESCs behave this way so it would be great if this was incorporate into the boards.
• It would be great to have a mode with a better acceleration curve without the overly sensitive initial jolt but with all the top end torque of GT mode. A simple expo curve to the throttle would take care of this.
• Improve brake sensitivity especially overly sensitive brakes in GT mode
• When at rest and the brake fully engaged the the board should actively avoid rolling by applying power to the motors (this might put additional stress on motors and battery)
• The speed modes feel like they are current limited, I think they should be speed limited. So for example ECO should have a low acceleration curve and a set top speed, but when you hit a hill the board should just keep dumping more power to keep that speed (this will affect battery life)

Remote

• Add a deadman's switch or trigger guard.
• Better Tx/Rx with a more robust 2.4GHz protocol. Something like what the better RC radios use (Spektrum DSMX or FrSky ACCST).
• Screen should be placed where it is not blocked by your thumb.
• Vibration alert when battery is getting low.
• Better algorithm to display battery percentage.
• Trigger needs more resistance and less sideways deflection
• More responsive button presses without any lag

Charger and battery

• Fast charger should be supplied by default with discount option for slow charger (better for battery life)
• Fast charger needs to be quieter and have improved aesthetics.
• Longer battery life.

Other

• The spacers and speed rings in the rear are too complicated, that needs to be simplified.
• Waterproofing
• Display on the board showing speed and distance

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This is my wish list for a better board. underlining wish as some of these ideas aren't really feasible with the current technology.

1 if the speed and acceleration of the street wheels could be had by the AT wheels then I would never have to convert over. A way around this could be planetary gears or nuvinci hubs in the rear wheels where the hubs are geared via ball bearings and theoretically higher Top speed and less strain on the motors.

2the remote needs a guard, I have to adopt of standing in front of the board at lights in case I knock the trigger.

3: connection dropouts with the new remote, it drops out when my leg is in the way of the board, it's okay on flat land but up a hill you notice any jolt. so stronger connection

4: extended range on the battery, in a few years time we might be seeing 100km range or even twice that, not that I would ride that much it's the buffer to allow big rides and riding hard. Combined with a gearing system would be intense but this brings issues of Weight etc.

Oh well dreams are free. If the remote can be built with a guard I'm happy, otherwise we have to 3d print our own

 

Good suggestions, but maybe we should limit suggestions to what's achievable in a release cycle. Seems like re-engineering the drive train with planetary gears and crazy battery ranges might be a bit out of scope?

Also, your point 2 is covered by my point 5 and your 3 is covered by 4.

 

I really like my board but.....

1: The remote screen should be moved higher on the remote so it is not blocked by your thumb.
2: The remote should have vibrations so when the board or remote battery is getting low the rider can feel it.
3: The battery charge level displayed on the remote fluctuates way to much and kind of breaks most peoples conceptual models of how batteries work.
4: The remote trigger has too little resistance and has too much sideways deflection
5: The lag between switching speed modes should be removed.
6: The break is too sensitive in GT mode.
7: The speed modes feel like they are current limited, I think they should be speed limited. So for example ECO should have a low acceleration curve and a set top speed, but when you hit a hill the board should just keep dumping more power to keep that speed.
8: When at rest and the break fully engaged the the board should actively avoid rolling by applying power to the motors
9: The spaces and speed rings in the rear are too complicated, that needs to be simplified.
10: Longer battery life (Bamboo).
11: The fast charger should be supplied by default.
12: The fast charger is too noisy.
13: The fast charger is ugly.

Also waterproofing would be cool

 

Sweet. Added your suggestions

 

Note about the fast charger suggestion. I say no having it by default. You should use the fast charger sparingly if you want longer life of your pack, higher charge current unless the pack is large enough to support the stresses means less life from each cell. I'm fine with the standard supplied charger. I'm also picking up the quick charger for trips and to toss in my backpack when cruzing the city. I don't care how ugly it is, make it compact and safe

Integrated lights are a great option to have built into the board. For one you don't have to worry about bringing them with you or having to recharge them. Secondly riding with them during the day and night captures people's attention, high safety factory. Third they can drive LEDs quite well these days. The lightening bolt front light is made to only be seen, not to see. My MetroBoard has integrated LEDs front and back, blue light up front red in back. They are driving 4 watts per led, so two up front and two in the back. I can actually see the road very well wtih them and prefer it over the white that blows everything out. Also I notice cars will slow down and stop trying to figure out if you're a cop or spaceship with the blue/white combo. I don't see the same thing happening with the Evolve at night with the lightning lights as much. But some people may not like built in lights and want simple.

 

Added more suggestions. Greyed out a couple that might not be relevant...?

