Mosquito Repellent X Ultrasonic Bracelet (Review)

You may have seen the ads on Facebook. That’s how I first learned about these supersonic (ultrasonic? just regular sonic?) wristbands. The idea is that you wear them and the mosquitoes stay away. Now, normally I’m super skeptical about these kinds of products, but with our 5 Dads Go Wild camping trip this weekend, I’m willing to try almost anything. So, for better or for worse, I ordered the Mosquito Repellent X USB-powered bracelet. Did I just throw my money away?

The Premise: A Sonic Shield as Mosquito Repellent

I don’t like mosquitoes. But, mosquitoes LOOOOOOOVE me. Apparently. They’re something about the Kwan blood, because mosquitoes seem to love my whole family. Most of us don’t do well with bites either. We’ve had to deal with some bad swelling. And up until now, nothing has really worked consistently. The way we’ve dealt with it is, well, we avoid the outdoors. That’s not possible with camping.

So, that’s where this magic bracelet is supposed to help. This version is from Mosquito Repellent X, following the Facebook ad I mentioned above. But, you can find identical products being sold all over the web, including on Amazon. They all look very similar, if not identical, because they likely come from the same handful of factories in China.

How is it supposed to work? From the website:

The Mosquito Repellent Bracelet achieves the effect of repelling mosquitoes by imitating the sounds that female mosquitoes hate, such as the male mosquitoes and dragonflies. In nature, the blood-sucking female mosquitoes are all in the stage of conception and spawning. Female mosquitoes will avoid Male mosquitoes, to avoid secondary conception.

Basically, it buzzes. And the female mosquitoes don’t like that buzzing sound. Sounds too good to be true? Maybe.

The Arrival: A Crushed Package and Broken English

I don’t know what I was expecting exactly. If you’ve ever purchased some random no-name product from the web, particularly cheap electronics from China, you’ve surely read some of this terrible English. They even threw in the Chinese for good measure.

There are three “gears” or “modes” you can use. Outdoor mode is the loudest with a fixed frequency of 62 Hz. You can definitely hear the buzz. Indoor mode is a little quieter, with “frequency conversion” between 32 Hz, 50 Hz and 154 Hz. Finally, “sleep silence mode” has “automatic sweep frequency” between 18.8 Hz and 70 Hz. Realistically, “outdoor mode” is probably the only one you’ll be using. There’s a single button on the side to switch between the three modes.

Curiously, the company claims about the “sonic barrier” are inconsistent. In one part of the instructions, it says the effective area of outdoor mode has a radius of 3 meters. That works out to an area of about 28 square meters. In another part of the instructions, it says you get an “effective range” of 5 to 10 square meters. Similarly, one part says you get continuous use time of 5 to 6 days, but another part says you can use it continuously for 7 days. So, which is it?

The Experience: Bitten or Smitten?

In terms of the product itself, the quality isn’t quite as terrible as I was expecting. That’s not saying much, of course. The actual mosquito repellent unit pops out of the rubber wristband easily. The wristband is similar to what you’d get with a basic fitness tracker. You can then plug the unit in for charging via USB. They include a microUSB cable in the package, but no wall adapter.

Since the battery is so small (just 100 mAh), it charges very quickly. I wish there was some sort of battery indicator, but since it’s supposed to last for several days and charges in minutes, that’s not a huge deal. The bigger deal is whether this thing actually works.

Based on my short time with the Mosquito Repellent X thus far, my findings are inconclusive. On the one hand, I haven’t been bitten by a single mosquito (as far as I can tell) since I started wearing this on my evening walks. There are parts of my neighborhood where mosquitoes gather in clouds and I’ve walked right through them. I’ve also walked through some forested areas, including next to a creek where I typically encounter lots of mosquitoes too.

No bites that I can see. At least so far.

Now, I fully recognize this is super unscientific, but I also tried a little experiment. I stuck my hand into a cloud of mosquitoes with this “sonic barrier” on my wrist. At first, nothing happened. Then, after about 30 seconds or so, some of them started to drift away. I can’t say whether this was because of the wristband or my physical presence or what. I was surprised… until I saw that a mosquito had landed on my other forearm. The other forearm that was supposed to be within the range of this “sonic barrier.”

What does that mean? I’m not sure.

I also felt a little weird wearing my Fitbit on one wrist and this Mosquito Repellent wristband on my other wrist. Does it make more or less sense to wear them on the same wrist? You could presumably dangle this off your backpack if you’re wearing one too.

The Verdict: Should You Buy Mosquito Repellent X?

Basically, the jury is still out on this one. For better or for worse, I hear that where we’re staying for the #5DadsGoWild camping trip this weekend is swarming with mosquitoes. One camper said that nothing kept them away. If we’re looking for an extreme stress test, this would likely be the place to do it. Maybe it’ll be part of the vlog. We’ll see.

The good news is that this mosquito repellent bracelet is relatively cheap, so even if it doesn’t work at all, I’m not out that much cash. The site shows a regular price of $69 US, but don’t you believe that for a second. No one should be paying that much for this. The “sale” price is about $28 US each, but you get a discount if you buy more. I convinced the other dad campers to join me on a group buy, so we got four at 30 percent off.

Our total came to $82.73, plus $4.45 for “rush” shipping. I wanted to make sure it got here. Shipping via Canada Post still took two weeks, even though the package came from Markham, Ontario. So, that works out to about $21.80 US each, or about $28.72 Canadian. I just saw some cheaper ones on Amazon, but they wouldn’t arrive until October or November.

I wish I could have provided a more definitive answer about whether this thing actually works. It might, or I might just be lucky so far. This weekend’s camping trip will be the real test, I guess.