When it comes to balanced cars, Segway must be the first thing to think of. As the world's leading manufacturer of balance cars, Segway itself is the inventor of balance cars, which is why many people call balance cars Segway. In April 2015, after obtaining the investment of 80 million dollars from Xiaomi Technology, Sequoia Capital Fund, Shunwei Capital and Huashan Capital, the well-known domestic balance car manufacturer Ninebot of Xiaomi Ecological Chain Company announced to acquire 100% of the equity and all assets of Segway. But for ordinary consumers, the price of tens of thousands of Segway is still unacceptable, which also leads to the reason that the balance car has not been accepted by the public. Since Xiaomi has chosen to invest in Ninebot, Ninebot must design a balanced car that can at least be bought by rice noodles. The product can make users scream at the price. After one and a half years of design, the No. 9 balanced car, also known as Ninbot Mini, was finally released at Xiaomi's next generation product conference in October 2015, and the price was set at 1999 yuan, which is very familiar to rice noodles, Compared with the two wheeled balance cars of the same specification on the market, this price is amazing enough.

As the cheapest two wheel balance car in Ninbot, can the No.9 balance car make the balance car that has never been popular popular? Or can No. 9 balance car become an ideal vehicle for people? With these questions, let's have a good experience with this balanced car specially designed for rice noodles by Ninebot. First of all, I would like to thank Lei Feng for the product trial opportunities provided by the trial platform.

The process of unpacking will not be described too much. In order to facilitate transportation, the foot control lever and the body of the balance car are packaged separately. The installation process is also very simple. You can easily fix it by using the tools and hexagonal socket screws attached to the accessory box. After tightening the screws, remember to cover the buckle cover in the accessory box, or it will affect the beauty.

The No.9 balance car is also called Ninebot Mini, so it is called. Compared with some two wheel balance cars before Ninebot, it is smaller in volume. The net weight of the balance car is only 12.8kg, which is officially said to be "easy to mention", but the actual experience is somewhat exaggerated. As an adult man, it is not a natural problem to handle with one hand, but for female users, they still feel a little biased. The author tried to climb the stairs by hand, and it was quite difficult to walk to the third floor. Of course, compared with some large balance cars that can't be held at all, or small balance cars that need to be held hard, the mobile phone of the foot lever handle of Xiaomi No. 9 balance car is really commendable.

Mini Another structural change is that the handlebar is changed from a hand controlled handle to a foot controlled steering bar. The advantage of this change is that it can free your hands. The foot control is used for steering, and the forward and backward movement of the balance car is given to gravity sensing. The addition of foot control will be safer and easier to follow than some small balance cars that completely rely on gravity to control the direction and move forward and backward. However, compared with the handlebar, the foot control is a little less safe, especially for novices. When standing with both feet, you should also take into account the foot control rod, which will inevitably make you uncomfortable for a long time. Fortunately, the handle position uses soft materials, so the hand and foot feel are pretty good.

At the front of the car body, there is an LED display screen, which can display the lock indication, Bluetooth connection, speed limit mode and the balance car's endurance. The power switch of the balance car is located on the upper part of the display screen. The cover at the bottom of the display screen can be opened. Inside is a 4-pin charging interface. The two eyes on the side of the charging interface are the headlights of No. 9 balance car.

In addition to determining the front and back directions of the balance car through the position of the display screen, there are also huge arrow marks on the pedal of No. 9 balance car to remind you not to stand in the wrong direction, so as to avoid potential safety hazards. The pedal is also made of soft material, which is more comfortable to step on. It has a cushioning effect on both feet more or less when the road is rough.

Due to the limitation of the body structure, this car can only be equipped with a plank car suspension. In fact, No. 9 balance car does not have a shock absorption system. It can make the road conditions clearly transmitted to the hands and feet, and the road feel is sufficient. When encountering bumpy roads or speed bumps, remember to slow down and bend your knees slightly to avoid shaking you out.

nine Although the tires of No. 1 balance car are not as strong as those of the ordinary Ninebot two wheel balance car, they still have obvious advantages compared with some small balance cars at the same price. 10.5 inch vacuum skid tire It can ensure the stability and trafficability of the car body. In combination with the tire lines designed through engineering calculation, the grip performance is fairly good, and the general road conditions are not easy to slip. In addition, the chassis height of No. 9 balance car has reached 9cm, which is also an ultra-high standard in balance cars. The higher chassis can ensure certain trafficability, and some small pits can pass without problems.

Considering the driving safety in dark light environment, the designer, referring to the car lighting system, equipped No. 9 balance car with automatic running lights and LED tail lights. The front automatic driving lights can illuminate the road ahead, so that you can easily understand the road conditions. It can adjust the brightness according to the external light, and the irradiation distance can be up to 5 meters. The two LED tail lights are blue by default. When decelerating, the red brake light will be on, and the yellow turn signal will indicate the direction when turning.

However, when driving at night, I still feel that the lights are not powerful enough. Because the lights are relatively low, they can only take care of the ground and make you pay attention to the potholes. However, for other objects, such as people and vehicles, I still can't take care of them. Therefore, in places with insufficient light at night, you should also pay attention to reducing the speed, or DIY headlights on the helmet.

Xiaomi No.9 balance car adopts aviation grade magnesium alloy skeleton, combined with 15 safety guarantees such as "start up and stop", "fall down and stop", "fault alarm and black box", which is more exciting than some mixed brand balance cars on the market at present Direction. At the same time, Xiaomi&Ninebot also prepared a "PICC P&C accidental injury insurance" worth 359 yuan for each user of No. 9 balance car. The insurance will take effect immediately when the balance car is activated.

Test ride experience - novice teaching&speed limit mode

The default speed limit of Xiaomi No.9 balance car is 7km/h. Before riding, it needs to connect the mobile phone Bluetooth and activate it on the APP, or it will be permanently limited to 7km/h. After activation, the next thing to do is to follow the APP to complete the novice teaching task step by step. The novice teaching includes correct boarding - steering - forward and backward - getting off - picking up and dropping the balance car. After all the teaching tasks are completed, the speed limit of the balance car also rises from 7 km/h to 10 km/h. At this time, the user can basically grasp the driving essentials of the balance car. With the driver's license, he can go everywhere.

However, just like a novice who has just obtained a car license, he is not allowed to drive on the highway alone within one year. The No. 9 balance car needs to ride 1000 meters at a speed of 10 km/h before it can completely unlock the maximum speed of 16 km/h. Of course, after the speed limit mode is removed, when the user needs to, for example, play with friends, the speed limit mode can still be reset to 5km/h~10km/h through the mobile phone APP, and the speed limit mode can be set to 5km/h~10km/h as required.

Test ride experience - on the road

In order to solve the potential safety hazard caused by emergency braking, the maximum speed of Xiaomi No.9 balance car was limited to 16km/h. When I first rode the balance bike and walked on the path near my home, I felt that the speed was fast enough. But when you are really on the road, when you come to the road, you may even feel that the speed limit mode is still on when you are constantly reminded of speeding. In fact, the speed of 16km/h is far from enough on the road. When exceeding the extreme speed during driving, the balance car will automatically tilt the body backward, accompanied by a continuous drip sound, which is intended to remind the user that he has exceeded the speed limit.

At the same time, due to the limitation of the body structure of the balance car, the plank car has no shock absorption energy to transmit all the vibrations on the road to the feet, which will lead to the direct consequence that the feet will feel numb and sour after long distance driving. It is also basically clear that No. 9 balance car can only be used for short distance transportation.

Test ride experience - extreme slope test

Ninebot The Xiaomi No.9 balance car is equipped with high-performance 700 watt direct drive dual motors. Its performance is not only to make you feel 4 times the speed of walking, but also to show excellent stability and dynamic balance. Officially, it can easily climb a 15 degree steep slope. Let's try the climbing ability of this power combination.

The first scene: the park is paved with strips of stone, and the gradient is between 5 and 10 degrees. As can be seen from the video below, it is still very easy for the No.9 balance car to cross this gradient, the tires do not slip, and the power output has never decreased.

In the second scene, we added some difficulty to the balance car. The slope is more than 10 degrees and the maximum angle is close to 15 degrees. This section of road condition can reflect the mild off-road ability of the balance car. However, the performance of No. 9 balance car is surprising. Although the tires slip slightly at the maximum gradient, it is still easy to pass. This proves that the official maximum gradient of 15 degrees is relatively accurate.

The third scene is a small lawn slope with a maximum angle of more than 15 degrees or even more than 20 degrees. The purpose of testing this slope is to test the limits of No. 9 balance car. Unfortunately, this kind of gradient is still difficult for a balanced car of this specification. The car alarms all the time during the driving process, and the tire skids seriously, until it loses power and the challenge fails.

To sum up, the climbing ability of Xiaomi No.9 balance car is just like the official introduction. With two direct drive motors with a total output power of 700 watts and an instantaneous power of more than 2000 watts, it can easily climb 15 degree steep slopes or small obstacles . And with a 10.5 inch large tire and a 9cm chassis ground clearance, it is not a big problem to make it perform light off-road driving.

Test ride experience - is it suitable for children

The trial age of No. 9 balance bike is 16-50 years old, so can younger children ride? The answer is feasible, but it is better to open the speed limit mode on the premise of ensuring safety. For children who are light in weight and short in height, there is a problem that their feet are too high to control when riding. At this time, children can only use their hands. Of course, hand control is more tired than hand control. In addition, when the hands touch the foot control handle during cycling, the balance car will send out a drip warning sound. Then comes a problem, or a bug. When getting off the bus, carry the balance car and "pick up and stop" protection It will fail and the motor will rotate. At this time, it is recommended to close the balance car and restart it. It will be normal. In fact, if we can design a retractable foot control, maybe this problem can be solved.

Endurance performance

No. 9 balance car is equipped with 30 imported 18650 lithium battery packs, With the intelligent BMS battery management system, the official promotion of the normal driving range is about 22km. It should be noted here that the official data is measured when driving on a flat road at an average speed of 15km/h with 70kg load and 25 ° C ambient temperature under full power. For example, the author, after many violent climbing evaluations, will significantly reduce the endurance. After driving 12.9km, the driver will be prompted to drive about 4km. Of course, if you drive normally, the official data should be more reference value. However, although 22km can meet the requirements of daily transportation, it is still slightly lower than some balance cars at the same price level with a range of nearly 50km. Fortunately, the charging speed is relatively fast. It can be fully charged in about 2 hours from the defect prompt.

APP End experience

After the mobile phone is connected through Bluetooth, the main page of the NinebotAPP can not only set the opening and closing of the speed limit mode, but also view the instantaneous speed of the balance car movement and the forward direction of the balance car. Through the pull-up menu, you can also count the time mileage, total mileage, vehicle temperature, average speed and other information of this trip at a glance.

Another interesting way to play through the mobile phone is the Bluetooth remote control. At this time, the mobile phone becomes a remote control, and the 360 ° steering lever flexibly adjusts the speed and direction However, it is not easy to operate and needs to be adapted slowly. If you want to imagine that Xiaomi employees can deliver water to Lei Jun through APP remote control No.9 balance car at the press conference, you need to work hard and practice slowly.

In addition, APP can also set the lights, sensors, etc. in addition to the speed limit settings mentioned above. In addition, it can also set the vehicle password, close the balance car, black box data export, etc. Also check mileage information and battery information.

Another imperfect setting of the balance car is the locking function. After locking the car with mobile phone, move the balance car, the car will vibrate and sound the alarm, and the mobile phone will also receive the alarm notice. However, the alarm notification of the mobile phone is based on the connection range between the mobile phone and the vehicle Bluetooth, and the APP needs to be opened. However, the problem now is that when the mobile phone APP exits, the Bluetooth connection between the balance car and the mobile phone will automatically cancel, and the alarm function on the mobile phone end after the car is locked will actually be useless. But fortunately, the car lock will shake when others touch it, and the car can't balance. If you want to play, you have to wait for me to unlock it.

summary

To sum up, the Xiaomi 9 balance car, although unable to replace the traditional means of transportation, is at least competent as a short distance vehicle. As a new toy of the "next generation", its appearance design is attractive enough at first. When riding on the road, it is full of eye-catching tools and has a high turning rate. The price of 1999 yuan is amazing enough to have the potential to become a popular toy. Of course, if the No. 9 balance car can be more powerful in endurance, the foot control design can adapt to more age user groups. Maybe Xiaomi&Ninebot will really make products like balance cars hot because of this product.