This post was originally published on the RescueTime blog. Check us out for more like it.
When exactly are we the most productive?
Thinking
back on your last year, you probably have no idea. Days blend together.
Months fly by. And another year turns over without any real
understanding of how we actually spent our time.
Our mission at RescueTime
has always been to help you do more meaningful work. And this starts
with understanding how you spend your days, when you’re most productive,
and what’s getting in your way.
In 2017, we logged over 225 million hours of digital time from hundreds of thousands of RescueTime users around the world.
By
studying the anonymized data of how people spent their time on their
computers and phones over the past 12 months, we’ve pinpointed exactly
what days and times we do the most productive work, how often we’re
getting distracted by emails or social media, and how much time a week
we actually have to do meaningful work.
Key Takeaways:
What was the most (and least) productive day of 2017?
Simply put, our data shows that people were the most productive on November 14th. In fact, that entire week ranked as the most productive of the year.
Which
makes sense. With American Thanksgiving the next week and the mad
holiday rush shortly after, mid-November is a great time for people to
cram in a few extra work hours and get caught up before gorging on
Turkey dinner.
On the other side of the spectrum, we didn’t get a good start to the year. January 6th — the first Friday of the year — was the least productive day of 2017.
Now, what do we mean when we talk about the “most” or “least” productive days?
RescueTime
is a tool that tracks how you spend your time on your computer and
phone and let’s you categorize activities on a scale from very
distracting to very productive. So for example, if you’re a writer, time
spent in Microsoft Word or Google Docs is categorized as very
productive while social media is very distracting.
From that data, we calculate your productivity pulse — a score out of 100 for how much of your time you spent on activities that you deem productive.
On November 14th, the average productivity pulse across all RescueTime users was a not-so-shabby 60.
How much of our day is spent working on a digital device?
One
of the biggest mistakes so many of us make when planning out our days
is to assume we have 8+ hours to do productive work. This couldn’t be
further from the truth.
What we found is that, on average, we only spend 5 hours a day working on a digital device.
And with an average productivity pulse of 53% for the year, that means we only have 12.5 hours a week to do productive work.
What does the average “productive day” look like?
Understanding our overall productivity is a fun exercise, but our data lets us go even deeper.
Looking
at the workday (from 8am–6pm, Monday to Friday), how are we spending
our time? When do we do our best work? Do different tasks normally get
done at different times?
Here’s what we found out:
Our most productive work happens on Wednesdays at 3pm
Our
data showed that we do our most productive work (represented by the
light blue blocks) between 10 and noon and then again from 2–5pm each
day. However, breaking it down to the hour, we do our most productive work on Wednesdays at 3pm.
Light blue represents our most productive work
Email rules our mornings, but never really leaves us alone
Our days start with email, with Monday morning at 9am being the clear winner for most time spent on email during the week.
Light blue represents our busiest time for emails
Software developers don’t hit peak productivity until 2pm each day
What about how specific digital workers spend their days?
Looking
at the time spent in software development tools, our data paints a
picture of a workday that doesn’t get going until the late morning and
peaks between 2–6pm daily.
Light blue represents when we’re using software development tools
While writers are more likely to be early birds
For those who spend their time writing, it’s a different story.
Writing apps were used more evenly throughout each day with the most productive writing time happening on Tuesdays at 10am.
Light blue represents when we’re using writing tools
What were the biggest digital distractions of 2017?
It’s
great to pat ourselves on the back about how productive we were in
2017. But we live in a distracted world and one of our greatest
challenges is to stay focused and on task.
Here’s what our research discovered about the biggest time wasters of last year:
On an average day we use 56 different apps and websites
Depending on what you do, this number might not seem that bad. However, when we look at how we use those different apps and websites, things get a bit hairier.
When it comes to switching between different apps and websites (i.e. multitasking), we jump from one task to another nearly 300 times per day and switch between documents and pages within a site 1,300 times per day.
For Slack users, 8.8% of our day is spent in the app
There’s been a lot of talk about how much email and communication eats into our days. But what do the numbers look like?
What
we found is that for people who use Slack as their work communication
tool, they spend almost 10% of their workday in the app (8.8% to be
exact).
