🔬 Handy 2 Pro: The Ultimate In-Depth Review - UPDATED 29.11

True on the charger! I ordered myself a new 65 watt fast charger. For whatever reason, the Handy 2 doesn’t like it and won’t charge. Any other device works without problems and my phone even super-fast-charges through it. When charging it through my PC, no problem. Very weird.

Most likely the charger you bought is not USB-PD 3 compliant.

The Handy 2 Kickstarter FAQ says:

Any USB-C Power Delivery charger will work, but for optimal performance, we recommend using a 65W charger capable of delivering 20V / 3.5A

So I’m not surprised your 35W charger has issues.

…i do recall Alexander saying the super early birds (prototypes) were covered by a rather exceptionally broad warranty that covered full overclocking and anything else we could throw at it. i wouldn’t be at all surprised if we can hand it in next year for a new one, there’s bound to be some stupid thing that goes wrong with it eventually.

However, what with Locktober and NNNovember i’m not in a position to break anything for a while. Great timing… no really…

hmphf…

That FAQ says “Any USB-C Power Delivery charger will work”, but actually many chargers do not work. 65 W charger should charge at 65 W and 35 W charger should charge at 35 W. You should not need to buy a specific charger to be able to charge. They recommend 65 W charger for optimal performance. It does not state that lower wattage will not work. So it is an issue they will need to fix in the final version.

This isn’t fixable without serious changes. That’s not how electronics work.
Every device has a required wattage. Slow chargers (non-PD or lower W than required) will have unexpected behaviors. This ranges from complete shutdowns, failing to charge, etc.

Under certain conditions you can under volt devices that give you those controls, ergo lowering the required wattage but on most devices the BMS (Battery management System) will refuse to charge on lower wattage due to safety and protecting the components ( usually heat issues )

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Very hyped and thankful for the Review im a early bird but since 2 weeks i only have a order mail no shipment mail im from Germany maybe anyone have the problem too idk

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I don’t have any information on my early bird shipment. Fixing the manufacturing problems with the very early bird models have delayed everyone’s shipments I assume.

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The Uk/No/EU early birds are going out now.
The US and HK early birds are getting ready to be sent this week.

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I got mine yesterday and have noticed that when I put the ClickOn attachment on and turn it to secure it, it’s not straight and slightly tilted. Anyone else have this issue?

You need to use more force when you secure and remove the attachment. It might feel like you will break the device but you wont… It will get easier after a few times.

oh, okay. It sure feels like you’d break it.

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another syncbot review? haha

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Got my Handy 2 Pro this week and I know it’s been said, but it just needs to keep being said.

The included strap is ridiculously short!
Just FYI to future owners, order a “pro” strap if you buy the Handy 2.

Absolutely amazing write-up and detailed impeccably! I had contemplated a solution for the OnaHole sleeve rubbing issue (or any sleeve for that matter) but as I kept scrolling I realized TheHandy team took great care of the issue.

As for mounting, (I just received my TheHandy2 Pro Today), I had recently reached out to OhDoki and they were happy to provide me the PDF file detailing the measurements to the poorly located threaded inserts. This gave me some time to plan. When I saw them in person today, to add to the disappointment…I could see that although the holes are 1/4-3/8” deep, they only tapped about 2 full threads in each insert. Following up with a bottoming tap would have threaded it literally all the way.

For a super secure mount, taking all into consideration, including play while connected to power…and my natural reaction to overengineer everything I fabricate….I present you with this!

This makes TheHandy2 Pro VESA 100x100 compatible, leaves enough space to connect the charger/power cable, and addresses the concern of the bottom hole being close to your wedding tackle where the hardware of choice could scratch or cut you.

This also eliminates the need to flip operation, or wait for the next update which may or may not flip orientation of the LCD display as well

I am waiting for paint to dry and then will be in business with my OG Handy hands free setup!

Feast your eyes on the indestructible VESA mount








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Then it wasn’t only a “me issue” it seems ^^ Yeah, it’s too short. Bigger Onaholes are not strap-able with that short strap.

Thank you very much! And thank you for sharing your DIY setup. This is great. I’m happy to see you guys are sharing this here. That was something I was hoping to see here.

Your mount looks very sturdy. The official desk mount is good, but it isn’t as sturdy. Fast movements make it shake pretty hefty ^^ I think with your construction, this wouldn’t be an issue.

If you can and want to share, I’d be curious to see how it looks once it finished, attached to the Handy 2 and how it behaves. A comparison to the desk mount would be nice to see.

Thank you for sharing!

Great work man!

