u/alanterra

My wife just got a Jazzy Carbon Ultra Light (32 lbs) and our first use was in a vacation in Vienna. She has some mobility, but can't walk more than a few feet without support, or more than 300 m with a walker, so using an electric wheelchair has been a game changer for our vacations.

Some notes about the particulars of using this wheelchair in this part of the world:

There is no way she could use this chair solo without my attendance. The curb-cuts always have a slight bump, ranging from 5 mm to 40 mm. The Jazzy can take the small ones with no problem, but with the larger ones it ranges from bucking (both front wheels going high in the air) to just stopping. Reversing to go over the curb-cut backwards doesn't help—the drive wheels don't have enough grip, and there are small wheels in the back (to keep the chair from flipping!) which bump into the curb. So one needs to manually lift the chair over the curb.
While public transport is supposedly barrier-free, in practice it is not. In the downtown trolley stations sometimes a platform extends from the train to allow direct transfer to the platform, but sometimes it doesn't (at the same station!) At suburban stations we were told that someone would come to help us with a ramp, but we never saw that person. Luckily, the chair is light enough to carry and easily folds up, so we (usually a fellow passenger would help) would help my wife walk off the train, and then I would carry the chair (folded if for more than a few meters of distance).
Busses also have a wheelchair ramp, but the two times we used that, the driver put the ramp right up against a 100 mm curb, so we couldn't roll off. The driver couldn't give a *$*@ about this problem.
The chair tends to become uncontrollable on uneven surfaces and jumps and bucks. This is mostly just uncomfortable, but once my wife ran completely off the sidewalk without intending to do so. For this reason she was very wary of driving on narrow paths with a drop-off on one side (like narrow passages near train tracks in the station), so I would disconnect the drive and just push.
Lots of sites have gravel paths. The chair works about 50% of the time in gravel—when it is well-compressed or not too deep. Otherwise it bogs down and stops.
Pushing the chair for long distances is uncomfortable. The back is too low and too narrow compared to non-electric models.
It is really easy to turn the electric drive on and off, so I would push when we entered narrow elevators, and then turn it back on once we had backed out.
Folding the chair is really easy, once you have figured it out. But you need to push here, and press there, and lift in a particular way. It takes about 5 minutes of learning before you can fold and unfold it quickly.
Getting in and out of Ubers and taxis is a breeze. Again, my wife can walk enough to get into the car. Then I fold up the chair and it fits in the trunk (even a small trunk). And, again, there is no way she could do this solo, as it would be very tedious trying to instruct the driver how to fold and unfold the chair, especially because neither of us speaks German.
The battery is adequate for long days. One day we toured the town and I walked 14,000 steps, or about 6 miles/10 km. The battery was near empty at the end of the day (20%?), but recharged quickly once plugged in.
The knurled screws that hold in the controller and the cup holder loosen spontaneously, and we left one in the trunk of a taxi the first day in town. Hopefully it will be easy to replace when we get home.
The chair is really robust, and shows no signs of wear after a week of heavy use. Top speed is slightly above my comfortable walking speed, and she could probably keep up with even a young, fit person.
We had amazingly incompetent service at Air France trying to check the wheelchair and bring the removable battery in our carry-on luggage. We needed 4 hours to check into the flight: we got there 3 hours before the flight, and AF delayed the flight one hour while they did completely pointless checks. So give yourself lots of time at the airport; the lithium battery freaks out the staff (and the pilot!)
Finally, when we bought this chair we also had a chance to try out a Jazzy X 27, which is slightly lighter than the Carbon Ultra Light. The X 27 has a less robust wheel arrangement, and is nearly impossible to use unless the ground is completely flat. The 5 pound difference in weight (larger wheels and springs in the front wheels) are worth it unless you can't lift 37 lbs (32 lbs + battery).

So, in all, a complete game changer for our travels. Next we will try it out in smaller cities in Mexico, where the idea of a sidewalk is only that — an idea.

Jazzy Carbon Ultra Light in Vienna, Austria

Skim app doesn't respect scroll bar autohide setting. Do other apps do this also?