Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My wife suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, so we were looking for a jar opener that could help her out when I am not around. The Hamilton Beach Automatic Jar Opener does work, it opened every jar we tried it on, but the design is a mess. For starters, it has to be in 'home' position to start the opening process, as well as to be powered down. The 'home' position rests with the 'clamps' at their widest point, making it bulky to store. The two clamps extend out of each end, you place the unit on top of the jar, turn it on, and then the clamps tighten until the lid pops off. It's also very slow and loud just getting to that 'home' position. There is no off switch. It just turns itself off when it gets to the widest point. Another knock is that there are two very large buttons on top of the opener, one to 'open jar' and another to 'release lid'. They are very easy to press, so when we put the opener in a kitchen drawer, inevitably it would bump against something and open or close every time the drawer moved. It runs on batteries, which is nice. It's also fairly small, about the size of a telephone receiver. If you're hurting for space, but NEED a jar opener, it'll get the job done. It just seems like some easy design changes would have made living with it much more comfortable, especially the addition of an 'off' switch.