My partner and I have been wearing these little digital bracelets for nearly a year now so I’m finally comfortable with giving them a review and how it’s helped us maintain a deeper connection as well as provide an alternative method of communication.
Bond Touch Product Specs
- Costs $69.00 USD per bracelet
- Requires both bracelets to have an active Bluetooth connection to a mobile device with internet access
- Can only be connected to one (1) other person
- Product page on Bond-Touch.com
- Has a fancier version called Bond Touch More for $89.00 USD per bracelet
- They use Sezzle Up to allow payment plans
Because they’re rather pricey and I’m rather frugal, I wouldn’t have bought them for myself usually. I was given a $50 gift card for a website called Uncommon Goods (which I never heard about until I received the gift card) as a thank you for being a speaker for an event last year. At the time, the “Long Distance Touch Bracelet Set” (aka Bond Touch bracelets) were only about $100 USD so the gift card made it a more appealing choice to experiment with this sort of device.
Task interruption via touch
I am the type of autistic that hyperfocuses deeply and because of this, task-interruption is my natural enemy. I’ve made jokes about it on TikTok because the neurotypical expectation where people can just walk up to you and start talking is something that is incredibly challenging for me. It creates a lot of stress and then I’m seen as “angry for no reason.”
These bracelets have helped with this because the source of the interruption isn’t through a bodily sense currently in use, therefore it doesn’t make a bid for my attention using a channel that would send me into sensory overwhelm.
Allow me to explain.
When you are engaged in a mental activity like reading a book, formulating a response to an email, or doom-scrolling on your phone, you are using your working memory. Your working memory is a cognitive system with limited capacity to temporarily hold information for mental manipulation.
Your sense of vision is already engaged because you’re using your eyes to read, so when somebody walks up to your desk and stares at you, waiting for you to stop what you’re doing, the sudden task-interruption to your visual-spatial memory is enough to send some people into sensory overload.
Your sense of audition is already engaged because there is no true silence in the world. Perhaps you’re listening to music, on a Zoom call, or are already sensitive to sound so you work in only the ambient noises of the office. When the phone rings or somebody pops their head in and starts talking to you, that sudden task-interruption to your auditory memory is enough to send some people into sensory overload.
But one thing that is challenging is to engage someone’s sense of tactition (touch/pressure) without first being noticed by another sense. For example, my child might climb all over me while I read, but I can also see/hear/smell them before they do. But for another example that is relevant to me when I work, my sense of tactition is really only picking up my clothes, keyboard, desk, and maybe a cat or two. Otherwise, this channel of sensory input is not in much use for the others and has a larger threshold for input before being put into sensory overload.
So when my Bond Touch bracelet suddenly vibrates softly, it is an interruption, but not one so egregious to my senses where it sends me into sensory overload.
Using our Bond Touch bracelets as AAC
On our first day, we naturally turned these Bond Touch bracelets into an alternative method of communication. We came up with a “request for presence” system with three (3) levels of urgency. Basically, this replaced having to yell for each other to “come here” throughout the house but also provided how immediate we needed each other.
If my partner simply wanted me to come see something, he’d activate his bracelet and send me a short touch followed by a long touch. This meant he wanted me to “come here” in the next 10 minutes or so, whenever it was convenient for me. I’d respond with a simple short touch to acknowledge I got the message and will do.
If dinner was going to be ready in the next 5 minutes, whoever was cooking would send a two (2) short touches followed by a long touch. That meant it was slightly more urgent but you have a little time to wrap up what you’re doing. Again, the other person would respond to acknowledge receipt.
The most urgent requests was three (3) short touches followed by a long touch. It meant drop what you’re doing and come here (usually reserved for emergencies or “all hands on deck” situations like kiddo pooping in the tub). No need to acknowledge receipt because the response is running from where ever you are in the house to show up immediately.
We’ve also adopted other little things over time like three (3) short touches to mean “I love you” and a series of touches at the end of the day to notify me that he’s left work and is on his way home.
Concluding Thoughts
Most of Bond Touch’s marketing is centered around building people’s connections by reminding each other that they’re thinking of each other. There’s also a few interesting pieces in their newsletter about how touch can improve your mental health with scientific facts like how touching someone you love can cause your body to produce oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin which all together makes you feel loved and reduces stress and anxiety.
And like, that’s great, but I don’t think they expected neurodivergent people to use them for a purpose like this. If you and/or your partner know Morse code, then this is your time to shine!
Learn More
- Jaime A. Heidel, “The Horror of Task Interruption – 12 Neurodivergent People Explain the Unbearable Feeling of Being Ripped Away from Their Thoughts” (Oct. 29, 2019). NeuroClastic.
