The KO-X ‘all-terrain’ hoverboard promises to take a beating without exploding

Been holding off on buying a hoverboard until they stop blowing up and burning down houses? Now might be the time to strike. Juan Contreras, CEO and founder of Kiwano, says his new KO-X hoverboard doesn’t have this issue. How? Simple: he just uses parts from a trustworthy, reliable supplier. Unlike all the cheap and hastily-manufactured boards that seem to be flowing out of China, Kiwano’s boards are equipped with high-quality electronics (and most importantly, batteries) from Samsung.

According to Contreras, the Samsung batteries and circuits should work much better than parts from other companies, and he claims his hoverboard is the first to be powered by Samsung parts, helping it surpass the build quality of some other products.

He may have a point. Poor build quality has been a major criticism of hoverboards to date, and using parts from Samsung could certainly help alleviate that problem.

Contreras isn’t just building the hoverboard to be strong for the sake of it, either. He claims that his KO-X hoverboard is one of the first all-terrain hoverboards in the world, able to navigate not only the streets of a city, but also take you across sand and other reasonably flat terrains. All this at a top speed of 15.5 miles per hour.

Aside from being a self-balancing scooter, however, Kiwano also claims that the hoverboard is the first to connect to your smartphone, allowing users to track things like speed, distance, and battery. It’s even got a built-in speaker, so you can listen to sweet tunes while you’re hoverboarding to the beach.

Some hoverboards on the market are well over $1,000, but this one sits at only $400 for a “limited time”, after which it will go back to being a cool $800. Still not more than some others that might not even allow you to annoy people with your thrash metal as you speed through the streets.

from Planet GS via John Jason Fallows on Inoreader http://ift.tt/1Ulz8ZN
Christian de Looper