JML Electric Can Opener – Automatic Tin Opener, One Touch Hands Free

Broke my wrist & needed a little help opening my beloved beans. It does need 4AA batteries but the weight of the batteries helps it feel solid & attaching the opener on the can easy. Just clip on the top & watch it go! Great piece of kit & much cheaper than plug in openers. Nice clean cut & no sharp edges, lid just lifts off so no finger pressure required to prise it open.

One of my household suffers from osteoarthritis, and this painful condition has meant that opening tins, a regular task whilst cooking has become nigh on impossible with the two most common mechanical types available: either a claw type can opener that rips through a lid leaving sharp edges; or a butterfly can opener that features a rotating cutting wheel and requires a handle to be turned. Even trying to buy cans with pull rings to save having to use a can opener at all has been ineffective as the grip required to use the ring pull simply isn’t there. This is extremely frustrating for the sufferer, who takes pride in being independent and dislikes having to ask one of the other household occupants to perform this task with a passion. To give that sense of independence back to the sufferer I purchased a JML™ Hands Free Battery Powered Tin Can Opener which will perform this vital task with just the effort required to press a large button. What attracted me to this particular opener was one of the claims made in the product information: “Ideal for those with arthritis or limited hand mobility”. Other electric can openers didn’t necessarily make this claim, and at £14.99 I thought the price was acceptable for the extra functionality given a manual opener would cost in the region of £3-£5. That large button seems to have been deliberately designed with impaired hands in mind, and after fitting the 4 x AA batteries to the underside of the opener it operated effectively and intuitively. The user simply places the opener on the top of the can with the large cutting wheel pressed against the side and pushes the start button. That’s a trigger for a smaller cutting wheel to grip the can very securely, with the back of the opener lifting up and moving around the tin lid all by itself. When the lid has been opened the back of the opener falls flat against the top of the newly opened tin, with the freshly cut lid attached to it thanks to a large magnet on the underside, and it’s just a matter of pressing that large button to turn off the opener. What I particularly like is that the opener is very tactile and sits in a hand without the greatest grip easily. It’s deliberately chunky, but doesn’t weigh a lot even with batteries added. Most of the construction is smooth, food quality plastic which easily wipes down if it gets messy with a damp cloth – don’t put in the normal washing up if you want it to continue working. The ‘business end’ is stainless steel so will remain bright and shiny, which some manual tin openers do not. The cut isn’t made on the top of the can but just below, on the side of the lid, and whilst the opener is operating the grip on that lid is very firm indeed – it’s not slipping off. What is surprising is the cut on both the lid and the can is smooth – there’s no chance of cutting your fingers on a sharp edge here which is a very nice feature. The opener will happily open cans with or without an integrated ring pull, of all sizes such as small tins of peas or carrots, large tins of new potatoes, or Fray Bentos™ pies which are a very occasional treat but often tricky to get into. The can lid doesn’t need to be circular either, with the opener tackling rectangular sardine and mackerel tins just as readily. To say that the primary user of this can opener is delighted would be an understatement. She has found it easy to use, easy to keep clean, and liberating, getting rid of a significant source of almost daily frustration. The opener sits easily in amongst other kitchen utensils in a cutlery drawer and doesn’t take up a lot of space, measuring around 15.5cm long, 6.5cm at it’s widest, and around 4.5cm at it’s deepest. With batteries in situ it weighs around 320g. The only slight downsides I can see from this product are that pressing the button doesn’t always result in instant turn off, you might have to press it twice for it to register, and an automatic cut off facility would be a nice-to-have; and occasionally the cutter has to traverse the can twice to make the cut, although this usually happens with tinned potatoes which seem to have a thicker layer of steel to chew through. Both of these are minor issues when judged against the sense of liberty this device has brought, and I’d recommend it for anyone whose hands aren’t as nimble as they should be.

Easy to use.value for money

good gadigit if you suffer from artheritis as no work is needed other than putting in place, pressing the button and watch it go.👍

Best things i decided to add to my kitchen Ultility. You have to know how to make it sit on the tin once you figure that out its a miracle worker, you dont even see where the cut is and yet its fully open.Cannot reconmend this enough

This is great. Just place it on top of the tin and it does the job well. Great if you have trouble with conventional openers .

Got this product for my 92 year old grandmother, as she doesn't have the strength to open tins with her hands. I thought that this would be the ideal solution but I'm severely disappointed; The can opener opened the first 2 tins I used it on, albeit it didn't open them in one go - I had to set it off twice to get it to properly open them and neither of the lids stuck to the magnet. It couldn't open the 3rd tin because it had a pull-ring on the top, which it kept getting stuck on, and I couldn't turn it to the other side because the tin didn't have a lip on that side. The can opener has been sitting in a drawer until I've used it on this 4th can - the video shows the results. I don't know if the 3rd can with the ring damaged it, but that's the only thing that could have happened to it. If that's the case, I would have hoped for a more durable device - this is literally the 4th time I've used it. Overall, it's been a complete waste of money and it's not like I can return it, because I threw away the box when I first got it.

Great if you have no grip