How much would you pay to shorten your NYC commute?
Astoria resident Sam Ressler, 26, shelled out $1,200 to reclaim precious minutes, speeding up the daily trek to and from his SoHo office in a novel new way — with a pair of motorized Moonwalkers Aero shoes.
Like a pair of rollerskates that require less effort — or sandals with the get-up-and-go of an electric scooter or an e-bike — these four-pound foot assists can shave your walking time down by roughly 50%, according to maker Shift Robotics.
But speeding things up to as much as 7 miles per hour (the average human walks at 3 m.p.h.) isn’t the only reason Ressler’s a fan.
While he could have bought an alternate mode of transport for far less, he loves the “compact-like size” of his new shoes — that can be “easily shoved” into the closet at home.
“I’m in a pretty tight, cramped New York City apartment, so I don’t have room to fit a bike in here. I don’t really have room for a scooter,” Ressler, who works in client management, told The Post.
And since he always has the shoes with him while on the go, never having to worry about CitiBike app issues, availability or unlocking and docking dramas is ideal.
While more expensive than an annual CitiBike pass, which totals about $220 per year, Ressler calls it the cost of convenience.
“All the intermediary times that I’m using to take the bike … I’m not really saving all that much time,” he explained, saying he discovered the $1,199 funky footgear through an Instagram ad last fall.
Let your shoes do the walking
Shift Robotics founder Xunjie Zhang told The Post he invented the device while working his first job — trying biking, scootering and driving first.
All were frustrating in different ways, he recounted — eventually settling on a 30-minute walk as the best option, if a little bit too long for comfort.
Enter the Moonwalkers, a pair of small electrical vehicles that Zhang thinks of as a “natural extension of your legs.”
Enabled by complex robotics, the cutting-edge clodhoppers feature an AI-assisted gait controller, which uses internal sensors to measure the wearer’s pace to accelerate or decelerate — “without disturbing your walking balance.”
The robotic assists can also predict the wearer’s next motion — adjusting the pace or halting the wheels completely if you come to a full stop.
Zhang explained that each shoe communicates with the other “hundreds of times a second,” making the tech that determines the wearer’s stride and speed smarter all the time.
If you can wear them here, you can wear them anywhere
And while Ressler said he couldn’t determine the exact number of minutes he shaves off his morning commute, he’s pleased with the way the shoes “definitely speed up the process.”
But it’s not even about saved seconds, he said — overall, he’s more interested in the “fun” of wearing Moonwalkers.
“It’s not like this has replaced walking for me by any means, but I think it’s a fun alternative,” he admitted, adding that he does get a few curious looks when wearing the robo-shoes in the Big Apple.
“But, I mean, if I’m gonna wear them anywhere, this is the place to wear them, you know?”
Putting the tech to the test
Eager to test the maker’s claims, I took the futuristic footwear for a spin in crowded Midtown Manhattan.
While relatively light, the velcro-secured Moonwalkers felt like bricks — and the extra weight took some getting used to.
The footbed allows for your feet to bend at the toes as they normally would if you were moving along without Moonwalkers — despite the unnatural feeling of walking on wheels — and, unlike a pair of roller skates, the shoes adjusted to my stride automatically.
When I sped up, so did the Moonwalkers; when I started to slow to a stop, the wheels locked.
When I was finally brave enough to hit the pavement — after a test run involving a few near-misses with desks and colleagues indoors — I paced the streets of Midtown, garnering many puzzled looks, a few double takes and one cautious stranger who warned me to be careful.
Pretty soon, I was gliding effortlessly down the block, even over uneven or cracked sidewalks, at a speed much faster than I could reach if I was ambling at my usual cadence.
A commuter could get used to this.
Read the full article here
