Before You Buy That Gadget: 6 Questions That Save You Time, Money, and Regret

WELCOME TO EPISODE 246

Every week, my inbox fills up with questions like, “Freddie, what do you think of this gadget?” In a world overflowing with wellness tech—hydrogen water, PEMF, lymphatic suits—it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s just shiny marketing. So I’m laying it all out.

This episode breaks down the six core principles I use to evaluate technology: science and safety, lifestyle compatibility, value versus hype, brand reliability, longevity, and remembering the most important truth—your body does the healing. Whether you're a practitioner or just starting your wellness journey, these tips will help you make smart, aligned decisions with your energy, time, and dollars.

Episode Highlights

[00:00] - Technology doesn’t heal—you do
[01:12] - My #1 principle: science, safety, and real validation
[02:58] - The Flowpresso example: lymph, sleep, and cellular hydration
[04:20] - Lifestyle compatibility: will you actually use this device?
[06:10] - Ice baths and the reality behind the hype
[07:47] - Value vs marketing: understanding true cost
[09:22] - Brand support: who picks up the phone when something breaks?
[10:10] - Longevity and market trends: is this company sticking around?
[11:10] - Final reminder: the body heals, tech just supports

LINKS & RESOURCES

BEAM Minerals: http://beamminerals.com/beautifullybroken
Use code beautifullybroken for 20% off

Flowpresso: https://calendly.com/freddiekimmel/flowpresso-one-on-one-discovery

Silver Biotics Wound Healing Gel: https://bit.ly/3JnxyDD
30% off Use Code: BEAUTIFULLYBROKEN for Discount

StemRegen:
https://www.stemregen.co/products/stemregen?_ef_transaction_id=&oid=1&affid=52
Code: beautifullybroken

LightPathLED: https://lightpathled.pxf.io/c/3438432/2059835/25794

CONNECT WITH FREDDIE

Work with Me: https://www.beautifullybroken.world/biological-blueprint

Website and Store: (http://www.beautifullybroken.world)

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beautifullybroken.world/)

YouTube: (https://www.youtube.com/@freddiekimmel

FULL EPISODE INTERVIEW

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Freddie Kimmel (00:01.39)
friends, welcome to the beautifully broken podcast. This one is near and dear to my heart. So one of the most common messages I get in my inbox is, Freddie, what about this product? What about this one? What about this one? It's usually some type of a new spin on pulse electromagnetic field, or maybe it's something that does nano bubbles in your water or a hydrogen generator. If you can imagine it, I've gotten a message about it.

And the reality is they could all be wonderful, but it's a really tricky space to navigate. And what I'd like to say first is that technology does not heal you. The body heals. So we have these biological regulatory pathways within the body, be it our own stem cell network, circulation, lymphatic, drainage and detoxification. We even have a glymphatic system in the brain. I could use it right now to drain cellular waste, right?

And so we use things like light and frequency and magnetics to amplify these pathways. So never forget that the healing happens in you. I want to walk through these principles that I use for discerning. Is this a good technology? How does the company look? Is there research behind it? And it really helps me decide if this is like a good decision for you, your body at this time in your health journey. Number one is going to be science and safety first.

Number one, so is the product supported by peer reviewed studies or clinical validation? I'm looking for things like FDA, CE stickers, FCC stickers. I just want to know first of all, that I'm going to be safe when I use the technology. That's number one. And number two, what are the claims on the website? And is any of the scientific research rooted back to this actual product? Many times, no.

Many times, and that's fine, that's fine, right? You get an idea, you put something out in the marketplace, you know it works. Many companies do not have the money to do these large clinical trials. In fact, very few in the wellness and longevity space. And so what we do is we kind of borrow information. We borrow science, we borrow technology that is very similar. And we say, well, it was good here, good here. I'm going to build something very similar. I think that's just an awareness you want to have. I'm not saying it's good or bad.

Freddie Kimmel (02:25.324)
I'll give you an example. One of the companies that I work with, and let me say this first, anything I talk about on the podcast, I love. I have tested, I've researched, I've done my own validation on, and I would not champion it if I didn't think it wasn't amazing. But Flo-Press is a great example. So they are a full body lymphatic drainage suit that uses a multimodal approach, if you will. So there's compression, there's deep pressure. Think about like a weighted blanket.

There's thermotherapy or heat. There's even some frequency technology. And they did a large clinical trial, 135 people, first responders, one session a week for 40 minutes, one session a week for 40 minutes over three weeks. And they had a 92 % improvement in sleep quality across the board, right? All we're doing is moving lymphatics and putting the body in this, the best warm hug you've ever had. But there's

great validation to say, there's something really exciting here. Other things they've done is shown every person they put through a scan that does bioimpedance and it measures how much fluid is in the cell, how much fluid is in the tissue. And after one session, everybody increased their intracellular fluid by 2%. They decreased the total body fluid volume by 2%. So we're hydrating the cell, we're de-burdening the body of excess fluid, we're amplifying lymphatic drainage.

It's a great thing to know to be able to look at a technology, evaluate the claims and say, what's really here? It doesn't mean it's good or bad if it doesn't have science on the device, but it's something I definitely look for. The next thing I want to mention is lifestyle compatibility. This is really great. Is this tech something that I'm going to be able to incorporate into my lifestyle, into my daily routine? Is it realistic? It really depends on the therapy. What's the ease of use?

