The devices are controlled by riders’ feet and depend on motorized wheels and tilt sensors that respond to forward, backward and sideways rider motion. Self-balancing scooters may not actually rise off of the ground, but they still had the ability to intrigue would-be riders. As Mashable’s Adario Strange writes, the board’s rise was fueled by “rapid and blind adoption by the celebrity class, scores of out-of-nowhere brands you've never heard of all offering the same product, and, of course, zero safety certifications.” At the height of their popularity in 2015, notes Fortune’s Scott Cendrowski, up to 40,000 hoverboards were being imported into the United States every day-many of them Chinese knockoffs designed to capitalize on what seemed to be an unstoppable fad. It’s a blow to an industry that, just last year, seemed as if it was invincible. But it may be time to set aside your board and step onto solid ground: As ABC News’ Gio Benitez and Margaret Chadbourn report, over half a million hoverboards were just recalled due to safety concerns. Why walk when you could hover? The dream of hovering above the ground instead of walking has long obsessed engineers and product developers, and the self-balancing scooters known as “hoverboards” have been nothing short of a retail phenomenon since they came on the market a few years ago.
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