We check email or IM 40 times every day
What’s more telling is how often we check our communication tools, whether email or instant messengers like Slack or HipChat.
On average, we check our communication apps 40 times a day, or once every 7.5 minutes during our 5 hours of daily digital work time.
Almost 7% of every workday is spent on social media
I’m sure most of us try not to spend time on social media while at work. But our data showed that almost 7% of every workday was spent on social media.
It’s not only time spent that’s the issue, however. On average, we check in on social media sites 14 times per workday, or nearly 3 times an hour during our 5-hour digital day.
So, what does all this tell us about how we spend our days?
Well,
first off, we need to remember that averages shouldn’t be treated as
universal truths. Everyone works differently. But having a high-level
look at productivity and the things that get in its way is a powerful
tool in improving how you work.
The
biggest piece of advice we can pull from all this data is to be aware
of the limited time you have each day for meaningful work, and spend it
wisely.
Our days are filled with distractions, and it’s up to us to protect what time we have.
I’m
leading a VR development studio, but the truth is I’ve been navigating a
series of epic career learning curves that have taken me far outside of
my comfort zone, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Mainstreet, Mall or Modem
On my quest to
start sharing more about our process and lessons learned on the virtual
frontier, I thought I’d start with a bit of background on how I arrived
here in the first place.
I
studied and practiced architecture, but I’ve been fascinated with
virtual technologies as far back as I can remember. In fact, my
architectural thesis project in grad school (image above) focused on how
VR and digital technologies would someday revolutionize
architecture — specifically retail architecture. This was 17 years ago,
when VR was very expensive, and largely inaccessible, but the brilliant
pioneers at work innovating in this field were demonstrating the massive
potential. It was only a matter of time before VR would find a way to
mainstream.
Like
so many other physical manifestations, from music to books and beyond, I
believe buildings are subject to a similar digital transcendence. It’s
already happening in a pretty big way, and this is just the beginning of
a major architectural transformation that might take another decade or
two to fully surface, but I digress… I’m saving this interest for a
future pivot, and almost certainly another epic learning curve to go
with it.
I tried using Everquest to visualize architecture.
I
had a level 47 Dark Elf Shadow Knight in Everquest, but spent most of
my time wandering around, exploring the environments. What I really
wanted to do was import my own architectural models to explore them
inside the game.
If
they could have such elaborate dungeons and forts to explore in
Everquest, with people from all around the world working together in the
game virtually, why couldn’t the same technology also be used to
visualize a new construction project, with the architect, building
owner, and construction team exploring or collaborating on the design
together?
This
quest to visualize architecture in a real-time world became a ‘first
principle’ in my career path that I’ve been chasing ever since.
I
met my amazing and tremendously patient wife, Kandy, in grad school,
and after studying architecture together in Europe and graduating, we
practiced architecture for some time before starting our own firm, Crescendo Design, focused on eco-friendly, sustainable design principles.
Then
one day in 2006, I read an article in Wired about Second Life — a
massively multi-player world where users could create their own content.
Within an hour, I was creating a virtual replica of a design we had on
the boards at the time. I had to use the in-world ‘prims’ to build it,
but I managed.
I
was working in a public sandbox at the time, and when I had the design
mostly finished, I invited the client in to explore it. They had 2 young
kids, who were getting a huge kick out of this watching over their
parent’s shoulders as they walked through what could soon be their new
home.
The Naked Lady, the Sheriff Bunny, and Epic Learning Curve #1.
We
walked in the front door, when suddenly a naked woman showed up and
started blocking the doorways. I reported her to the ‘Linden’
management, and a little white bunny with a big gold sheriff’s badge
showed up and kicked her out. “Anything else I can help with?” Poof..
the bunny vanished and we continued our tour. That’s when I realized I
needed my own virtual island (and what an odd place Second Life was).
But then something amazing happened that literally changed my career path, again.
I
left one of my houses in that public sandbox overnight. When I woke up
in the morning and logged in, someone had duplicated the house to create
an entire neighborhood — and they were still there working on it.
Architectural Collaboration on Virtual Steroids
I
walked my avatar, Keystone Bouchard, into one of the houses and found a
group of people speaking a foreign language (I think it was Dutch?)
designing the kitchen. They had the entire house decorated beautifully.
