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Extend your thumb by 15 millimeters! Why? So you can use your phone more easily! With its completely life-like design, no one will even notice! Rakuten is currently offering this stylish thumb made by Rare Mono for just 1,480 yen (US$14.50). It could change your life.

Recently smart phone screens have been getting bigger, and morphing into something more like ‘phablets’. It might be okay for people with big hands, but what if you’ve only got teeny tiny ones? It can be difficult to work them with just one little thumb, and you find yourself being unable to reach one side of the screen.

So clearly the answer to these pressing problems is a stylus that’s cleverly disguised to look like a thumb. Apparently ‘it’ll just look like your thumb has grown!’ …because that’s not going to seem strange to people?

They particularly recommend their ingenious product for people using their phones on Japan’s crowded trains, where you may be so packed in that you only have one hand free to move. It’s also useful for people who for some reason, such as dry skin, find that their touch-sensitive screens aren’t responding to their gentle caresses.

▼ First world problems.

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The thumb-stylus went through a lot of rigorous testing and changes to the shape, size, and positioning, until they came up with this beauty. At one point they thought they almost had it, but it looked too much like a zombie finger – they’d been so concerned with how it worked, that they’d forgotten to think about the colour! The finished product is now a more alive-looking natural skin colour (so long as you’re not dark-skinned).

It measures 49mm long by 25mm wide, and the internal width is 20mm, although it’s made of silicon so it will stretch. Then there’s the stylus that runs through it, which is the part that you actually touch to the screen, and makes it look like you’ve hammered a nail through your flesh. It may not really be fooling anyone but hey, if it works, it works.

▼ So lifelike.

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Genius idea or another bizarre Japanese invention doomed to a short life in a Don Quixote bargain bin? Who knows, maybe we’ll all be wearing them in the future. Or then again, maybe not.

▼ Thumbs up!

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Source and Images: Rakuten