How Safe Is Your Swegway?
As with all sought after products, the Swegway is not immune to unreliable and often dangerous imitations. With a personal transport device which runs on electricity and is often used in public spaces, the Swegway must always have safety come first as both harm to yourself and others can come from improper and ill equipped devices.
Last Christmas there was an estimated one million buyers of hoverboards as gifts, and even when buying from UK Big Buy where we can guarantee the legitimacy and quality of all our products, we still urge you to read the safety instructions when using the Swegway. Below are a few tips you can use when really assessing how safe your Swegway really is.
It’s a fake!
Accept no imitations, seriously. With the popularity of Swegways rising, there are many dodgy manufacturers seeking cheap and profitable short cuts to the creation of these fun transport systems. A fake Swegway can lead to some real damage, from your personal transporter catching fire to life threatening electric shocks.
Check your Plug
Don’t be a mug, check that plug! One of the most important elements of a charging system is that the plug socket is safe. The socket in a swegway package is used to charge your ionised lithium batteries, which themselves charge the Swegway. With an approved Swegway, you will find the rounded and more bulky plug socket which connects to your UK standard Gauge plug. This is more bulky due to it having a fuse built in. These are usually more rounded in shape, with a narrowing of the top into a quadrilateral trapezium construction. This differs from the clover shaped fakes. The problem with the narrower fakes is that they don’t have a fuse built in. This can endanger lives and the Swegway due to the danger of the device short circuiting and causing an internal fire. If left unattended and in use, this could end in serious damage to both your device and your own home. If you’re still unsure whether your device has a quality plug socket, check the back of the plug head for the BSI approval kite mark. The fakes will hold a fictitious approval body – STGD.
Branding
When you buy any product, it is only normal to find a range of information concerning the products manufacture and branding. All companies want to promote themselves so that if you like the product, you’ll return to buy more. When you buy a fake Swegway, you’ll often find no reference to brands which is of course very suspect indeed. Make sure your Swegway box has an easily traceable company source. Otherwise you can tell it’s not the real deal from before you’ve even opened the box.
Manufacturer
The same applies for the manufacturing company. Usually you can find this on the Swegway itself, making it easy to trace if the personal transporter has a fault, making it easier to get a refund and easier to identify faults in the production line. This goes for the charging kit as well, if there is no manufacturer inscribed on the back of the plug head, you can be sure it’s unsafe.
Misspelling
Nothing screams fake more than misspellings on the packaging. Not only is the Swegway itself is a cheap imitation, but the manufacturers couldn’t even get the spelling right. When the safety precautions written on the back of the device have been misspelled, has words missing or has irregular gaps in the typing, this is no doubt a fake that you’re dealing with.
Dodgy CE Markers
The CE marker refers to the phrase “confirmitee Europee” which means “European Conformity”, marking the product as one that can be legally placed upon the market in that country. You can find the markings on almost everything sold in Europe and this approves the safety and legitimacy of what you’re buying. The marking is given to the product by either the manufacturer or an approved authority, dealing its safe testing and use under EU and international law. Many fake Swegways will either lack this marking or have poor attempts at imitations added on, a transparent façade of legitimacy. Without CE approval, your device could very well be dangero