One
of the other houses had been modified by a guy from Germany who thought
the house needed a bigger living room. He was still working on it when I
arrived, and while he wasn’t trained in architecture, he talked very
intelligently about his design thinking and how he resolved the new roof
lines.
I
was completely blown away. This was architectural collaboration on
virtual steroids, and opened the door to another of the ‘first
principle’ vision quests I’m still chasing. Multi-player architectural
collaboration in a real-time virtual world is powerful stuff.
Steve Nelson, Jon Brouchoud, and Carl Bass delivering Keynote at Autodesk University 2006
One
day Steve Nelson’s avatar, Kiwini Oe, visited my Architecture Island in
Second Life and offered me a dream job designing virtual content at his
agency, Clear Ink, in Berkeley, California. Kandy and I decided to
relocate there from Wisconsin, where I enjoyed the opportunity to build
virtual projects for Autodesk, the U.S. House of Representatives, Sun
Microsystems and lots of other virtual installations. I consider that
time to be one of the most exciting in my career, and it opened my eyes
to the potential for enterprise applications for virtual worlds.
Wikitecture
I
started holding architectural collaboration experiments on Architecture
Island. We called it ‘Wikitecture.’ My good friend, Ryan Schultz, from
architecture school suggested we organize the design process into a
branching ‘tree’ to help us collaborate more effectively.
Studio
Wikitecture was born, and we went on to develop the ‘Wiki Tree’ and one
of our projects won the Founder’s Award and third place overall from
over 500 entries worldwide in an international architecture competition
to design a health clinic in Nyany, Nepal.
These
were exciting times, but we were constantly faced with the challenge
that we weren’t Second Life’s target audience. This was a
consumer-oriented platform, and Linden Lab was resolutely and
justifiably focused on growing their virtual land sales and in-world
economy, not building niche-market tools to help architects collaborate.
I don’t blame them — more than 10 years after it launched, it still has
a larger in-world economy of transactions of real money than some small
countries.
We
witnessed something truly extraordinary there — something I haven’t
seen or felt since. Suffice it to say, almost everything I’ve done in
the years since have been toward my ultimate goal of someday, some way,
somehow, instigating the conditions that gave rise to such incredible
possibilities. We were onto something big.
Before I kick-start this article, please allow me to wish
“ A Very Very Very… Happy New Year 2018” To all you lovely readers and my well wishers.
It
has been an amazing journey so far being a part of this mobile app
revolution since 2006, I feel blessed to see both pre & post
smartphone evolution era and having experienced the change myself being
the developer, leader and now a father of my own mobility startup. So
thought to analyze the trend setters which kind of will rule this new
year.
So
here is my Top three technology trends you all should look out for in
your endeavors in this new year 2018, which as always, will offer you
loads of new opportunities to rock this world. Being a part of this
mobile app ecosystem I feel immense pride while writing this piece of
article for all you visionaries and future mobile apprenuer.
1. Augmented Reality/ Virtual Reality:
Wiki Defines AR as :
Augmented reality (AR)
is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment
whose elements are “augmented” by computer-generated or extracted
real-world sensory input such as sound, video, graphics, haptics or GPS
data.
As per Wiki VR is :
Virtual reality (VR)
is a computer technology that uses virtual reality headsets or
multi-projected environments, sometimes in combination with physical
environments or props, to generate realistic images, sounds and other
sensations that simulate a user’s physical presence in a virtual or
imaginary environment.
Mobile
AR could become the primary driver of a $108 billion VR/AR market by
2021 (underperform $94 billion, outperform $122 billion) with AR taking
the lion’s share of $83 billion and VR $25 billion.
In
2017 a lot has happened in this AR where Google & Apple invested
heavily to harness the true potential of it. Apple has launched ARKit & Google has come up with ARCore, for developer to innovate and create some meaningful mobile solutions for the smartphone users.
As AR
helps in adding a digital layer over virtual information to give a more
realistic and unambiguous outlook. AR intertwined apps will gradually
empower retail, life science, manufacturing, and many other domains
through a wide range AR apps being developed to cater these sectors.
