Product with a manufacturer "time limit" on use?

kindai

kindai

kindai

Sgarrista
System Admin
Joined
9 Aug 2013
Posts
10,967
Location
Bromsgrove
So long story short.

Friend purchased an accelident (http://acceledent.co.uk/) for his orthodontic work, when I started mine, I purchased a new mouthpiece and used his device until my orthodontics was done.

He has had to have some corrective work, so was once again using it, however it stopped working, so, he contacted acceledent and was told the unit has a counter in the firmware, and is only good for X amount of uses before it de-activates.

Now, looking through all the literature, online and with the device nowhere does it mention limited usage. Surely this cant be legal to have a built in kill switch to force you to buy a new one / stop people trading the units?
 
How long, between the 2 of you have you been using this ?
I ask because the only reference i can find to length of usage is in customer testimonials. Average time seems to be between 9 months and one year. At 20 mins a day, that's a lot of uses.
 
Unless it produces some kind of negative effect after so many uses I cant see how this is legal if it's not stated at point of sale. I've looked all over the site and cant find any mention of it.

Must admit looking at the site it does sound rather scammy :D.
 
kindai said:
So long story short.

Friend purchased an accelident (http://acceledent.co.uk/) for his orthodontic work, when I started mine, I purchased a new mouthpiece and used his device until my orthodontics was done.

He has had to have some corrective work, so was once again using it, however it stopped working, so, he contacted acceledent and was told the unit has a counter in the firmware, and is only good for X amount of uses before it de-activates.

Now, looking through all the literature, online and with the device nowhere does it mention limited usage. Surely this cant be legal to have a built in kill switch to force you to buy a new one / stop people trading the units?
Click to expand...

You shouldn't really be surprised. This is how big pharma works.

From looking at their website it is only available via dentists. So they're obviously going to want them buying more tooth vibrators after 9 months instead of letting the dentists reuse them like you have (I guess hygiene is a valid concern too).

I doubt it's a very complicated device and I doubt it even has "firmware". It's probably very easy to bypass the mechanism they've used to deactivate it.
 
Last edited:
kindai said:
So long story short.

Friend purchased an accelident (http://acceledent.co.uk/) for his orthodontic work, when I started mine, I purchased a new mouthpiece and used his device until my orthodontics was done.

He has had to have some corrective work, so was once again using it, however it stopped working, so, he contacted acceledent and was told the unit has a counter in the firmware, and is only good for X amount of uses before it de-activates.

Now, looking through all the literature, online and with the device nowhere does it mention limited usage. Surely this cant be legal to have a built in kill switch to force you to buy a new one / stop people trading the units?
Click to expand...

It is classed as a medical device, so trading between patients is exactly what is meant to be stopped from a cross infection point of view.
I haven't heard of this device, it seems reasonably novel, and the literature clearly has no depth as yet. No longitudinal studies to suggest if this vibration affects stability of result, as well as speed of result.
In fact, there are so few studies, i ponder if it affects the result at all. Most of their case lengths seem at the utterly extreme end of the spectrum to begin with.

Did your friend wear his retainers as required? That is the most important phase of orthodontic treatment, to minimise need for remedial treatment.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
It is classed as a medical device, so trading between patients is exactly what is meant to be stopped from a cross infection point of view.
I haven't heard of this device, it seems reasonably novel, and the literature clearly has no depth as yet. No longitudinal studies to suggest if this vibration affects stability of result, as well as speed of result.
In fact, there are so few studies, i ponder if it affects the result at all. Most of their case lengths seem at the utterly extreme end of the spectrum to begin with.

Did your friend wear his retainers as required? That is the most important phase of orthodontic treatment, to minimise need for remedial treatment.
Click to expand...

As to if it worked or not? Well who knows, I know when I was having my treatment done they suggested it would be ~3 weeks per aligner tray and I was regularly able to switch them at 10-14 days.

And no, he didnt wear his retainers :D
 
Stealthploit said:
does this actually work ? a kill switch to make you buy a new one it will be a shame
Click to expand...

Well this is what im wondering, given the device isn't cheap, a forced kill switch cant be legal can it?

Think of it as something else, a car for example, you buy and own the car outright, but at 10,000 miles the ECU refuses to start anymore.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom