I bought a “Flo Ova” TENS machine for her last Christmas, and she’s found it works really well for her. Problem is, it uses sticky hydrogel pads that lose their adherence over use and they only sold proprietary replacements… or so I thought.

After digging through Amazon, Alibaba, Temu, the whole shebang, I discovered it’s not proprietary at all. There’s half a dozen brands that buy these devices in bulk from some Chinese wholesaler and apart from the graphics and shell colours it’s all identical. Even the box they come in is the same.

These brands drop off theface of the earth every few months, reskin the product, then relaunch them as this new revolutionary device so unknowing shoppers think they have to drop their “old” device for the “new” device… theyre fucking identical!

The one that fucks me off is “MyOovi” which sells their particular dropshipped version (which, again, uses identical components beyond different colours!) for three times the usual price, and dumps that into marketing so people think it’s different!

They even understock the hydrogel pads (which they’ve given skin toned colorways for even more scarcity!) and of course cover up the fact the same pads are available at half a dozen other brands for the same price; they’d rather the device they market for chronic pain, menstrual cramps, endometriosis etc. to go unused rather than suggest an alternative. It’s fucked!

Finally, all of these dropshipped devices are marketed as “British designed” and “groundbreaking research from British doctors” which is just a pisstake when it’s all being ordered from China, designed and produced by Chinese engineers and research!