[ericabiz]

I bought a Xiaomi Mi scooter on Amazon last year for $499. This is the same scooter Bird started with.

So far it’s been great. There’s a “Mi Home” app that shows you remaining charge and an estimate of miles left, plus total miles driven. It’s also got a charge indicator on the scooter itself.

The owned scooters go a bit faster than the rental ones, and the battery lasts about 15 miles total.

So far it’s been useful to eliminate short drives or Lyfts (coming back from dropping off the car to get new tires is one example; going to local restaurants is another.) It folds up easily and can lock to a bike rack or stow under a table at a restaurant.

We’ve put 110 miles on it so far, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but considering most of our trips on it are far less than a mile, it’s been worth the money.

At $1299, though, I can’t see why this Bird scooter would be worth so much more than the Xiaomi. This landing page doesn’t help; it seems to assume the people reading don’t know about $500 scooters. Perhaps that is their target market, but in that case, I don’t think this will sell that well.