I Feel :
AR
will take a huge leap forward to further revolutionize the ever
progressing gaming industry and will stretch beyond it to empower the
digital marketing world where gamification will be employed to attract
& acquire new consumer for brands . All marketers need to adopt this
tool to target their customers beyond conventional physical marketing.
With most of the marketers seeing augmented reality as a way to provide a
compelling user experience, we will soon be seeing a plethora of
creative AR apps alluring consumers to buy their customized offerings
Virtual
Reality technologies will be more focused on the game and events sphere
as it is already doing so in 2017 and will go beyond to add more
evolved app usage experience to offer an elevated dose of entertainment
for the gaming user.
I find:
With
iPhone X, Apple is trying to change the face of AR by making it a
common use case for masses. Also A whole bunch of top tech players think
this technology which is also called a mixed reality or immersive
environments — is all set to create a truly digital-physical blended
environment for the people who are majorly consuming digital world
through their mobile power house
With Gartner predicting 26 bn
connected devices by 2020 which ranges from LEDs, Toys, Sports
equipment, medical equipment, to controllable power sockets.We will be
privileged to witness the world where everything will connected with
these small devices thereby bringing information right where you are
standing. Also these information will be tapped right were it is being
generated to empower the data centre using Edge Computing tech.
The
smart objects will be interacting with our smartphone/tablets which
will eventually function like our TV remort displaying and analyzing
data, interfacing with social networks to monitor “things” that can
tweet or post, paying for subscription services, ordering replacement
consumables and updating object firmware.
Big Tech Gaints Are Already Bullish On IoT Connected World:
Microsoft
is powering their popular IIS(Intelligent Systems Service) by
integrating IoT capabilities to their enterprise service offerings.
Some of the known communication technology powering IoT concept is RFID, WIFI, EnOcean, RiotOS etc….
Google
is working on two of its ambitious project called Nest & Brillo
which is circled around usage of IoT to fuel your home automation needs.
Brillo is an IoT OS which enables Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, and
other Android stuffs.
Established companies such as Microsoft, with its Intelligent Systems Service,
and enterprise software vendors likes SAP, with its Internet of Things
Solutions, are also adding Internet of Things capabilities to their
offerings.
Amazon
launched ‘Amazon Echo’ a amazing tech which works on your voice command
to answer your queries, play songs and control smart devices within
certain range.
I Feel:
IoT & IoT Based Apps:
Is
here to stay and will be playing a very crucial rule in helping you
navigate this world with more ease & comfort, making your commuting
safe, your communication smart, your shopping productive, your learning
more engaging and much more.. to make your living effective and
efficient. In fact, IoT is slowly becoming part of every aspect of our
lives. Not only will IoT apps augment our comfort, but they will also
extend us more control to simplify routine work life and personal tasks.
Most
of IoT powered devices are already relying on mobile devices to
syndicate data, especially in case of consumer IoT. With the surge in
overall uses of Internet of Things , I feel more mobile apps will be
developed for management of these smart devices.
A
blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all
cryptocurrency transactions. Constantly growing as ‘completed’ blocks
(the most recent transactions) are recorded and added to it in
chronological order, it allows market participants to keep track of
digital currency transactions without central recordkeeping. Each node
(a computer connected to the network) gets a copy of the blockchain,
which is downloaded automatically.
9
in 10 government firms are planning to invest in blockchain for
financial transaction management, asset management, contract management
and regulatory compliance purposes.
Another research by Infosys says:
One-third of banks are expected to adopt commercial blockchain in 2018.
So
it is quite clear that secured transactions based mobility solution
will rule the fin-tech & other industry where security lies at the
core. App developers will have a crucial role to play where they will be
expected to develop more innovative app solutions to cater the need for
secure & connected world. Your mobile phones are generating lots of
confidential informations which needs to be secured from the third
party breaches. So techies gear up and pull up your socks as, I feel
Blockchain-based security mechanism are expected to be developed on
mobile apps in the coming years and will needed in all kinds of
industries ranging from fin-tech, eCommerce, Insurance tech etc….
