A Few Days with Flipo Flip

So-called “stress relief toys” are basically the kind of thing that… serves no real purpose in your hand, but always gives you something to do.

The big stress relief toy before this was the fidget spinner. Its influence spread worldwide: foreigners hated it, China banned sales, teachers loathed it. Still, I thought it was pretty satisfying.

Recently I bought another stress relief toy, this Flipo Flip.

Flipo Flip is a Kickstarter crowdfunding project, listed with a September 2020 shipping date and a price of 40 euros. But right now you can just buy it on Taobao whenever you want. I bought two… My guess is they outsourced manufacturing to Shenzhen again and the blueprints leaked? Though it’s a pretty simple thing anyway.

The packaging is simple, and it comes with a pouch that looks like leather and seems pretty fancy.

After getting it in hand, I found there’s really nothing fun about this thing. Its only use is rolling around on a desk; by tilting it, you can use inertia to make it roll a few more times. That’s it.

The official pitch also brags that it can pause mid-rotation, flip back and forth between two fingers… and various other boring tricks.

I tried all sorts of things and found I can’t even pull off the basic moves, damn it.

A lot of foreigners bought the Taobao version through AliExpress and said it’s a fake, that the real one can definitely do all kinds of high-end tricks and moves. I think that’s bullshit. It’s just a polished piece of aluminum alloy. What technical content is there!

Anyway, I think this thing is fine to play with if you’re bored, but it’s not as fun as a fidget spinner or that little controller. Of course, if any rich guy buys the genuine version, remember to tell me whether it’s actually different from the Taobao version.