Your thumb and your forefinger make for a potent combination that allows you to grab chips, candies, and all sorts of other snacks with ease. Problem is, you use those same digits to type on a keyboard, tap on your phone, and mash buttons on a controller, so using them to grab food will most likely leave morsels, powdery flavors, and food stains on whatever devices you’re using at the moment. The Snactiv offers a way to pick up snacks without getting your fingers dirty.
A miniature chopsticks of sorts, it lodges between the outer section of your index finger and middle finger, giving you a handy implement for grabbing dust-covered cheese balls, buttery popcorn, and greasy chips while keeping your fingers clean. Even better, you can keep it between your fingers the entire time without getting in the way, whether you’re working on a PC, playing on your phone, or replacing the battery on your favorite watch.
The Snactiv consists of two plastic tines that are attached to a flexible hinge that goes between your fingers. You can control that hinge by gently squeezing your fingers together, which clamps the tines together for grabbing any food items, similar to how you grab food using a pair of chopsticks. From there, you just put the food to your mouth and release your squeezed fingers to pop the grub right in.
Why not just use a pair of chopsticks (or, better yet, Spoon Chopsticks) to keep your fingers clean? Mostly, because you can’t hold on to chopsticks while you’re moving the mouse, typing on a keyboard, or doing something else with your hand, while this thing can stay on regardless of what’s keeping your hands busy. Additionally, this thing should work the first try unlike chopsticks, which will require the uninitiated a bit of practice to properly learn.
Once you run out of snacks and want to remove the Snactiv, you can simply take it off your fingers and stand it on a flat surface using the finger slots. That means, the gripping tips don’t need to touch the desk surface at any time, so any flavored powders, grease, or food morsels on there won’t easily transfer to your desk (they can still fall off, of course). It’s made from flexible rubber, by the way, so it should provide a comfortable fit, regardless of how big or small your fingers are. Provided you’re not a small child, though, as it’s been sized for individuals aged 14 and up.
Of course, using these miniature chopsticks means you can’t grab a fistful of popcorn like you normally do, restricting you to single bite-size pieces, so you can’t quite snack with the same heavy doses as before. Still, it offers the easiest way to enjoy snacks without getting your hands dirty and that’s something a lot of folks will likely appreciate. They even threw in a custom case, so the utensil doesn’t get dirty while it sits in your pocket the rest of the day.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the Snactiv. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at $19.