Blockchain
powered cryptos like bitcoin, ripple, Ethereum is already a rage in the
technology & investment world. It has fascinated the imagination of
many tech innovators leading them to adopt blockchain tech to develop
wallets & currencies and most of them are being developed on mobile
devices & computer systems, thereby offerings lots of opportunities
for techies to adopt it as futuristic career options.
Using
the blockchain tech entrepreneurs will be developing a solutions mostly
over mobile to validate transactions securely, manage contracts
smartly, store digital currencies(like bitcoins ,XRP etc), manage
voting, secure hassle free shopping, powering banking transactions and
many more innovative solutions which will be targeted towards making
consumers life more resourceful and productive eventually.
There are many more trends which will be disrupting the mobility world like
Artificial Intelligence :
Where Machine learning , Deep Learning all will play a crucial role in
fueling intelligence to the machines to help them make smart decisions
without human interventions. Mobile chatbots is one of the prime example
of one such use case of AI. Apps like Siri, Google Now are already
harnessing AI technology and will be inspiring many more voice based and
Images based AI innovations to be made by mobile appreneurs. Mobile
data will be tapped giving it more intelligent forms by app developers
to make our life smarter with time.
Mobile computing/Cloud computing :Based
mobility solutions will be in high demand specially for big enterprises
where business decisions are made based on intelligent data analytics .
All these will be stored over the cloud and mobile will play a major
role in harnessing the power of those data to serve consumer in real
time.
Some of My Other Relevant Tech Article Which Can be Useful:
Having
seen the world of mobility, changing from feature phone to a smartphone
era I feel amazed how it has transformed the life of humans. Now we can
communicate in split seconds, transact in no time, buy what we need
with one touch, get entertained when & where we want, shower our
love to our closed ones without being physically present and do many
more things which one can imagine just over this tiny powerful device.
So
as a developer and as a tech visionary you have, the greater
responsibility to make sure that you are creating tools which
complements user needs and impacts them deeply. It’s your duty to
entertain them, educate them, and to make them feel safe & secure on
the go.
Ending
by, extending my sincere gratitude to all you awesome readers for
showering all your love & constantly inspiring me to write more
& learn more eventually.
On the 19th of December 2017, Jay Boston
hosted his own electric skateboard awards initiative. A cool little
idea, particularly considering it was the electric skateboard community
itself deciding who would receive the honors.
1,387
people participated in an online survey that decided the winners in
each category. Granted, I’m sure a lot of the respondents were
Australian, hence the results seemed a little top heavy towards boards
that are easily accessible to us here downunder. Hopefully the event
garners a little more international participation each year to help even
out the results a bit. There were categories where such boards as Metroboard, Carvon and Trampa
should have been mentioned, but they were no where to be seen!
Nevertheless, it’s a great initiative and will hopefully grow from
strength to strength in the coming years. A quick shout-out to Jay for
having me on as a guest — cheers mate!
The Enertion Raptor 2 was crowned the overall winner of the best electric skateboard of 2017 — as voted for by the people.
You can check out the video of the live event below:
Go to 1:10.38 to see the Raptor 2 announced as the best electric skateboard of 2017
Nominations
were only open to boards that had actually delivered production units
to customers in 2017. Enertion, with just under a couple of hundred
Raptor 2 units in the field at the time the awards were streamed, got in
by the skin of their teeth. However, the fact that the Raptor 2 won
tells us that those people who have a Raptor 2, as well as the multitude
of people who have tested the board on ride days and events, are
clearly very, VERY impressed with Enertion’s end result.
I
thought it might be interesting to compare the peoples choice with
something a little more academic, finishing off with a bit of commentary
regarding the results and any differences between them.
Below I’ve selected what are arguably the 10 most popular production boards of 2017.
(Boards
selected are single and dual drive boards in street configuration only.
This analysis is focused on the upper end of the market towards boards
that might be considered “premium” or “top-tier” by companies owned and
operated from such places as the United States, Australia and Europe).
