A functional hoverboard, due to ship in 2015, has all the makings of a hoax (remember Back to the Future?). Except…I’ve been digging…and this appears to be genuine. The exact technical details aren’t clear…but from what I can gather, both from the official page and from comments on Kickstarter, it uses a rapidly changing (rotating?) magnetic field that creates eddy currents in the surface below, which then produce an opposing magnetic field. You do have to be over a conductive, non-ferromagnetic surface (aluminum or copper sheet, for example), but…it works!
HENDO has a Kickstarter campaign to help raise money for this project, and they’ve already surpassed their funding goal with 53 days to go. Check out their video to see this in action:
Not surprisingly, this technology is getting a lot of press…you can read more about it in the New York Times, Business Insider, or Forbes. Note that it only works over special surfaces, and battery life is limited…but these are relatively minor hurdles to overcome when designing products incorporating this technology. That’s what it comes down to, too…the hoverboard is just a marketing gimmick, the company’s goal is to license the core technology. Possibilities…
