What is a self-balancing hoverboard?

What is a self-balancing hoverboard?

All hoverboards are self-balancing, which means they are able to carry a rider who can manouevre the board by using slight body movements. It takes very little effort to ride a hoverboard and getting used to balancing on one doesn’t take long at all.

A hoverboard is powered by silent electric motors and the-self balancing mechanism is called a gyroscope. There are two of them, one beside each wheel and they receive information about the speed and tilt of the board, from the wheel. Any movements you make are processed by the gyroscopes.

The gyroscopes take this information and transmit it to the logic board, which works in the same way as a computer motherboard. It processes all the data that comes in from the motors, the gyroscopes and the sensors.

There are also two sensors on the board situated underneath the footpads. As you lean one way or the other, these sensors detect an increase in pressure and tell the motors to instruct the wheels on which way to turn. They are highly sensitive and it’s not long before you feel as if the hoverboard is an extension of your body. The sensors work out how your weight is distributed and are what the rider uses to go forwards, backwards or turn.

The sensors also calculate the number of times the wheels go round (a term known as revolutions per minute) and send this information to the speed control board and the gyroscopes.

Each wheel has an electric motor inside it. They may look small, but they have enough power to run a home appliance – they provide the hoverboards propulsion. There are also tilt sensors house within the wheels.

As soon as you step onto a hoverboard, the sensors kick into action and tell the motherboard that there is a rider. As soon as this happens, the balancing technology system kicks in.

It’s a complex chain of events and is only possible because the sophisticated motherboard can process millions of data bytes a second. All you have to do is move and find your centre of gravity – the hoverboard technology will do all the rest.

When mounting a hoverboard, make sure you step on with your dominant foot first and keep your hands by your sides. When you are standing still, the hoverboard won’t move, but once you lean forwards or backwards, it will take off.

Most good hoverboards also come with the added bonus of Bluetooth capability, which means that you can feed information into built-in speakers and pair with an app that will give you unlimited information about your hoverboard, your rides, speed, battery levels etc.