For anyone who's ever wanted to own a Segway but didn't have any room for it in the house, here's your chance.
Beijing robotics startup Ninebot, which recently acquired Segway, on Monday announced a tiny new version of the motorized scooter. The Ninebot Mini will be dramatically different from the Segway models we've come to know.
For starters, it's about 2 feet high and 28 pounds, so you can easily carry it. Rather than a full-sized handle, the Ninebot Mini has a knee-high handling stick. It can hit a top speed of 10 mph and should be able to travel 13.7 miles on a single charge, according to Cnet, but it's meant for shorter distances -- like from your parked car to your office door. Or from your bedroom to the bathroom. Or, why not, from the couch to the fridge.
The scooter will also come with a mobile app capable of controlling its movement and sounding an alarm if someone messes with it.
But it's not just the size that's gotten smaller. Ninebot shrank the price tag, too. The Mini is just $316, whereas the original full-sized Segway starts at around $6,000. (Ninebot also sells its own version of a larger Segway, which is available for nearly $3,000 on Amazon.) The Mini is also supposedly a fraction of the cost of similar scooters sold in China.
The teeny device will be released in China on Nov. 3, according to Engadget. Ninebot did not immediately return a request for comment on whether the Ninebot Mini will come to the U.S.
The acquisition last year of the U.S.-based Segway company came around the same time that Ninebot secured a funding round of $80 million, part of which came from Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer and one of the most valuable startups in the world.
The Ninebot Mini will be released in China on Nov. 3, according to Engadget. Ninebot did not immediately return a request for comment on whether the device will come to the U.S.
Also on Huffington Post: