Review: Jimmyjane Hello Touch X

Special Note: If you are truly considering purchasing the Hello Touch X and do not have much knowledge on safe e-stim use, please read the Safety section that is in purple text. Jimmyjane does not include a decent safety guideline in their manual.

It’s well-known if you read my reviews and posts that I hate Jimmyjane products and they don’t like me much either. So why do I keep reviewing them? For one, I feel that negative reviews are just as important as positive reviews and two….I hated the original Hello Touch so much that I just had to see if they listened to any complaints and made a better product with the Hello Touch X. The product, as a concept, is good.

While none of the Jimmyjane vibes I’ve tried worked for me, they’ve all had positive reviews by other people. And when I read their reviews, I could bring myself to understand why they would recommend a toy that I eviscerated: it worked really well for them. When a sex toy works really well for you, you can overlook high costs and imperfect designs. But the original Hello Touch….well, I couldn’t find a single redeeming quality to it. I don’t think I would be able to understand how anyone could love it. The flaws were so abundant and glaring. One thing I wanted to find out with the Jimmyjane Hello Touch X is if they managed to fix any of the terrible flaws from the original Hello Touch.  The control pack on the original Hello Touch was awful; buttons so hard to press, it hurt my wrist. The control pack on the Hello Touch X is much improved. The arm band for the original Hello Touch was flimsy material, with blank circles overtop the buttons. You had no idea what was what. Hello Touch X armband is now neoprene with velcro closure, will fit many wrists, and has labeled button decals. The pod straps on the original Hello Touch were notoriously tight, to the point of having cold, hurting fingertips. The pod straps on the Hello Touch X are better. They’ll still be a bit too snug for those with very thick fingers though. I still think they should be including an extra set of larger pod straps. But hey! That would logical!  The original Hello Touch also requires a ridiculous AAAA battery which is damn near impossible to find. The Hello Touch X is thankfully USB rechargeable.

Now, what about the vibrations? They still suck. I don’t think they’re any different. They may be enough for very sensitive people, though. When the pods are dangling there, they seem to buzz away but in use the vibrations are greatly dampened. With the original Hello Touch, Jimmyjane claimed there was “3 times the vibration in 1/3 the size” but it was never clear what they were comparing it to. Now the Hello Touch X is advertised as 5 times the power in 1/3 the size, yet the vibration strength has not increased.  When you make comparison claims with no direct comparison, you start to sound like you’re selling snake oil. I really cannot stress this enough: These are NOT “powerful” vibrations. These are probably more powerful than the Fukoku Glove, but when compared to most external vibrators it isn’t powerful.

So while the Hello Touch X does have some very necessary improvements on the original…it seems the original Hello Touch is still just as shitty as ever. Unless I’m informed otherwise, I see no evidence that the original Hello Touch has received the improvements to the control pack, pod straps or arm band, which really just sucks.

The Hello Touch X is not for people with grip issues or finger strength issues. The 2 sets of pods use a micro-UBS cable that requires a very firm push (more than you think is necessary) to be properly seated. And you shouldn’t press on the end with your thumb, or you may end up bending and breaking the wires over time – you need to grasp it by the sides to push. The same goes for removing the plug – don’t tug by the wire. Slick, lubed fingers will have a hard time grasping the tiny portion of the plug to remove it.  The problem is this seemingly useless little ring around the plug on the pods. It adds a snugness that isn’t necessary. You might think that you would only need to push in the plug until that ringed collar is flush with the port but you’d be wrong.

