Non-parents might not believe it, but pushing a stroller around can be quite a tiring task, especially when the train gets rough. It’s a total body workout, pushing two kids under four in my old Uppababy Vista, which weighed as much as an iceberg and had the Tropic of Titanic. To remedy this, the Canadian startup GlüxKind has developed an electrically assisted stroller that makes it easier to push and can even drive itself, but only when your child is not on board.
The GlüxKind Ella is the brainchild of Anne Hunger and Kevin Huang, a couple who were less than thrilled when looking for a stroller for their daughter. They decided to build their own device by strapping an electric skateboard to a regular stroller and started developing their product from there. The device has three modes, the first of which is to add electric assist to the wheels when pushing around.
When you try this out in an admittedly limited demo at CES, it feels a lot like the kind of performance boost you get with an e-bike. You still have to push the thing around, but it just takes quite a bit of effort before the engine will start and help you. As well as being easier to move forward, you’ll also find that turning is much quicker than you might expect, which is also useful when trying to maneuver your Rugrat in tight quarters. It will also come in handy when going uphill or when you’re hauling lots of groceries in Ella’s surprisingly large cargo space.
I’m told the battery lasts around eight hours with mixed use, and you’ll need to charge it pretty much at the end of each day.
You can also set the stroller to rock your baby to sleep and move back and forth about a foot. I’m sure this will be a godsend for parents who otherwise pray at 3am for divine intervention as their precious child refuses to sleep. I’m aware that there are some security caveats to using a feature like this on a regular basis, but being able to call up the feature in a pinch will certainly be an instant sell for some targeted parents.
The last and most striking mode is self-driving, where the stroller drives a few meters in front of you. It maintains its power uphill and brakes to stay close to you as you descend the other side. But crucially, if you put your child in the seat and expect the stroller to do all the work, the system won’t work. A weight sensor in the cradle and stroller chair blocks the function when it detects the presence of a child.
A product like this is understandably going to be on the higher end of the price scale, and when it hits Kickstarter this spring, it’ll set you back $3,800 for the first 100 units. Once that early bird special is done the price will likely go up a bit, but in return you also get a built-in GPS so you can track where your stroller is if you’ve asked friends and family to babysit. GlüxKind also plans to build a community feature to find and connect like-minded parents — who are also willing to spend upwards of four grand for a self-driving stroller.
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