Many of the original beta testers ordered their V1 and V2 units from Landwheel prior to July 2016. Individually we communicated through the Landwheel sales representatives the things that we observed were not working. Progress was initially hard to see.
We beta testers came together as a group about a year later in July 2017. Up until then, Landwheel had sent out many replacements but the improvements were not resulting in a safe or reliable product. Consequently the company’s image was getting beat-up pretty badly in the forums — despite what seemed to be a genuine intention to satisfy customers.
The original six beta testers agreed that we wanted Landwheel to succeed both because we wanted working products for ourselves and because the people that we had interacted with at Landwheel seemed so dedicated towards satisfaction.
We estimated that the Landwheel drives worked well on the factory floor with light Chinese riders at relatively slow speeds. On real roads at higher speeds with heavier riders, the drives did not function well.
We felt that a team of testers was needed to test on long challenging rides, and to provide feedback. We agreed this might be the only way the many product flaws were going to get resolved.
We also wanted to communicate with the top level of the Landwheel company because we suspected that culturally, Chinese workers were likely not going to be comfortable presenting the very harsh criticism of customers to their bosses. Also, we wanted to craft the communication with Landwheel to be very respectful and to remove the harsh negativity that typically erupts on public forums when customers don’t get what they expected.
We reached the owner of the company and proposed to be a small volunteer test group and suggested that new versions be sent only to our group until we as a team agreed that the products were safe and durable. We also proposed to reduce the number of replacements to help control costs. So when a new version was ready, it was sent out to a subset of the test team, not everyone. We also proposed that new units not be sold until the Beta test team felt the product was safe.
Finally, we moved our conversation from the public forums to the private forums so that the discussion of the product flaws and risks could help Landwheel – without simultaneously bringing about the public disassembly of their brand and reputation.
The original six members were very experienced electric longboarders and DIY builders. Several had expert level experience with Lithium batteries, and BMS design. We each brought some level of testing and diagnostics experience. Most of us were from the software industry and understood the value of scientific methods, experimentation and documenting results.
Some of the major items that Landwheel redesigned based on our feedback included increasing battery capacity, redesigning the ESC to throttle back acceleration to keep the battery above critical voltage and the incorporation of electric locomotive grade braking algorithms into the ESC logic.
Landwheel also redesigned the battery BMS, upgraded the urethane and increased the diameter of the wheels based on recommendations from the beta test team. This is just a short list.
The beta test team was comprised of riders of a variety of different weights. This was a critical success factor as it exposed how brakes could function safely for a rider of one weight and completely unsafely for riders of a different weight.
In this area, I believe Landwheel gained a huge advantage over their Chinese counter parts and even over some of the prestige brands.
Today, when I see video reviews of other Chinese boards, I hear comments from some reviewers saying the brakes on board ABC are “great” while other reviewers are flying off the front of the same board.
Even some of the top priced North American brands are having difficulty with downhill braking that can throw a rider on to the pavement or leave them without brakes. When I hear a reviewer say “whoah those brakes are powerful” it’s a sign to me that people are going to get hurt.
The braking outcomes in the L3-x are spectacular and Landwheel might actually lead on many dimensions of braking logic. Brakes are so important in my mind (as you may have gathered from my recent post on a Pomela YouTube review).
So few people who are reviewing electric skateboards understand that brakes that perform marginally poor for one rider can have catastrophic results for another riders of a different weight.
Similarly brakes that work well on a flat surface can perform in very unexpected ways on a downhill grade.
There is a huge difference between one youtuber test riding a board and giving it a thumbs up compared with a team of riders testing the same board.
Landwheel made many of their own improvements over and above the recommendations of the beta testers.
Between July 2017 and today, Landwheel sent the beta testers over 50 units to test.
The L3-x was the first version that we beta testers gave the thumbs up to. Our reactions were universally positive to the first low volume run of L3-x. Most beta testers owned multiple boards and the L3-x became the favorite ride for most of us.
Three months later the beta testers continue to stress test the L3-x. This testing has produced some failures of the L3-x shell. We have directed a great deal of study discussion and experimentation to this flaw and feel we have put together a menu of viable re-engineering ideas to Landwheel. It will be up to Landwheel to translate these into changes to the product and production line (as they have done many times in the past).
To date, the Beta testers have exchanged 1200 posts with each other. The initial 6 members have now grown to 14. The new members have been invited based on posts that show up in the public forums.
When a customer posts about a problem that seems new, the beta testers draw them in to the private forum to gather more details, pictures and testing input. In this way, the testing and analysis reaches beyond the numbers and miles logged within the beta testers.
So, that’s the history of the beta testers. The journey for the testers and for Landwheel has been long and interesting with some pretty amazing results. The beta testers have done most of their work out of the public eye, for reasons that I described above.
However, you are correct. Companies that have a solid beta test program end up producing much better, safer and reliable products than those who do not. So the quiet background efforts of the beta testers are indeed a very valuable ingredient to consider before recommending a product.
Also, as you say, a company that embraces its customer’s feedback in this way is worthy of recognition and trust for having done so.