Andy, regarding the remote changing to ECO when battery's low. I don't think this is well thought out. Especially when it hasn't been documented. I got a new remote and wasn't aware of it, so now my last accident makes sense now that you're telling us how it works. Battery was running low. I was in GT mode. I decided to switch down to Eco. Hit the button to go down modes twice. Coasted for a couple of seconds, hit the accelerator, and WHAM! board stopped. I ate it. Couldn't figure out why, but if what you're saying is right, it must have switched to Eco on its own so by pressing down twice, I must have changed it to reverse.

I think the ESC should just limit current draw when the battery is low. What do you guys think.

 

I want waterproofing. The area between the top battery cover and the board lets sand and water get in underneath. I added a weatherproofing seal myself, but can't imagine it would be that much more expensive of a board to put in a rubber seal there.

 

Just conformal coat / waterproof the control board and you're done. Even if water manages to get in that area, which you never can guarantee, you're protected.

 

Update the Evolve app so that it can sync to the board and allow more integration, updates, configuration, etc.

 

Good suggestions. pretty sure most have been suggested to Evolve already in the past, (if not by me!)

Trigger position matching speed would be good. so you pull the trigger and the board accelerates at a steady but increasing rate to that trigger positions matching speed. regardless of wind or incline or body weight. it should apply the relevant current to get to and maintain that speed. it would need to monitor the speed it's achieving in real time with the variables it's experiencing and adjust the current needed itself smoothly.

 

Hi Clouder7. I'm looking to waterproof my board once I get it. Any chance you can take a photo of your weatherproofing seal?

 

Hi wiztecy. Can you tell me the brand of conformal coating you used? Also the type and size of o-rings for the deck screws as well if you know off hand. Lastly, has this protection worked for you thus far? Assuming you have had a chance to test it out.

 

Many of these suggestions are similar to mine, especially:

1. Better throttle curve on the remote. Maybe allow owners to choose different throttle curves? IE, Linear vs geometric.
2. Initially, I was thinking that the trigger should set a speed rather than power too... until I realized that cars' throttles also set power, not speed. So maybe leave this one as-is. Though I'd sure like the board to continue pulling me up a hill when it drops into Eco mode, thinking the battery is low.
3. Better battery level indication. It's pretty crappy right now. I live in a hilly area and after a 4 mile ride, going up a moderate hill showed the battery in the red zone with just 3% left. Once I got up the hill and was cruising on the flats, it came up to 40%. When I got home and was sitting still, the battery showed 60%. This is kind of ridiculous.
4. Dead Man Switch on the controller.
5. Shape the controller to fit in your hand more like a handgun grip. So yeah, basically, the controller needs to be redesigned.
6. Smaller batteries that can be carried on a plane. You can carry 3 x 100Wh batteries on a plane, so allow these 3 batteries to be daisy chained on the board. I'd be perfectly willing to spend 15m on either end of a trip to remove and replace the batteries for flying.

Suggestions I haven't seen yet:

1. Better documentation. The manual is pretty skimpy, just covering a few basics. Things I'd like to know:
   • Does braking really do regenerative braking? I've seen 2 different statements:
     • Braking uses more power, so do it sparingly. This page also says that full throttle in a slow speed mode will use the same power as full throttle in high speed mode. This doesn't make sense. Maybe this is only for older, non GT models?
     • The boards have Regenerative Braking
   • Does the Fast Charger hurt the battery? IE, should it only be used when a fast charge is needed or doesn't it matter?
   • Tips on adjusting the trucks, torque settings for the various bolts.
2. Quicker way to access Reverse.

 

good points.
I'll say that the battery reading is accurate, as it reads in real time, so if you go up hills, or use faster modes, it will give you the reading properly, if you come to a stop you will see a higher reading, better to have accurate read outs, so I don't see an issue here, and the quicker way to get into REV is a tricky one, they changed the REV function in latest remotes, as some were hitting it by accident, though I do think the easy way to fix this would make it so you have to hold both buttons down for 3 seconds to go into REV.

 

How can 3% and 60% for the same battery level be accurate?

 

Because when you are going up a hill the battery indicator is prediction of how much juice you would have left if you stayed on your current trajectory up a hill. w.jordan is right the battery indicator is showing real time for the amount of throttle input you are using. For instance if I cruise among 30kmh then hit the trigger to go faster it will decrease the battery indicator from let's say 90 percent to 85, 84,83. And if I continue to accelerate this pace I can predict how much draw from the battery I am using if it drops a percent every half second.
If you ride a lot you can see how good that the indicator is, and you get used to it

 

I don't want the board to predict how much battery I have left at the current effort level. There's no way it knows whether the hill I'm climbing is another 50' or a mile. I bet it's simply reading the battery voltage and estimating percentage from that. Not accurate.

I want it to read literally, the percentage of charge left in the battery. Is it half full, 1/4, etc. Only I know, for example, that I'm currently on a flat and have a massive hill on my way home, or that I'm on a tiny, but really steep hill and it's flat for 10 miles after that.