I would love to have that PDF file too so I can also prepare my own mount to fit my desk.

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It’s rock solid! I’ll share more details later! Thank you

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Awesome, thank you very much for sharing the picture. That does look rock solid indeed. Mounted to a monitor arm, makes it really solid. Monitor arms are already very stable by itself and the mount you built, will make it stable even with the fastest movements. Nicely done!

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I want to briefly talk about the new firmware update for the Handy 2. As mentioned in the review, I want to update my review, whenever a new firmware comes or other changes are made.

I copied the update from the original post above. You can find it there under “22. Updates”.


:counterclockwise_arrows_button: Firmware Update 4.1 (18 November 2025)

Handy released firmware update 4.1 on November 18th, and I want to briefly share the changelog and my first impressions of it.

For better readability, I’ve placed the full changelog inside a “hide details” section in the review.

Changelog - Firmware 4.1

Directly copied from the official Handy Discord.

One known bug: the battery percentage may remain visible (“ghost”) on the LED matrix after power-down. Temporary fix: power the device on and off again.

Full release notes:

User experience and UI
• Crisper LED-matrix video playback
• Updated Wi-Fi animations (connecting/connected)
• Play animation when starting a mode from the button
• Battery information shown when powering off
• Option to invert LED matrix + button orientation (upside-down mode)
• Adjustable LED matrix brightness
• Adjustable RGB indicator brightness

Playback and controls
• Long-press left/right to adjust playback speed; configurable step size
• Minimum-stroke tuning improved: top stroke moves at the 10% boundary for easier fine control
• Customizable button step counts for stroke range, velocity, frequency, and amplitude (via onboarding app)

Connectivity and networking
• Improved WebSocket reliability with keep-alive
• More reliable reconnection + reduced memory usage by reordering Wi-Fi/BLE initialization
• More forgiving OTA behavior after a failed update
• Ability to roll back to a previous firmware locally by switching OTA images
• Graceful disconnects (BLE, Wi-Fi, socket) before sleep and graceful BLE shutdown on power-down

Battery, charging, and power
• More accurate battery percentage measurement
• Better detection of charge completion and charger-fault states
• More frequent and accurate battery-status updates
• Prevented faulty battery-temperature readings when unplugging the charger
• Fixed low-voltage cases that triggered a reboot instead of deep sleep
• Improved shutdown-voltage handling and calibration
• Fixed cases where battery-calibration data was not saved
• Improved recovery to factory-default calibration values

Reliability, recovery, and storage
• Recovery routines for critical storage errors
• Safer writes to critical data (full partition backup before write)
• Improved recovery paths
• Better full-factory-reset behavior and base-settings reset
• Fixed an issue blocking some units from entering safe mode
• Lower memory usage on constrained devices
• Fixed a video-sync issue that could stop under certain conditions
• Added notification when settings change

Idle and power management
• Idle timer: device sleeps/disconnects after 60 minutes of inactivity (with 60-second warning); configurable or disable-able in the onboarding app

File changes
106 files changed, 8564 insertions(+), 4144 deletions(-)


:package: General Impression

The new firmware is very stable. I haven’t encountered any issues so far — performance remains unchanged, smooth, and reliable.
Update 4.1 is mainly focused on bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements, and they delivered on that front.


:light_bulb: LED Matrix Improvements

The LED matrix is noticeably crisper, brighter, and easier to read.
The Wi-Fi icon in particular is now much clearer. It wasn’t “bad” before, but it definitely looks cleaner and more refined now.

One of the best QoL changes:
When powering off the Handy 2, the battery percentage is now displayed.
A small change on paper, but extremely helpful in daily use — now you instantly know whether you need to charge it before your next session.


:control_knobs: Customizable Button Steps

The new option to customize button step counts for stroke range, velocity, frequency, and amplitude (via the HandyOnboarding app) is a very welcome improvement — especially if you occasionally use your Handy 2 in manual mode.
It’s nice to see the Handy team giving attention to both scripted and manual users.


:battery: Battery & Charging Improvements

Firmware 4.1 includes several adjustments to battery and charging behavior.

It also seems like the bug where battery levels didn’t display in the onboarding app is now fixed — it shows correctly for me.

One thing I still miss:
A clear charging indicator and a “charging complete” indicator.
Right now, you have to turn the device on or check the app manually.
I hope this gets added in a future update, as it would make charging management much easier.


:memo: Overall Impression

Firmware 4.1 is a solid update with meaningful QoL improvements.
They may seem small at first glance, but they really enhance daily usability.
Everything runs stable, clean, and without any issues so far.

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