Top Speed: 24mph (38kph)| Range: 25 miles (40km)| Hills: 30% | RRP: $1899 USD
A couple of notes on the above:
All prices are RRP in USD (specials, sales, shipping, taxes and other
fluctuations are not taken into consideration). All specs are taken
directly from the US or international websites of the board
manufacturers themselves (correct as of December 2017). Boosted finally
announced the release of their extended range battery in late 2017,
which “doubles the range”. However, not only is the extended range
battery not a standard item, I don’t think anyone outside of a few
YouTubers actually got their batteries in 2017. It should be noted that
Carvon have a second EVO V4 Dual model called the ‘XL’, which has the
same range, a lower top speed of 35mph, but a much higher hill climbing
capacity of 25%, which rivals many of the other boards on this list. It
comes at a cost of $100 more than the standard EVO V4 Dual at $2099 USD.
The ‘XL’ was not included in this comparison as to my knowledge no (or
very few) units made it into the hands of the public in 2017. I even
debated on whether or not to include the regular EVO (known as the
R-Spec), as there’s barely any units in public hands, but they are out
there. The listed top speed of the Evolve boards is taken from the known
achievable top speed on 97mm wheels, the most popular wheel choice for
Evolve riders and the standard wheel size on the GTX. As the Bamboo GT
and Carbon GT come with 83mm wheels as standard, the RRP has been
adjusted to include a set of ABEC11 97mm Flywheels as priced on the Evolve USA website
(109.99 USD) in both circumstances. The Mellow Board lists a range
bracket between 7.5 and 10 miles on their website. For the sake of
simplicity I chose 8.5 miles as somewhere in the middle. Like Evolve,
the top speed spec of the Metroboards is based on the 97mm wheel option
in both circumstances. Both Metroboards in this comparison have been
tricked out — 97mm wheels for both, 10 watt lights for both and the
single drive has the biggest battery available included in the
comparison. Metroboard hill climbing specs are estimates as they’re not
included on the Metroboard website. The single drive is known to rival
Boosted’s and Evolve’s (25%), so by virtue of that knowledge the dual
drive must exceed this (30% or more).
*Please see further notes about Mellow Board pricing in the ‘Pricing’ section of this article.
Ranking System Used
In each category (top speed, range, hills and RRP) each board is given a number from lowest to highest based on a best-to-worst order: 1 being the best/cheapest then ascending in score until we get to the worst/most expensive.
The board with the lowest scores are the best in each category and overall (avg).
Top Speed
The Carvon EVO V4 Dual. 2017’s fastest production board! | Source: carvonskates.com
The Carvon EVO V4 Dual
is the king of speed in 2017. There’s then quite a drop down to the
Enertion Raptor 2 in second place, which is still significantly faster
than the next bunch of boards — the Evolve line-up, which all punch out
the same top speed. The Mellow Board is hovering around the middle
followed closely by the two Metroboards, which each punch out the same
top speed. Down the bottom of the list we have the Boosted Board Gen2
Dual+ and the Inboard M1.
From
where I’m sitting I’d expect anything with a score of 3 to 5 to all be
very similar in real life. It’s really splitting hairs. From that
bracket it is a significant step up to the Raptor 2 and then an even
bigger step up again to the EVO (maybe too much?)
The Boosted Board and Inboard M1 are significantly over-rated in the speed department.
Range
Metroboard 41" Slim Stealth Edition (single) with a 17.6AH battery for the longest range! | Source: metro-board.com
There are five distinct categories here: We have the Metroboard single
that’s in a class of its own! Then we have the Evolve GTX and Carbon
GT, which essentially share the same battery. Next we have the
upper-middle class of range: The Carvon EVO, Enertion Raptor 2 and
Metroboard Dual. The Evolve Bamboo GT stands alone as a mid-range board
and our list ends with the low-range, swappable battery category of
boards. An optimist might consider the final category to be even better
than the ones above it, as swappable batteries can in reality mean
“endless range”. The problem being, of course, that more batteries
equals more $$$…
Hill Climbing
The Metroboard 41" Stealth Dual. A widely reported incline killer! | Source: metro-board.com
I’d
say we’re looking at four distinct categories of hill climbing here.
The first category is reserved for certified incline killers! The Enertion Raptor 2 and Metroboard Dual!
Then we have a range of aggressive hill climbers ranging from the
Evolve line-up, Boosted Board and Metroboard single. The Mellow stands
alone as a moderate hill climber, and our list ends with a couple of
boards that shy away from inclines, the Carvon EVO and Inboard M1.
