Self-driving wheelchairs?

[agate]

There's a video as part of this article in Multiple Sclerosis News Today (December 1) about self-driving wheelchairs:

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[Howie]

I have a HoverounD, and it requires the use of a few fingers on one hand to operate it. But it boils down to the same issue, how do you get into the chair? I don't use it because I don't need it...yet.

If you have no use of your legs or hands, where are you going in it? The bathroom? You would have to have someone to assist you.

This new chair is just some techno kids chance to design something that sounds good on paper, but doesn't solve any issues for the patient.

[agate]

I seem to be bringing my former neighbor into posts so often that people must be tired of hearing about him but he had very little use of either hand and no use of his legs, and yet he was always going all over the place in his power chair. He could still operate the controls for it easily enough but a self-driving chair might have been even easier.

All of those wires on it (in the video) look like a big problem to me, and as you say, getting in and out of it can't be easy.

Many of those chairs have swing-away arms, or arms that swing back, and you can get a transfer board for transferring from your bed (or wherever) onto the seat of the chair that way.