Imagine the joy you feel when you pick up a shiny new gadget from the store. You return home, take it inside, and then spend twenty minutes trying to remove it from the #^@%$!! blister-pack plastic. If you're lucky, you might not slice your hand open. Sure, they prevent theft, but is that worth a severed thumb?
For about $10 apiece, save yourself (and your loved ones) a few curse words on Christmas morning, and buy either the OpenX or the new Open It! tool to crack that plastic.
The $9.97 OpenX has been around for a year or two, and is available at the Walgreens nationwide chain of drug stores. Looking oddly like the chestburster from the
Alien movies, the little gizmo requires first inserting its knobby nose into the plastic -- which sort of means you'll have to have scissors or a knife on hand, anyway. Once in, though, it's a quick slide and the plastic is sliced in two.
The $10.99 Open It! is a more recent entry, launched this past October. I haven't used it, but from the Web page it looks like a cheap Leatherman tool, with scissors, a blade, and even a small screwdriver attachment. It's unclear how well the scissors snip, but that's traditionally been one of the tougher ways to bust a blister-pack-- those things can require a lot of pressure.
I can't call a winner here. Of course, the time-honored solution is scissors, tin snips, or kitchen shears (ExtremeTech's Jason Cross: "Scissors that cut bone? Score!"). Or simply a knife, brute force, and a lot of screaming.
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November 27, 2007 2:44 PM
I usually just carry around a multitool with a small blade on it. That way, I can dissect the blister pack before I get home, toss it in a public trash bin, and let city sanitation deal with the sharp edges.
November 27, 2007 3:10 PM
is that ricki lake in that picture?
November 27, 2007 3:28 PM
A close look at the photo shows a blue teardrop shaped slide button that causes a razor to extrude from the yellow tool. ( The razor point is visible just above the model's ring finger ). Once the razor has made a small cut in the plastic, the "knobby nose" of the safety cutter can be inserted to create a larger opening in the packaging.
November 27, 2007 5:18 PM
Now we're talking. I desperately need one of these, and definitely before the holidays. Seriously - I got an item in a blister pack a few weeks ago to try out, and I literally spent 10 minutes just trying to cut around the rounded edge to get the thing open! I wound up butchering it. :(
November 28, 2007 12:29 PM
whats wrong with regular box cutters/razor blades?
November 28, 2007 7:33 PM
@Jonathan: yowch! Have you tried a box cutter with some of these new blister packs? They're specifically designed to be too thick for items like that to avoid shoplifting in-stores. Unfortunately it makes them all but impossible to open with convenient tools at home!
January 6, 2008 2:07 PM
Modern heat-sealed plastic blister packaging is a damned hazard. Due mainly to their sheer strength, serious tools - sharp ones - are needed to get at your brand new widget. Not only does unpacking require sharp tools - the severed plastic itself presents a variety of lethal edges.
In a world full of safety freaks who demand warning labels on simple hammers, seat belts and seven air bags in our cars, heat warnings on paper coffee cups, etc., etc., how on earth is this possible? Airport security allows one to carry blister packs aboard... Hell, I could hijack the damned plane using one as a weapon.
When I was a kid, there were no blister packs and shoplifters had a field day pilfering small items. I guess we can thank this sociological fringe for our trips to the emergency room with packaging wounds.
Someone recently told me about a blister pack opener that easily and cleanly opens these annoying modern marvels.
You guessed it - it comes in a blister pack.
That's cruel.