You can control the wheelchair with a smartphone, so you can easily call it to your bedside or tuck it out of the way at night. Its 9.3-mile range, 3.7MPH top speed and 8-hour recharge time will limit where it can go, but that should be enough for a lot of around-the-neighborhood travel.

Rodem is available in Japan for ¥980,000 (about $8,700), and it's known to be reaching the UK in 2018. It's not a trivial expense as a result, and the piggyback approach rules it out for people with limited use of their upper bodies. For those that can use it, though, it should make life a lot easier -- you won't have to change as much of your behavior as you would with an old-school wheelchair.