Reclaim Your Favorite Trails By Letting Exoskeletons Carry The Load

A new breed of consumer exoskeleton products is aimed at hikers and mountaineers. These products specifically help those with injuries or reduced mobility who want to conquer the outdoors by providing powered assistance delivered to their legs at the right moment.

Now, there are at least seven startups working on powered exoskeletons for hiking. They can be either attached to the knees or the hips, behind or in front of the user (like a fanny pack), and some of them have already received awards and recognition at CES 2025 (Exoskeleton Technology Has A Strong Showing At CES 2025). Most are being developed in South Korea, U.S.A., and Europe. Regardless of their configuration or country of origin, they all aim to do the same thing: provide assistance while hiking at an upward slope and brake or cushion the legs when descending.

It is hard to know how many of these devices are already in customers’ hands. Successful Kickstarter.com campaigns from 2023 have finally started shipping, and assuming every customer has their unit delivered, that would equal 4,000 units or $2.3M from crowdfunding alone. It is safe to assume that startups, some reporting pre-orders to be sold out until the middle of 2026, also have similar numbers. This still puts consumer exoskeletons in third place after medical and industrial/consumer ones, but it is essential to highlight that this growth has been in the last two years alone.

What’s next?

Startups are attempting to make devices for hiking as transparent and unobtrusive as possible. One of the attempted strategies is to partner with outdoor clothing companies to integrate the exoskeleton attachment points into appropriate clothing directly. This allows the device to be clipped on and off effortlessly so that it is utilized or worn only when needed. A similar strategy is to have custom straps that stay on the user but attach and detach the wearable as required. All companies strive to reduce the weight and bulk of these exoskeletons, choosing efficient batteries and minimizing the size and number of motors, sometimes down to just one actuator.

All the devices attempt to utilize AI in some capacity to understand what the user is doing. The exoskeleton has to provide a different amount of power and timing depending on the incline or terrain. Manually switching between assistive modes is impractical for a consumer device, and each individual walks in a unique way. AI technology is key to creating comfortable human augmentation devices that provide assistance exactly when it is needed in a magnitude that will not cause alarm or discomfort.

These are first-generation devices, and initial reviews have been positive. On average, they have enough battery life for four hours of use. Many of the devices can recharge while walking downhill or have easily swappable power cells; however, don’t expect to walk the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail (2,000+ miles) in one just yet.