Care and progress for the disabled has always been an open door for corporations to test new technology on a truly captivated audience. The absurdly high costs and exclusivity is often how the public justifies to themselves that these companies couldn’t possibly have any malintent because the stakes are too high. They have no incentive to reduce costs, improve repairability, or even genuinely care about the patients or symptoms that they’re treating; that’s the inventor’s problem.
It also often involves ignoring us when we say what we need or want out of assistive devices. I’ve seen a lot of amputees write up essays on how artificial limbs are often designed for the wants of able people (cool technology, robotics, how similar it looks to a biological limb, etc), rather than the wants of the people wearing it (lightness, comfort, ease of use, etc). Robotics are heavy, and a lot of the robotic controls are done by flexing muscles in patterns which is inconvenient compared to a grasper hook. Meanwhile able people keep thinking that the goal should be robot strength arms like in a comic book, but a simple force body diagram will show that that just moves the point of discomfort and failure away from the prosthetic and onto the place it attaches to the body.
Designers with OEM parts: If you gotta replace your arm, might as well add a badass super-strong mech suit with guided missiles, just like in the movies.
Person who just wants to eat their soup before it gets cold: …
Care and progress for the disabled has always been an open door for corporations to test new technology on a truly captivated audience. The absurdly high costs and exclusivity is often how the public justifies to themselves that these companies couldn’t possibly have any malintent because the stakes are too high. They have no incentive to reduce costs, improve repairability, or even genuinely care about the patients or symptoms that they’re treating; that’s the inventor’s problem.
It also often involves ignoring us when we say what we need or want out of assistive devices. I’ve seen a lot of amputees write up essays on how artificial limbs are often designed for the wants of able people (cool technology, robotics, how similar it looks to a biological limb, etc), rather than the wants of the people wearing it (lightness, comfort, ease of use, etc). Robotics are heavy, and a lot of the robotic controls are done by flexing muscles in patterns which is inconvenient compared to a grasper hook. Meanwhile able people keep thinking that the goal should be robot strength arms like in a comic book, but a simple force body diagram will show that that just moves the point of discomfort and failure away from the prosthetic and onto the place it attaches to the body.
Designers with OEM parts: If you gotta replace your arm, might as well add a badass super-strong mech suit with guided missiles, just like in the movies.
Person who just wants to eat their soup before it gets cold: …