🚀 Glide into Freedom with Sentire MedDeluxe!
The Sentire MedDeluxe Electric Wheelchair is a lightweight, foldable mobility solution designed for all terrains. With a peak power of 600W and a dual battery system, it offers an impressive range of up to 25 miles. Engineered for comfort and durability, this wheelchair features a smart folding design, robust aluminum frame, and essential travel accessories, making it the perfect companion for any adventure.
C**T
Thorough Review on Comfort, Size, Maneuverability, Durability and for People with Disabilities
This electric wheel chair is suitable for a variety of purposes and people. This is a quality product, and the company offers fantastic customer service. Depending on your needs (see below), this is the portable electric wheel chair to buy. The fact that it can accommodate nearly 400 pounds speaks to its sturdiness. Plus, if you’ve been in a wheel chair you know you wind up carrying everything, depending on your disability. Its ability to climb steeper slopes puts it far beyond its competitors. I live in an area with very steep hills. Even buildings have steep, interior inclines. I was recently at the hospital for labs and brought the Forza rather than my full size electric wheel chair because I wanted to take a vehicle that would operate better in snow and ice. A volunteer at the hospital looked at the chair and asked if I would be able to make it up the long, steep incline. He didn’t think I’d be able to do so. I knew I could, and it wasn’t an issue. In addition, the battery life is very good. I’ve also had no problem in parking lots in the winter here in Northern Minnesota. They’ve been plowed but still have ice and snow. According to the airlines, the chair weighs 64 pounds. All these people tossing the chair into their cars as if it were a Frisbee must be eating their Wheaties! Can it be lifted? Yes. Is it easy? No. We bought a collapsible ramp; drive it up the ramp; fold it at the top; and push it in the car. Problem solved. I would certainly purchase this product again.I must say I was a bit leery about purchasing this product. I looked at their website and saw that they advertised with what must be the skinniest people alive, who appeared to have no disabilities. Yes, I know that not all disabilities are visible. Yet how many people with disabilities who need to use an electric, not manual wheel chair, can stand up and lift an electric wheel chair? I happen to be heavy, and I didn't want to look like I was stuffed into a chair too small for me, which wouldn’t be too physically comfortable either. I also happen to have a disability and have a typical, full size electric wheel chair. I wanted this for the convenience of air travel from the local airport, which has very small planes that can't fit my chair without dismantling it. Bottom line, I don't want some idiot dismantling my $35,000 chair, and a second idiot attempting to put it back together! (This may sound elitist but is sadly, based on experience.) Indeed, the airline even wound up treating this chair as luggage (luggage carousel!) and damaging it. Sentire Med worked very closely with me and were a tremendous advocate.Comfort: For people who use this chair on a limited basis for issues of frailty or recuperation, this is perfect. I don't think you'd have too many issues. I am tall, thus I did have to add a cushion, which I had from a manual chair. However, when Sentire Med called to ask if all was okay, I mentioned the height issue, and they sent me a thicker seat cushion. This made the distance to the foot rest adequate for my height. The seat is a bit hard for all day use, but I understand they are developing a new cushion. Then again, I do have issues with my spine and sacroiliac joints, among other things. The seat back is surprisingly comfortable, far more comfortable than a fairly expensive manual wheel chair that I have.For people with disabilities, who depend on a chair, you need to know what you are buying. This is a great portable chair. It is portable, which means it is not infinitely adjustable and customizable, as are full size chairs. Raising your height results in arm rests that are too low unless you have a short torso or long upper arm. This can be remedied, but you’d add weight and lose its super quick and easy collapsibility.Maneuverability: You may need to adjust to its operation if you are used to center drive chairs. This is a rear wheel drive chair, thus it doesn’t corner as tightly. The joystick isn’t as sensitive as the high-end chairs. I only mention these for people with disabilities, for some people might not be able to use this chair. I have no problem with this chair. Friends have played with it, as it’s fun to use an electric chair when you don’t depend on it. They find it perfectly responsive and maneuverable. It does turn nicely and gets into tight spaces that I cannot access in my regular chair. It is also sturdy. I feel very safe going down inclines and when I reach. I’m sure I’ve over-reached and have yet to fall out or tip the chair.Durability: This chair seems to be incredibly durable. Remember that my chair was bounced around by airline employees. Plus, I’m comparing it to slightly more expensive portable wheel chairs by the ‘big name’ companies that also make the high end chairs. This is far more durable, made with better materials than those ‘other’ companies and for less money! Based on experience, I have no doubt this chair is built to last. If for some reason, it doesn't, I'm equally confident Sentire Med will stand behind its product.Repair: I did worry about who might repair the chair when the time comes. I knew the local place wouldn’t work on it, because I didn’t buy it from them. Talk about strong arm tactics and helping those with disabilities. Nice. I’m in the process of buying a new chair and am going with the out of town vendor, whose repair service comes to the area that will work on it, and Sentire is willing to work with the repair service. I also figured that a ‘small engine repair’ might work on it, and there are plenty of those around.Size: I like to be comfortable. I wear things loose and am horrified by current fashion trends. So, take the following with a grain of salt. In addition, there are pictures with the reviews for the Forza with people who are heavy and are perfectly happy. So, the Forza can certainly accommodate all body types. I’d say this chair is least able to comfortably accommodate a pear shaped body type above a 1X for women or XL for men in sweatpants (assuming the size is necessary for the seat and thighs, not for the stomach). Again, I am thinking about people who would need to be in the chair all day.It is a nice looking machine, and I love that forza means force in Italian. How can you go wrong!
