For most of us, they’re a medical marvel, but for amputees or those born without body parts, prosthetics are a true lifeline.

Incredibly, the very first prosthetic known to human history dates back from between 950–710 BCE, with the prosthetic toe made from a combination of wood and leather discovered on an Egyptian mummy in the 1800s.

The life-changing technology of prosthetics has gone through a real transformation in the thousands of years since, but this has magnified incredibly over the last couple of decades.

Even in the aftermath of World War II – a very long time after the Ancient Egyptians – most prosthetics were largely wood and leather based: functional, but heavy and cumbersome, often uncomfortable for the wearer.

But since plastics and, more recently, robotics have come to join the world of prostheses, the scope for functional, comfortable, and downright cool prosthetics has increased, to a point of reality for many.

And the latest developments from UK-based prosthetics company Open Bionics, have bought the prosthetic possibilities of science fiction to the every day lives of users, with the added bonus that they look great, are low-cost in comparison to other options, and have a whole load of capabilities too.

In a recent Open Bionics statement, the company celebrated two milestones – 10 years of operation and 1,000 users – by revealing their ground-breaking new designs: the Hero RGD (Rugged) and Hero PRO bionic hands.

The impressive technology uses a combination of electrodes and the user’s own bodily commands to make the hands work, as the company explains in the statement:

“The Hero Arm devices use wireless EMG electrodes called MyoPods that sit on top of an amputee’s arm and read their muscle signals, those signals are picked up by the MyoPods and command the bionic fingers to move.”

And what’s really exciting about these two bionic hands is the sheer innovation that has led them to be twice as fast as other market-leading prosthetics, and totally waterproof and wireless too. The first bionic prosthetics of their kind to have these two attributes, there’s no denying that Open Bionics are changing the prosthetics game.

But how are the new devices in practice? Well, according to 19-year-old influencer Tilly Lockey, who lost both hands as a toddler due to meningitis complications, they have been impressive throughout their development, but the finished product blew her away:

“I’ve been giving Open Bionics feedback non-stop the entire time and even though I knew the new tech would be good, I still wasn’t expecting to be shocked by the level of progress. The arms launched are so much stronger. I can remove my own hand and have it crawl across a table and back to me controlling it via the wireless sensors in my socket. You just can’t imagine how epic this tech is. I now have 360 rotation in my wrists, I can flex them too. There literally isn’t a single other arm that can do this. No other arm is wireless and waterproof, and it’s faster than everything else and it’s still the lightest bionic hand. It’s awesome. I’m so much stronger than I’ve ever been.”

And according to Kansas-based farmer Conor Cox, the ‘ruggedised’ Hero RGD, which is designed to be suitable for manual labor, is just as impressive. Thanks to its versatile grip, the hand is able to turn to all tasks, where other prosthetics require a different hand for each situation, meaning users are constantly changing them if they switch tasks:

“I’ve been using the Hero RGD from sun up to sun down for tasks around the farm. Whether it’s scooping things out of bunks, shovelling straw, carrying buckets of grain, or working with water. I love that I don’t have to switch prosthetics, this hand does all, lift heavy, waterproof, solid grip.”

If this is the level of innovation that we’ve reached now, it’s mind-boggling to wonder how impressive these devices will be in the future. But most excitingly for many is the fact that these hands, which look cool to begin with, can be aesthetically modified with officially licenced, magnetic plates with superhero designs too.

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