Electric skateboards are great. You get all of the convenience of a small, electric vehicle, without the disadvantage of looking like a goober on one of those Onewheel things. But electric skateboards have one big problem and that is the remote. Riders need that to control the board’s speed, as it can’t respond to forward/backward leaning like a Onewheel, hoverboard, or Segway. Sadly, those remotes always tend to look like knockoff Nintendo Wiimotes. To avoid the embarrassment of being seen holding one, Redditor Thebananamanforever built an electric skateboard remote disguised as an innocuous banana.
This is the perfect cover, as a guy riding a skateboard while holding a banana looks completely natural. In this case, the banana remote works with a Boosted electric skateboard. Last year, Jonhathan Chiu posted about his work reverse engineering Boosted remotes and helpfully supplied detailed instructions on how to build a DIY replacement. Thebananamanforever was able to use that guide as the basis of this project.
The hardware for this project is actually very accessible. It consists of an ESP32 development board, a potentiometer-based joystick, an 18650 lithium battery cell, and a USB-C charging module. The remote connects to the skateboard through Bluetooth, which is why the ESP32 is a good fit.
Thebananamanforever simply crammed those components into a plastic banana — though it isn’t clear if he 3D printed that or if it is some kind of mass-produced artificial fruit sold for purposes beyond our imagination.
It functions properly and certainly looks very cool, but it isn’t perfect. There is code available to auto-pair the remote to the skateboard, but Thebananamanforever didn’t implement that. So, he has to pair the two every time he uses them. And as it turns out, a banana isn’t comfortable to hold in this way for extended periods of time. So, this is more of an occasional novelty to impress the public, rather than a practical everyday remote