W**K
Strong, Powerful, Easy to Use. We Love It.
We love this wheelchair. We received it in a timely manner after ordering, and setup was quick as advertised. As we intend to use this as an attendant driven chair, SentireMed sent along the attachment which allows you to attach the joystick to the back of the chair. Sentiremed has been very responsive to the very few questions we have had. It has been great working with them.To mount the joystick so pushing forward on the stick drives the chair forward you have to reverse the “tong” mount on the joystick prior toe attaching it to the mount. For under $13 in electric conduit parts I was able to make it so you do not have to reverse the “tong” mount to place it on the back of the chair, so you can switch from attendant to rider control much easier and faster, if desired. You do have to pull out a bit more cord from the bottom area near the motors to connect to the joystick. This did not seem to cause any issues.We did not use the chair much for the first few weeks but we did take it over some non-smooth ground terrain and it performed great. The big test would be shuttle, ground and air travel to Maui from Oregon. I did call the airlines (Alaska) to inform them we would be bringing this type of wheelchair and they got the travel status setup to expect our wheelchair. This chair folds and packs up pretty quickly and unpacks and sets up quickly as well, which I had to do several times through drop off and two shuttles to get to our overnight lodging and morning shuttle to the terminal.I drove my wife in the chair from the shuttle to check in and all the way through to the gate. Things went smoothly except through TSA check. As she couldn’t stand safely long enough for their scanner she had to have a pat down. They had me go through to wait for her. I have traveled enough to know you don’t argue with TSA, so I left the drive disconnected so they could roll it, as I thought they knew what they were doing. Wrong. After quite a long time I started asking where she was. Finally, after asking, someone approached, telling me she was right where I left her as they couldn’t figure out how to move the chair. They “let” me go back to where she was to drive the chair through to the pat down. After all that things went pretty smoothly except for the two gate changes after I had already extracted the batteries, packed up the chair and put the joystick in our carry on. I used an airport chair to get us through the gate moves as the gates weren’t that far from each other.I elected to take the chair down at the gate to check it in and have them take my wife down in an airport chair so I didn’t have to do all the packing up by the entry to the aircraft. They took our wheelchair, packed in the bag, down to storage in the aircraft. The batteries have to be stored in the cabin so they can get at them if they start combusting. To my surprise they stored them in the overhead above our seats as is. Apparently, they enclose them in some kind of container if they act up. All went well after landing. Our wheelchair was provided to us at the gate. I unpacked the chair, inserted the batteries and off we went to baggage claim.Here on Maui we have used the chair extensively. It handled uneven park ground quite well. I did find it did not go through soft sand with her in it, but it did go through well unloaded. A big test was traversing the crowded, often narrow, sidewalks of Lahaina. It was a bit stressful for the attendant (me) as people would seemingly jump right front of us at times. Since the chair maneuvers quite well and stops very quickly we were able to cover several blocks without issue.Finally, after a lot of use, the charge got low enough (down one green block) so the charger would show it was charging the chair batteries. This wheelchair goes a long way on a charge. We really like this chair and look forward to getting my wife around to places she was unable to visit in the past.
Trustpilot
1 day ago
2 weeks ago