It
should be noted that with the optional 38T drive gear and hard
duro/small wheels, the Evolve GT/GTX line-up are also capable of
climbing hills on par with (even better than?) the Metroboard Stealth
Dual and Enertion Raptor 2. Video here. However, the 38T drive gear is not standard.
The Enertion Raptor 2. Conquers 30% inclines with ease! | Source: thatesk8life.comRaptor 2 vs. 30% incline. Raptor 2 wins!
Price
Note: The Mellow Board pricing was taken straight from mellowboards.com and converted from EUR to USD. After publication I was made aware of mellowboardusa.com,
where adjusted pricing can be found direct from the US distributor. The
difference being that shipping a drive unit from Europe would have a
considerable shipping fee attached to it. It’s clear this cost (and
other sundry costs) has been incorporated into the US distributor price
of $1,995. Please make your own adjustments and determinations regarding
this as you read the rest of the article.
The Inboard M1 is the best priced electric skateboard in the upper end of the market. | Source: bestbuy.com
In the Sub-$1500 category we have the Inboard M1 and
Evolve Bamboo GT. In the $1500-$1800 category we have the Metroboard
single, Mellow Board, Evolve GTX, Boosted Board and Enertion Raptor 2.
In the $1800 and above category we have the Metroboard Dual, Carvon EVO
and Evolve Carbon GT (man, carbon fiber is expensive!)
And The Winner Is…
The
equal winners of this little test couldn’t be more different! According
to just raw specs vs. price, the best electric skateboard of 2017 is a
tie between the Evolve Bamboo GT and the Metroboard 41" Slim Stealth Edition (single)!
On
paper the Evolve Bamboo GT represents well-rounded specs at a
reasonable price. In addition, Evolve also have that tempting 2-in-1
conversion capability, allowing you to fit pneumatic all-terrain tyres
to your board making it an entirely different beast!
Evolve Bamboo GT. Best bang for your buck! But the battery sag is a killer! | Source: evolveskateboards.com.au
If
you can forgo the need for pneumatic all-terrain tyres, I believe the
Metroboard single to be a far better option. Top speed between the two
is splitting hairs, they both climb the same grade hills, but the
Metroboard has insane range! Spend approx $200 more to get the
Metroboard single over the Bamboo GT and you instantly upgrade from a 19
mile range board to a 40 mile range board! Again, that’s insane!
Metroboard
41" Slim Stealth Edition (single). Equal score, but an entirely
different beast with out of this world range! | Source: metro-board.com
The
next issue to tackle is one of aesthetics vs. quality. The Evolve looks
better, there’s no denying it. It has nice flex, dual kingpin trucks
(if that’s your thing) and is just an all-round slimmer and sexier
design. The Metroboard is not as slim and stealth as its namesake. It
rides high and stiff compared to an Evolve. When it comes to the
argument of quality, however, the opposite is true. Evolve’s quality and
reliability has been called into question time and time again, whereas
Metroboard’s are known as bullet proof tanks! Then there’s the question
of batteries. Paper specs tell us the Bamboo GT has a 19 mile range, but
due to the low quality cells Evolve use in their battery packs, Evolve
boards generally suffer from the worst battery sag in the industry. I
think it would be fair to say that the Bamboo GT actually gets about 14
miles of enjoyable/manageable range, which now really tilts the scales
in favor of the Metroboard single.
My Thoughts on the Results
If you had to call a winner out of the two tied boards, it would have to be the Metroboard 41" Slim Stealth Edition (single). For speed, range and hill climbing vs. dollar + quality and reliability, it just can’t be beat!
Of
course, however, there will be people who don’t need 40 miles worth of
range and would much prefer to have the option for pneumatic all-terrain
tyres, save $200 and get the Bamboo GT. There will also be people who
just plain don’t like the look/feel of something like the Metroboard.