How much time is this gonna take? You know, I think for the home user, let's take clinical practice out of the equation. I think for the home user sometimes, when we look at something like PEMF therapy, you could go get this at a practitioner's office. However, it might cost $100 a session. And then there's your travel time to and from the clinic.

Freddie Kimmel (04:46.518)
So it starts to add up when you put a value on your times. You got to evaluate, this a technology that I love so much that I'm getting such a great result with that I'm just going to do at home? These devices are very simple to use. Most PMF technologies, you push a button, you either put a coil on your body or you lay on a mat and you sit there and receive. It's very compatible. Where something like an ice bath, it might look good online. You might see your favorite influencer getting an ice and saying how amazing it is.

And you might find yourself in the middle of February in your own backyard alone with no social media, no followers, no cameras, no hype crew. And you might say to yourself, wow, this really sucks. And so you can look at something like a Facebook marketplace and you know, it's really interesting. So years ago, there were no ice baths. But now if you go on Facebook marketplace in Austin, Texas, I could go find 30 that are for sale and everybody's got a reason why they're

whether dumping it or getting rid of it. But for me as a consumer, I say, wow, there's a lot of these for sale online. So maybe it wasn't that compatible with that person's lifestyle. And it's possible it didn't meet their nervous system where they were at. Maybe somebody struggling with hypothyroidism or chronic fatigue syndrome, or it's just not a fit at this time in their journey. It doesn't mean it's not good. It just means maybe it wasn't right for them.

at that moment in time. So it's just something to consider. The next thing I want to talk about is value versus hype. So is the price reflective of real measurable value or is it just great marketing? Both things exist and that's the reality. So I've been in the space long enough to sometimes see a product enter at a couple thousand dollars and then I'll revisit a website because somebody mentions it.

you know, five or six years later, and all of sudden it's $26,000. Now there's two realities going on here. There is a real cost of doing business. And sometimes when a device enters the market, somebody might see it and say, I can make that for half that price. That might be true, but support of a product, which we're going to get into next, means shipping, fulfillment, when something breaks, warranties.

Freddie Kimmel (07:08.172)
So there is a cost associated with doing business. And sometimes there can be a little bit of a race to the bottom. You know, the one example I'll use is I'll just use Flopresso as an example. You know, we're a practitioner product that is priced for a practitioner. You know, there's other products in the space that started out at $7,000. And now I think the top tier model is at $47,000 because they were endorsed by a very large celebrity with a massive platform.

And their experience with the technology is valid, but all of a sudden you can watch this price just climb and climb and climb because there are people out there with that disposable income and they think, well, if it's more expensive, it must be the best. And the reality is that's just not always the case. The next thing I want to talk about is brand reliability and support. So is the company transparent? Are they responsive? Are they dependable when things go wrong?

is somebody who's worked as a technology consultant in the space for over six, seven years now. Technology goes sideways. It will break. That happens. It's no different from your car. Your car needs to be serviced. And this is personally why I always go to a dealership, even though it's a little more, it is peace of mind. I know who I'm calling. There's a chiller company that I started working with really on in the space called Penguin. At the time, all they made was a commercial chiller.

or they made chillers for aquariums. However, I knew because they were doing this already for years and years in a business model and people were relying on them to keep food cold, to keep very expensive fish alive. It was a high likelihood these guys are gonna come out with a great commercial chiller or a home use chiller for cold plunges. And when something happens with my chiller, I call Eric over at Penguin within the next.

24 hours, there's an email, what happened? What do you need? Send us pictures. Same thing with FloPresso, same thing with AmpCoil, same thing with Light Path LED. It's all the products that I talk about on the show, or they wouldn't be in the conversation. So I think it's good to ask about service, warranty. What's the expectation on the longevity of the system? Just look for transparency in those answers. Just look for transparency in those answers.

Freddie Kimmel (09:31.214)
The next thing I want to talk about is longevity and sustainability. So is it built to last? And is this company going to be around in five years? So we want to avoid these disposable trends. And I don't mean to throw ice baths under the bus, but in 2020, there was like no ice bath companies. In fact, in 2021, I went with my buddy, John Richter. went, we went and we bought a chiller for an aquarium. Then we went 22 times to Home Depot.

trying to find different transfer pumps and rubber tubing and couplings and drilling bulkhead fittings through a barrel. So we tried to make a system. They didn't exist. In the next few years, there are a wave and there's all of a sudden there's a couple hundred companies and many of those companies have closed. Many have gone out of business. So you've got a lot of consumers out there with a product they can no longer get support for. They can no longer find service for and

that is a reality in this space. So I think just do your due diligence, ask these questions and you're gonna be safe. The last thing I wanna say is that when we have these responses to technology, when we have a great reduction in joint pain or our fatigue changes or all of a sudden we're way less bloated, or all of a sudden my digestion is like a 10 out of 10, then.

You have to know it's the body that's doing that work. It is the body that heals. It's the body that has these regulatory systems that exist to manage fluid balance. We have an immune system that will mobilize. We have musculature that will grow and repair. We can even remodel tendons. We just have to complement that through lifestyle. And so when we get the lifestyle in check, when we really nail down like our sleep hygiene and how much we move,

and how well we're hydrating. Everything's going to work a little bit better and you're going to have a much better response to your red light device, to your PMF device. I hope this was helpful. Good luck out there. Big love.