Seeing a grown man in a business suit scooting through O’Hare on a motorized suitcase is one of those things that makes you lose a little faith in the species. It looks absurd. It looks like we’ve finally given up on the basic dignity of walking. And yet, after sprinting through Terminal 3 trying to catch a connecting flight to Denver while carrying a 20-pound laptop bag that was slowly sawing my shoulder off, I realized I didn’t care about dignity anymore. I just wanted to sit down.
The sheer humiliation of the first ride
I bought a Modobag last year. It cost me nearly $1,500, which is an insane amount of money to spend on something that is essentially a heavy box with wheels. The first time I used it was at DFW. I sat on it, pulled the little handlebars up, and hit the throttle. The thing lurches. It doesn’t glide; it wants to go. I nearly took out a family of four near a Cinnabon. I felt every single pair of eyes on me. It was total ego death.
But then something shifted. I realized I was moving at 7 miles per hour while everyone else was trudging through that weird airport humidity. I wasn’t sweating. My back didn’t hurt. I was essentially riding a robotic brick, and for the first time in my life, the airport didn’t feel like a marathon. I might be wrong about this, but I think the embarrassment is actually a feature, not a bug. It keeps the cowards away from the best travel tech.
The embarrassment is a feature, not a bug. It keeps the cowards away.
Anyway, I once spent forty-five minutes in a terminal in Atlanta just looking for a specific type of salt-and-vinegar chips because the regular ones were too greasy. I don’t know why I’m telling you that. But I digress. The point is, once you get over the initial shame, you start looking at the logistics.
Modobag vs. Airwheel: A deeply biased comparison
I have tried both. I spent three weeks with the Airwheel SE3S and about six months with the Modobag. Here is my completely unfair and unpolished take: I hate the Airwheel. I know people will disagree, and they’ll point to the lower price tag—usually around $450 to $700 depending on where you find it—but it feels like a toy. It’s flimsy. I think people who buy the Airwheel SE3 Mini are just looking for attention, and I wouldn’t trust them with a houseplant, let alone a $500 piece of tech.
What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. It’s not that the bag is bad, it’s that the vibe is off. The Modobag feels like a piece of industrial machinery. It weighs 19.5 pounds empty. That is a massive downside. If you’re flying a budget airline with strict weight limits, you’re basically screwed before you even pack a pair of socks. But the build quality is there.
- Modobag: 19.5 lbs, 8 miles of range, feels like a tank.
- Airwheel SE3S: 20.7 lbs (with battery), 6.2 miles of range, feels like a plastic stool.
- Rydebot: I haven’t tried it, but it looks like a clone of the Airwheel. Pass.
The Modobag uses a belt drive. The Airwheel uses a hub motor. In my testing—which consisted of me racing my nephew down a hallway—the Modobag has way more torque. It’s heavy as hell.
The math doesn’t actually work (but I don’t care)
Let’s be analytical for a second. A standard carry-on weighs maybe 7 or 8 pounds. The Modobag is 20. That means you are sacrificing 12 pounds of packing capacity just so you can sit on your butt. It’s objectively a terrible trade-off. I used to think people who used these were geniuses. I was completely wrong. We are all idiots who are willing to pack less just to avoid walking 1,000 steps.
I tracked my battery life over six trips. On a full charge, I consistently got about 3.2 miles of actual riding distance before the motor started to sound like it was dying. The manufacturer claims 8 miles. That’s a total lie. Maybe if you weigh 90 pounds and you’re riding on a sheet of glass, you’ll get 8 miles. But for a real person with a laptop and a week’s worth of clothes? 3.2 miles. That’s it. That’s the whole trick.
TSA is the final boss
You have to pull the battery. If you don’t pull the battery, they will treat you like a domestic insurgent. I forgot once at Newark. I had to wait twenty minutes while three agents debated whether my suitcase was a fire hazard. One of them looked at me like I was a suspicious toddler. It was the most uncomfortable I’ve felt in years. Now, I pull the battery before I even get in the security line. It’s a 150Wh lithium-ion pack, which is technically allowed, but you have to be ready for the lecture.
Never again.
I still use the thing, though. There is a specific kind of joy in gliding past the moving walkway where everyone is standing still like zombies. It makes the airport feel like a video game instead of a purgatory. I don’t know if I’d recommend it to a friend who actually cares about their reputation, but for me? I’ve already leaned into the weirdness. Why are we all so tired and grumpy at airports anyway? Maybe if we all had little motors, we’d be a bit nicer to each other. Or maybe we’d just have more collisions. I honestly don’t know.
Buy the Modobag if you’re rich and don’t care about weight. Avoid the Airwheel. Walk if you still have your pride.
