I get that treadmills can be somewhat dangerous, you are basically building a moving road, but surely we’ve ironed out most of the safety kinks by now, right? Treadmills are an old, understood technology. At this point we really should only be seeing injuries from people who purposefully misuse them, not during normal operation.
It’s particularly galling for Peloton, because their gear is already overpriced. Shouldn’t some of that cost go into making sure that it doesn’t rattle itself apart?
Well, it is amazing to me, after watching the videos of what the Peloton was actually doing, how actually dangerous it looked. The deck is high and the rollers are much larger than normal giving it a lot of torque to suck kids underneath of it. It apparently has no sort of resistance sensors for when the motor is jammed, which kind of blew my mind. In the video where the kid wasn't seriously injured, the treadmill slowly ate the child until the treadmill wedged entirely on top of a large exercise ball, which was enough for the kid to get some space and escape. If that ball had not been there, the treadmill would have climbed on top of them and crushed them. It is ridiculous to me you can't build in a basic safety sensor or fusing mechanism that will blow when the motor hits a certain load at a certain speed or whatever.
You would think for such an expensive device, but then again... Guess they spent all their money on software? Most of the best treadmills I've seen have a disappearing belt with a deck wrapped around the end. Having the belt wrap around the outside seems nuts. Anything could get in there! What's worse is I've seen some other companies trying to follow this example.
Maybe the designers decided all the safety junk was too ugly?
I really don't understand at all. A 1st year mechanical engineering student with a moderate understanding of 3d CAD could had designed a cover that would have completely eliminated thei possibility of this. I think someone at the company probably did and some executive poo-poo'd it. I only have 3d cad for basic modeling skill and an EE and I could have designed it
> the rollers are much larger than normal giving it a lot of torque
Excuse the pedantry, but I think this is the incorrect physical explanation. Larger rollers mean that the linear speed at the rim is larger, and the roller impart in fact less force (e.g. conservation of energy).
Does not mean it is less dangerous. It's just dangerous for different reasons than you state.
It’s ok, technically correct is good around here as long as we are using good HN etiquette:)
My thought is the larger roller surface area just made it better at grabbing stuff and sucking it under the unusually high deck height. Dunno if torque is the correct term.
A treadmill design using large rollers would have a chosen motor and gearing combination to accomodate the large rollers, likewise for one with small rollers. They would likely be able to impart the same force at the roller (or at least which one would be stronger is unknown and a function of other design variables).
I saw that video as well and what struck me was that the treadmill detected a jam, reversed direction briefly (almost completely freeing the kid) and then resumed normal running (sucking the kid back in). In what world is it reasonable to have that sequence happen on a treadmill a person is running on with no human input?
> In the video where the kid wasn't seriously injured, the treadmill slowly ate the child until the treadmill wedged entirely on top of a large exercise ball, which was enough for the kid to get some space and escape.
I just watched a video that matches this description, and holy shit. The thing that unsettled me the most was the first moment, before the treadmill reversed direction for a second only to suck the kid back in. In that initial capture, the treadmill wedged itself against that kid's throat. Hard to tell for sure from the video, but if not for that momentary spin reversal, the kid would likely suffocate.
As a father of a similarly-aged kid, I can't stop shaking after seeing this.
Fortunately the child was able to escape in this case, but it's pretty easy to see how people, and children in particular, could be injured or worse by these treadmills.
Violence isn't the answer, but fear is, and the tendency to want violence in this case is due to company leaders involved in malicious activities have nothing to fear.
The rollers and torque aren't the issue here, dude. The lack of safe design is. An end cap on the design to eliminate the possibility of something getting sucked in is all it would have taken. I'm sure some "aesthetic minded" executive or product designed poo poo'd the idea to "maintain a certain Peloton look"
We have ironed out the kinks, it's just that Peloton decided to remove some of the safety features (IE, a guard at the bottom to stop feet from getting stuck under) to make it look sleeker.
Although there have been some reports of loose touchscreens, that has nothing to do with the event that led to this recall. A child got sucked under the device and crushed to death (they weigh in excess of 500 pounds). This isn't due to poor manufacturing, but rather misguided design.