One
of the most interesting results for me was the gap between the Evolve
GTX and Carbon GT. These are essentially the exact same board — they
have the same top speed, range and hill climbing capability. The
difference is purely cost. That carbon fiber deck must cost a pretty
penny! The GTX comes in at $1728.99, whereas the Carbon GT comes in at
$2069.98 (which also includes a set of ABEC11 97mm Flywheels, otherwise
the board wont reach the quoted top speed — matching the GTX). That’s an
insane cost difference for exactly the same performance between the two
boards. I personally view the GTX as the preferable choice here. It’s
not only cheaper, but it’s more flexy and more modular, as the deck and
enclosure are separate pieces, allowing for more modifications down the
road (on the Carbon GT the deck and the enclosure are one complete
unit). On the other hand, the Carbon GT is longer (40 inches compared to
the GTX’s 38), lighter (17lbs compared to the GTX’s 19.4 lbs) and
obviously has a far more rigid and stiff feel to it. Some people prefer
the latter points.
The Evolve GTX. Every bit the Carbon GT without the price tag! | Source: twelveboardstore.com.au
The Evolve Carbon GT. Probably still the best looking board on the market by a country mile! | Source: techcrunch.com
I
guess we also can’t ignore the fact that these paper-based results sees
the Boosted Board languishing in last place. The board scores extremely
poorly in the speed and range departments. The KO then comes from the
high price tag that’s applied to what is now considered a fairly
mediocre spec sheet. But (and it’s a big but) SPECS AREN’T EVERYTHING…
Boosted
remains the smoothest and most comfortable electric skateboard I’ve
ever ridden! A tremendous amount of care and attention to detail is put
into their product. Their remote and mobile app are still best in class
and their QC and customer service also, arguably, remains unmatched.
Yes, there are far better performing electric skateboards you can get
for your money, but very few do the “off board” stuff as well as
Boosted, very few have such a well-rounded, well-finished, polished and
respected product that “just works” as Boosted do. That’s what you pay for.
Boosted Board. If this was a user experience analysis (not based on specs), the Boosted would win! | Source: boostedboards.com
What
these results say in the end is that user experience counts for far
more than specs ever will. The problem is that user experience is a very
hard thing to measure, particularly form an independent, third party
perspective.
Or is it?…
The Peoples Choice
This
brings us back full circle to Jay Boston’s Electric Skateboard Awards
and the overall winner as voted by 1,387 people — the Enertion Raptor 2!
The
Raptor 2 comes forth in a straight-up specs showdown, but it’s arguable
that the Evolve GT Bamboo is only above it due to its price point. In
addition, I’d be surprised if there were any more than five Metroboards
in the whole of Australia! Add to that Evolve’s known reliability and
durability woes and it’s easy to see why the Enertion Raptor 2 came out
on top!
The
Enertion Raptor 2 is faster than the Evolve suite of boards, is
comparable in range to the GTX and Carbon GT (once you account for the
Evolve sag factor) and is an equal or better hill climber in stock
configuration. It sits around the same price point as an Evolve GTX,
which is also obviously significantly cheaper than a Carbon GT.
If
you’re after a performance board packing the latest in motor, battery
and VESC/FOCBOX technology that has great specs across the board at a
highly competitive price, in my mind, the people got it right!
In
the end that’s completely up to you to decide. It’s completely
subjective. What’s best for one might not be what’s best for another.
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the fastest
electric skateboard, then the best electric skateboard of 2017 is the
Carvon EVO V4 Dual.
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the electric
skateboard with the most range, then the best electric skateboard of
2017 is the Metroboard 41" Slim Stealth Edition (single).
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the electric
skateboard with the best hill climbing capabilities, then the best
electric skateboard of 2017 is the Enertion Raptor 2 or Metroboard 41"
Stealth Dual.
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the most
reliable/durable electric skateboard, then the best electric skateboard
of 2017 is the Boosted Board Gen2 Dual+ or maybe one of the Metroboards.
If
the best electric skateboard for 2017 to you is simply the most
versatile electric skateboard, then the best electric skateboard of 2017
is an Evolve GT/GTX.
I
honestly do think the people got it right in selecting the Enertion
Raptor 2 as the best all round electric skateboard of 2017, but I also
think an honorable mention needs to go to the Metroboard 41" Slim
Stealth Edition (single) from a pure specs for dollar + quality
point-of-view.
Hardik Gandhi is Master of Computer science,blogger,developer,SEO provider,Motivator and writes a Gujarati and Programming books and Advicer of career and all type of guidance.