The Electrostim In Use

I did a few-month stint at physical therapy before for tennis elbow, and every session started out with the TENS unit. They would turn it up to something mild and quickly I’d get used to it, and I’d turn it up as high as I could manage. It never made me wince, it never felt like truly painful. The Jimmyjane Hello Touch X feels like a hot needle prick, a rubberband snap, just plain OW. I don’t like the sensation. I tried it on my arm and leg (they suggest you do not start out on the genitals), and it was frightening – it fucking hurt and it made me terrified to try it on my labia. Maybe my intolerance to this is due to the fibromyalgia; I don’t really know. From talking to other people who are more “expert” at e-stim than I, it seems that the tiny tiny e-stim surface area of the Hello Touch X is going to produce the more painful zaps versus the pads that come with traditional e-stim sets or the large areas found on insertable e-stim vibrators. But try it, I did. And the e-stim sensation was stronger and more “normal” when used on my labia, probably because of the natural lubrication already there. And on the first setting it felt okay. Nothing that would do anything for me, orgasm-wise, but it lacked the sharp sting. It seemed to be stronger than I expected the first setting to be, and I was right – setting 2 produced a sharp zap that elicited a loud “SONOFABITCH!” and that sucker was turned off and pants yanked back up faster than you can say Chipotle Burritos Are Awesome. Never. Again. I tried it once for the sake of this review and I have no desire to ever use these e-stim pods again.  And there are 8 more levels of intensity above that!! Nooooope. Nope.

Half the time when using the e-stim pods, I felt nothing. I cycled through the settings, I clicked the power button continuously…..nothing. Sometimes I would click the power buttons and go from feeling nothing to suddenly OW. Sometimes it was OW right off the bat at seemingly the first setting. So, it’s wonky at best.  You’ll never know what setting you’re on or if it’s even working. The light that turns on for charging doesn’t do anything during use. You’ll have no idea if it’s broken or needs to be charged. For $149, couldn’t they at least do that?

SAFETY!

I’m disappointed but not surprised with the fact that Jimmyjane seems to have half-assed the e-stim use and especially the safety aspect. Sure, they warn you not to use if you have a pacemaker, if you’re pregnant or if you have a metal IUD/piercings. But one of the photos on the box specifically shows one person wearing the e-stim pods, poised to deliver a zap to their partners shoulder blades. Other manufacturers of e-stim products take their warnings more seriously, for example estim.com, which warns against ANY use above the waist. They advise you on lubes to use and to avoid for your best e-stim experience. A manufacturer of e-stim devices, Mystim, also has a lot of safety and use information on their site. A good rule to follow that simplifies things: Never let the current flow through head, heart or throat.

Jimmyjane does not include the full manual with the actual product, you need to go online to get it. In the manual they have an illustration showing suggested points on the body. They do not elaborate on safe practices, like making sure the flow of electricity doesn’t cross the meridian. A good example of this would be that you should be okay to use both pods on the same shoulder (both pods at once, never one single pod) but it would be very dangerous to place one pod on each side of the spine. They do say that it “won’t work” if you only use one pod (it does), but they fail to explain that – especially for above the waist use – using only one pod could be dangerous. Again, there is mention in the “suggested use” section that one should place the pods on the body first and THEN turn on the power, but they don’t tell you why and they don’t explain this at all. One suggested place to use it appears to be the ear; another on the neck(!). It makes no sense AND seems highly dangerous.

Special thanks to the r/BDSMcommunity people who took the time to explain this stuff to me. You can read their responses for more in-depth safety talk.

Before you use the e-stim pods, please do your own research on safe e-stim use beyond what I’ve found here. It is crucial. If used incorrectly it actually can interfere with the heart. The safety of this should be taken much more seriously by Jimmyjane, but it’s not. Until they can be more responsible with their suggestions and more informative, I cannot recommend the Hello Touch X to anyone who has zero experience with TENS units or other e-stim products.

Overall there have been improvements, but I’d rather see these improvements carry over to the original Hello Touch. Unless you already know that you really really love e-stim, I think the Jimmyjane Hello Touch X is not going to be the intro to e-stim for the masses. I think that the vibrations are crappy in use. The glaring flaws of the original have been fixed, so I don’t hate it and I would recommend it for people who want an e-stim device with the capabilities that come with having the shocking bits attached to your fingers. If you want e-stim that produces more semi-painful zaps than muscle contractions, then you might like this. But if you’ve never tried e-stim before? Run away. Buy another, more reputable brand. Do your research. Attend a class on it, if that’s available to you.

Thanks to Shevibe for providing me with the Jimmyjane Hello Touch X in exchange for my honest review!