Do I Like the Pathfinder 360 by Ambutech? Yea, it's cool.
A product review? I this economy?! Yes, and pray I don’t forget this joke if it happens again, because I will repeat it.
I know a thing or two about this genre and I know that I should assure you, up front, that I have received neither money nor product I exchange for this review. The extent of Ambutech’s interest in me are the digits on my credit card, which they frequently get.
The Pathfinder 360 is the coolest fucking cane tip I have ever used. It does exactly what it says on the tin, it rolls omnidirectionally. It rolls smooth over every surface I’ve thrown at it and still manages to give exceptional tactile feedback the entire time. There’s a weight to it that keeps it on the ground without me having to put constant pressure on my cane, which could probably keep the life of both cane and tip just a bit longer, but I have no research to back that up. The product description claims that it is self-cleaning as it can spin rapidly and shoot out any debris stuck in there. I haven’t noticed any dirt or sand (substrates I’ve pushed it through many times) built up in there so I’d imagine it’s working. Your mileage may vary though and I haven’t taken it through mud or anything thick or slushy.
That weight does make it a touch less manoeuvrable than your average tip, even compared to other marshmallow or ball tips. It’s heavy, not heavy enough to be a workout, but noticeable if you’re navigating something that requires a lot of aerial adjustments. Like jumping from rock to rock on a Lake Superior beach. It’s also not built for sudden shifts in direction. It may roll omnidirectionally but it still gains a momentum that trends towards the forward. Part of that is just physics and weight, but it’s mechanically inclined to prefer one direction of movement at a time.
The ball is really two semi-spheres joined together on a rotating head. It rolls forward by the half spheres spinning forward and back with gentle pitch from the overall rotation allowing slight side to side movement. Anything past the gentle or gradual orthogonal adjustment requires the entire ball to spin which is a separate mechanic from the spinning half spheres. Hence the lack of true agility. I like poking and prodding things and sometimes the tip’s hesitance to whip to and fro gets annoying, but it does encourage a more methodical approach to tactile exploration. Again, preference, and therefore mileage, will vary.
In that vein, it’s general bulky ballness makes it less than ideal for the finer pokes and prods needed in some exploratory situations. If you’re used to the NFB cane by Chris Park, that unbelievably light fibreglass cane with the tiny aluminium disk at the end, the you’ll need to get used to the lumpy tactility of the Pathfinder 360. You’ll also quickly get used to it not getting caught on microscopic cracks in reality that tend to appear when I use my NFB cane. That part is nice.
The 360 is a slippery bastard. I love being able to plant my cane and rest some weight on it. It makes me feel cool and mysterious even if it probably looks ridiculous. If you try to do that with the Pathfinder your cane will shoot out from under you and you’ll take a tumble. Ask me how I know. All of those spinny bits ensure that no matter how much time you take to find a dead spot you will push it against gravity with enough variance to ruin any equilibrium you think you’ve found in it. Storing gets a bit messy too; she’s a big boy. Even folded up that ball is poking and stroking and generally getting in the way. Leaning it up against a wall is generally a no go as, again, that ball is very eager to get rolling. I generally find that folding my cane up and just setting it down somewhere is the best way to go. If there’s not enough table or floor real estate then the classic “just sit on it” works well. I’ve got some Ambutech cane holders at home where I stick her up when not in use.
Now that I’ve said that, I hope you’ll allow me a more general take on Ambutech as a whole. It’s important to me.
Ambutech makes good canes. Great canes even. I have two and I have never been tempted to buy from another brand. They’re durable, they’re comfortable, and the tips are nice. But everything else they sell is trash. The holsters? I’ve had two that broke in identical ways in very short amounts of time (the stitching came undone with normal use). And good luck getting one, they’ve been out of stock for years now.
The wall holders? Fine, serviceable, but ship without any kind of instruction and have the most non-intuitive installation method unless you use the Command Strips they ship them with. Which are fine, but they’re just generically sized command strips and so eclipse the hooks and look kinda dumb. An odd thing for a blind person to complain about, I guess, but still notable. They both hold the cane tight and not tight enough in that the cane will slip down but requires a lot of force to be pulled out. Force that frequently causes the Command Strips to fail. I’ve pulled the holder off the wall attached to my cane several times. You also have to make sure you pop out the silicon band that pushes in and out every time you pull a cane out. It’s intended to stay out when you pull a cane out and so you can just pop the cane right back in. All three of mine don’t do that and so I have to manually pull it out so it’s ready to receive the cane. Small and simple motion, an easy habit to get into, but a flaw nonetheless. All of that forcing and pushing and pulling makes the holders inaccessible to Blind folks who also have motor disabilities or anything that requires more or less precise application of force.
This all bothers me so much because Ambutech is one of the only manufacturers of those products. Cane holsters being sold are usually just resellers peddling the habitually out of stock, less than ideal Ambutech ones. Searches for “cane wall holders” or “mobility cane wall holders” gives pages of holders for walking canes that are notably thicker than the ones us Blind folks wield.
I’ve been toying with getting into leather-working for the explicit purpose of making my own holster, something I could eventually sell to my comrades, but there’s still much learning to be done there. As for wall holders, I dunno. Maybe there’s a brand out there that I’ve missed or something else that works, but I don’t know if I can manufacture plastic and silicon in such a way. Not with my resources.
Anyway
Ambutech canes are good, the Pathfinder 360 is great, everything else they occasionally sell when they actually have inventory is not worth it. That’s the little bit Google’s dumbass AI summary will steal.