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  • I hate how he’s doing the kind of project a ton of people would like to help with, for free and on their own time, yet he’s making an LLM do all the interesting work. He can’t code so he vibecodes the whole frontend. He can’t reverse engineer so he leaves Claude with the uart connection. He doesn’t understand something so he makes an LLM explain it.

    With his platform he could easily find a person (or a couple) who could do this work themselves, not only saving him money, but nerdsniping someone into hacking a bike. A win-win for everybody.

    by nrabulinski
  • Imagine using a high level language with a mountain of libraries to stitch code blocks together with stack overflow glue, rather than write the project in assembly, fully understand what is going on, and get a much lighter and robust application like a True Programmer™.
    by WarmWash
  • He used to be a web developer before doing youtube fulltime, so "he can’t code" is a false premise.
    by atsuzaki
  • Yep, we're becoming further and further apart by the day.
    by globular-toast
  • It shows that you don't need to know how to code to succeed in this type of project.

    As someone who does know how to code, I find the approach to be great, as it can motivate others to try similar projects.

    by nickserv
  • I'm pretty sure if he did that someone would complain that he is using people as free labour to increase his youtube revenues.

    It's impossible to do anything on the internet without someone in the peanut gallery telling you you are doing something wrong.

    by fnands
  • Throwing shade at somebody for doing a project with the tools they had at hand is so weird.

    This sort of thing exactly aligned with the promise of AI (and every "automation advancement" since the dawn of time)! It's another layer of abstraction that allows less technical people to do the thing.

    by alistairSH
  • Imagine after mowing your own lawn with a petrol-powered lawnmower, you got some shades from the neighbors for "Robbing the kids in the community a chance for some honest labor. If you don't know how to use the gardening shear, ask the kids to do it instead of using the automatic lawnmower. Would be a win-win for everybody".
    by antran22
  • ok AND
    by shymasen
  • I was disappointed that he did not actually fix the two biggest safety issues with the bike: the runaway triggering positive feedback loop when walking the bike, and the backward-extending kick stand.
    by shrx
  • I would leave stuff like that to an engineer and not some dude that fiddles with bikes on youtube.
    by BizarroLand
  • I have a red one and a blue one. In storage at the moment.

    I guess I won't be riding them anytime soon. But I am glad to know there is a way to resurrect/improve them!

    by Nevermark
  • If anything this video is kicking off a storm of amateur hacking enthusiasm for these wild bikes. Do us all a favor and sell yours!
    by bdamm
  • A bit of a tangent, but I hate the way this channel uses AI. There's moments where the creator doesn't really know what they're talking about so they ask AI which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, I don't mind it! However, the way it's repeated verbatim mimicing the speech style of the creator is so offputting I don't really know how to describe it, sounds like someone trying to speak a language they don't know is the best way I can describe it. Might just be me though.

    edit:

    Actually the comment the creator left on the video is almost purely AI and is just as yuicky to read: "There are lots of questions about runaway Reevo mode, and it's a fun topic. Let's go deeper. First of all, I did add a "PAS Timeout" that turns off PAS after a few minutes, and is selectable in the menu. If you set this up from my Github repo, that feature is active. A lot of you also suggested a weight sensor on the seat, but that would disable pedal assist if you stood up out of the saddle, which is when you would need it most. Another suggestion was the dead man switch. That one would work! This is all fun to think about, so keep the ideas coming. I just MIGHT get another Reevo for myself."

    by himata4113
  • Maybe the trick is to own it - are AI vtubers already a thing?
    by _def
  • It seems to be Claude that was doing the majority of the work on the software, so I find it appropriate that Claude responses (as in Claude-in-a-harness-with-the-task-context-available responses) were passed through. Attribution should be clear though.
    by red75prime
  • This comment doesn't seem obviously AI-written to me.
    by caconym_
  • You don't know much about Seth do you? That's not "AI", it's called a script.
    by ak217
  • If you know Seth you know he kind of talks like that comment reads, and has for quite a while
    by wolttam
  • I've been watching Seth for years, that comment is pretty in line with his writing style. I expect he's using AI, but I don't think he would be lazy with it. I would expect him to prefer not replying at all over using AI to reply.
    by ehnto
  • Can anyone explain why in the world they would use an electroluminescent light instead of a simple LED?
    by WesSouza
  • In the video you can see that the LED lights the logo less evenly than the EL lighting. While that's not important at all, this might be the reason behind this odd choice
    by kvdveer
  • someone in the comments theorized it was at first supposed to be a full-fledged front light but the design changed and they just used whatever hardware was already there to power the logo
    by asimovDev
  • I don't have that model but I can very confidently say :

    - do NOT buy an e-bike with custom parts, no matter how "cool" it is!

    I bought a CowBoy years ago and honestly, it was great. Until it wasn't. Inexorably, it does not matter how good the parts are, how well designed it is, wear and tear WILL create problems. You WILL need to replace parts. If nobody but the company making the bike sell them you will get in trouble. It's the same with the App, if it's not open source relying on standard AND with existing, not upcoming, GadgetBrige support they will stop supporting your bike and brick it.

    Please, pretty please, as consumers who expect to keep on maintaining your bike over years, ASK your repair shop what THEY think is a good bike to fix. Not what is a good bike to ride.

    PS: I now ride a Fixie because screw CowBoy and all those e-bike startups who believe they are the new Apple. They aren't and I was the one paying for their delusion.

    by utopiah
  • >PS: I now ride a Fixie

    Fixies are the way to go. Less parts, less things to break. Very Unix-y.

    by uproarchat
  • > I now ride a Fixie

    With a conversion kit? ^_^

    by DANmode
  • app is a big point. i was apalled by the fact that the app for the bike (in the video) could no longer connect / authenticate with the bike

    i have a e-scooter and judging by the decompiled code it's some sort of chinese e-scooter reskinned by a european company. I know the app is not going to be around for long, so I slowly been trying to make my own.

    by asimovDev
  • I think it's a generally good place to start when buying anything, especially anything of high value. You want to be able to truly own it, which includes maintaining and repairing it.

    Now of course there are areas you can make trade offs. A lot of people like MacBooks despite them not supporting other operating systems very well and Apple still mostly being hardasses about outside repair, but they come with good performance and battery life.

    Making sure to keep maintainability in mind when making a product decision is critical to making an informed purchase.

    by jjice
  • I have been riding a Panasonic "Gyutto" [1] for about 10 years. I bought it when I had young kids, as it's designed to hold two child seats (one on the back, and one on the handle bars). Now that they've grown up I've replaced the child seats with baskets and use it for commuting every day and grocery shopping.

    The thing is an absolute tank - the only parts I've had replace are the tires and brake pads. And the design is really simple with all of the consumable parts being easy to replace. At about $1,400 USD, it's not cheap, but I'm shocked at how long it's lasted and how little maintanence it's needed.

    Definitely not "cool" - but one of the best purchases I've ever made.

    1. https://cycle.panasonic.com/products/gyutto_croomr_ex/

    by freetime2
  • Absolutely insane how people could have bought a bicycle that will become (partially) useless if they don't connect it with a mobile app. Even if this bike have the build quality of a spaceship I wouldn't even touch it with a stick.

    Kudos to Seth for cracking the control on the bike, just so we can reclaim control of an appliance that we paid for with our own money, one that won't work because the maker can't be arsed enough to make it work without a mobile app.

    Related: Cory Doctorow's [Unauthorized Bread](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...)

    by antran22