As Doc Lucky recently noted on his show, there hasn’t been a yo-yo made out of depleted uranium yet. Maybe yo-yos are the answer to cold fusion!
But really who knows. I’m sure there is room for improvement in the current design. Tweaking weight placement for maximum efficiency, etc. but who knows what materials will be used next. In the early eighties most people hadn’t seen an aluminum yo-yo and titanium was only used on the SR-71.
The answer is no. As long as yo-yo patents continue to be submitted to the USPTO (which they are, by the way), there will continue to be innovation.
But, even if patents stopped, the introduction of new and different things will certainly continue as usual. Case in point: one-trick pony yo-yos that have come out recently, like the “Cheat Code” (for doing DNA), and Turning Point’s “Kerberos” (for Walk the Dog competitions) and “Rocket” (for doing the Skyrocket trick). Yes, you can do more than just one trick with these yo-yos, but their designs were optimized to help you perform one particular trick, particularly well. That’s some recent great thinking outside the box.
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I’m pretty sure the CAD we drew up last night is the first of its kind so I guess we’ll have to find out if its innovative enough for y’all 
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I think at the moment the yoyos are quite perfect as they are and do not really need innovation as performance itself.
If we consider the yoyo only as an instrument to do tricks than the tricks needs to evolve and become different before update even more the yoyo itself or find new ways to do it, at the moment even the world champion has a yoyo that is able to “go over” his tricks.
I think a real innovation will come when the players will be “stronger” than their tool, if we think about years ago with bearings and larger gaps and similar, the yoyoers started to do more complicated tricks and combos so the yoyo evolved to help them go through those combos easier but if you do not have an “excuse” to make it better than it’s hard to project something without a real purpose or idea of his utilisation.
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I think the reality is that yoyo design and has mostly been solved, and it was done so almost a decade ago. Yoyos aren’t performing better any more, just differently. Player and consumer preferences shift like the tide, so what’s currently “”best”” will always be an ever changing goalpost.
If everybody truly just wanted to play the “”best”” performing yoyo we’d all be playing 60mm+ diameter yoyos that weighed 80g+. And heck these numbers are probably on the low end.
People don’t just want raw performance, and because of “feel” being an extremely vague/abstract concept, what players and consumers want will keep changing.
It also helps that marketing can constantly convince consumers that every new yoyo release has somehow been raising the performance standard for yoyos. And people will preach the marketing as if the next yoyo somehow truly has raised the bar, instead of just shifting the location of the bar horizontally.
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Definitely my next design.
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I’m predicting the end of Yo-Yo Innovation will coincide with Yo-Yo Names run out.
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This is almost hades and I can’t tell if you’re being sincere or not. I hope you are.
In response to @mable, you’re saying that when spin time and control is maxed, that’s what makes the “best” performer. “Best” is super subjective and if to someone, what makes a yoyo the “best” is how easy it is to play really fast, that example doesn’t work because 80g+ will just be too slow. I don’t know because hades is the best yoyo to me but I love the ease of control. If a yoyo being able to play super fast was what made a yoyo the best to me, there is no way I would say an abnormally heavy yoyo is the best. Best is just relative. I like to think of yoyos like min/maxing stats.
Just play faster, unironically. An 80g yoyo isn’t preventing you from throwing as fast as Mickey, or having insane horizontal combos. If you wanted to adjust you could.
This just reiterates my entire point though, that people care about more about the abstract concept of feel than just how a yoyo performs. Which is why people are okay with smaller/lighter yoyos.
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Since this thread is over four years old, what major developments have taken place since it started?
I would say 3D printing has been more accessible, which has inspired new polycarbonate models and performance. Also CAD programs are easy to access and tutorials are now available with manufactures more willingly to help in the process.
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I don’t think there will be a jump like the jump to an unresponsive bearing. But designs are constantly updating and changing with play. Its just a slow process so we don’t see it.
Play a G2 LLT if you can. Think looks stupid. 60mm and under 60g. I cannot believe how fast and great it plays. Not a big innovation, but its different from anything you have played.
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Not true, actually. Its far more about the design than the weight. A 60mm diameter 80g yoyo would feel pretty comfortable. The weight is spread out over a larger body.
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It seems like a lot of people chase after finishes/colors over the minute differences in shape/size. gotta get that cerakote, saturday markets, or a limited drop of amazing splashes (cough, g2).
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Would that it were so simple lol this is like saying wood baseball bats can hit as far as aluminum bats if you just swing it faster
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We’re talking about the difference of 10-15 total grams and just moving around a spinny toy quickly. There’s a pretty massive difference between yoyos and hitting baseballs
I’m not sure how many times people need to point to Jason Liu Zichen or videos of any of the current fast players playing on heavier yoyos. People like Angelo can still do insanely fast speed combos on a Hades.
Regardless the point being made is still that player preferences are always going to be shifting, and people will want specialized yoyos chasing after different design goals (such as being lighter, instead of spinning for longer). So really I’m not even sure what the point of this debate is, because you’re just arguing for why many different and new yoyo designs will continue to be produced for a very long time to come still. Which is the same point I was making.
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Feel counts for a lot. Inertia dictates that a yoyo with long-spinning weight distribution will feel slower on a throw. Inertia dictates that more force will be required to get a heavier yoyo to change direction, etc.
Has anyone modded the Yoyo Empire Big Bang with weight rings? It’s over 65mm in diameter and 67 grams, so it could probably handle the extra rim weight. They already have “fake” weight rings so they must have considered it.
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Hey I’m having a great Monday and generally stoked all the time lol I’m not trying to argue in a bitter or menacing way. I just mean heavier yo-yos generally are slower than lighter yo-yos generally / require more effort to move at the same speed. Those same players could probably play faster with lighter yo-yos. It takes more effort to move it and that weight gets multiplied when you get the strings wrapped up bc of like physics or something. I don’t know agree to disagree I guess? Anyways I’m feeling good and sorry if you got bad juju from me. I do think “better” is a relative term and varies person to person. But I’m done on the subject now. This is all imo
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People do place a high premium in finishes, but since you mentioned G2, I’d say there are quite a few subtle design differences released for recent models too.
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My first reaction would be yes an innovation could occur, but would it be worth it at this point? Innovation does not always mean better as already expressed.
How about a yo-yo with a camera to see the world from its perspective. jj
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