SpnKix Review

Image from spnkix.com

I backed this company on kick-starter by 'buying' a pair of electric roller skates called Spnkix.

The design looked cool and fun, but I am very disappointed in the result. I thought I might as well take a few minutes to publish this as a review here so that anybody else who is considering buying them knows what they are getting.

Review of the Product

TL;DR: Seems like a good idea, but isn't.

The experience is not at all like roller skates, so it takes a bit of getting used to. The general feel is different but not necessarily too bad. The braking effect is cool – it applies a nice constant stopping force and is much better than any mechanical brakes.



It is kind of a shame that that only the wheel on one side is motorized. Because it kind of twists your body as it applies power, so you are always having to work against it.

Also, for something that is supposed to be easier than walking, it is certainly really tiring – maintaining the posture and balance is a lot of work. After the first 15 minutes of using it I was sweating profusely like I'd just had a workout.

Also, I don't know if they are all like this, but my pair always pulls a bit to the right. I think this is because each skate applies a slightly different amount of torque in response to the controller.

Swapping the left and right ones over from what they recommend feels much better. Having each skate on the foot that is indicated L/R means that the motors are on the inside and they kind of push outwards, this requires always pulling your legs together like you need to go to the bathroom. I didn't like this.
Switching them over onto other feet, so that the motors were on the outside felt much better. Now they require pushing outwards to counteract them steering inwards, which feels better for me.

For people with smaller feet they have a lot of difficulty standing still on their toes. The strap seems oversized for regular shoes. The width is non-adjustable causing my feet to shift left and right at times (the large straps made this worse). Also note that I'm 5'10", and shoe size 10, so poor fitting must be a very common problem.

Overall, the effort it takes you to compensate for the strange torque they
cause on your feet and body seems to not be worth the fact that motor is
powering you forward. I can't imagine any situation where I would prefer to use these instead of regular roller skates.