I think the issue is not that they're old technology, but that gym equipment should not be shared in household rooms with children or pets. Really the entire category is just heavy as hell by design. Peloton’s whole shtick is normalizing gym equipment at home and they're doing it via silicon valley "move fast and break things" strategy, and here we are.
"The treadmill shouldn't be where kids can get to it" isn't enough of a barrier - as it is not OBVIOUSLY dangerous in the way that power tools or guns are.
Same way that kids shouldn't be playing on a stove or dishwasher but it's still required to mount them so that if they DO it doesn't tip and crush them. Especially since the hazard isn't necessary for the operation of the device (such as spinning blades are necessary for table saws, etc).
gym equipment should not be shared in household rooms with children or pets.
That sounds completely impractical - good luck keeping a child out of a room. Perhaps the devices should be safer, rather than passing the buck from the company to the individuals?
It's not just children. The design is inherently unsafe. 72 injuries, 29 of them actual treadmill users (presumably adult) sustaining broken bones and cuts. That's just the total reported to regulators.
It can be made safe. Lots of treadmills are relatively safe, barring slight pinch injuries. Peloton just made it this way for aesthetics and economics.
The technology is well understood, what's not understood is how to use less items on the bill of materials and/or less expensive items on the bill of materials, or to remove items from the well-understood technology until it is cheaper to produce, but also fails in new ways.
The push to the bottom impacts every single product/process, doesn't matter if the technology is well understood, there's always another penny to shave off the cost so manufacturer can make more profit.
Sadly price is an unreliable indicator of quality, because the consumer in general has no idea how much of that price went into build quality and how much went into profit, waste, employees’ salaries, taxes, suppliers, ...
It takes institutional knowledge and experience to make a safe and reliable product. Even if you had a whole team dedicated to it, it's not much use if the rest of the company doesn't care or do their part.
It also takes money. But why bother protecting the consumer or even the company if you're not legally or financially liable yourself?
There's little incentive to do things right. And when there is, most people will only ever learn the hard way.
> It takes institutional knowledge and experience to make a safe and reliable product.
Sorry no. This implies that reviewing the negligent faults in this Design was a difficult task.
A basic Hazard and Risk analysis would have flagged this.
Even if we ignore the lack of safety guards, I struggle to believe that it is legal to release a consumer product with this much torque without some form of overcurrent/stall/speed detection and safety cut-off.
I really don't see why you think we need to regulate this sort of thing. It should be legal to release any sort of consumer product you want, and we clearly sell much more dangerous things at a hardware store. We shouldn't try to taxonomize consumer goods and regulate each category arbitrarily. We should just let producers and consumers make their own decisions. If I want to sell a treadmill with circular saw blades on each corner, and someone else wants to buy it, who are you to tell me that's wrong? If my hyper-dangerous fitness equipment company becomes wildly successful, how is that any different?
That's just how consumer protection and liability law works pretty much everywhere in the world. I don't make the rules. But they do exist for a good reason.
I'm re-reading what I wrote, but I still can't see how you inferred that implication.
I agree that a hazard analysis should have identified it. But whether it did or didn't, there are still many possible reasons why it wasn't addressed effectively. Hence, a systemic failure.
I have no idea if it's legal, but any punishment would probably be on the company rather than the individuals.
I read it as if you were implying that identifying this was only attainable with very senior staff, which I disagree. But indeed perhaps I read too much into your comment.
If anything, it's the opposite. Even if engineering advocates for doing more about the problem, it only takes one manager screw it up. Either everyone has to want an ethical product, or there have to be formal processes to make everyone do the right thing whether they want to or not. Ideally both.
The optics on stalling on safety when affluent people's kids are getting maimed and killed while they jog off their corporate stress... I can't imagine a hollower place.
The problems came from the touchscreens loosening, detaching and falling, which I would assume is a fairly new problem in the history of treadmill safety.
Edit: main safety issue doesn't seem to be the touchscreens actually
I do not believe that Peloton is the first treadmill to use a touchscreen, nor are they the first company to install a touchscreen in a high vibration environment.
It’s particularly galling for Peloton, because their gear is already overpriced. Shouldn’t some of that cost go into making sure that it doesn’t rattle itself apart?