HONEYBULL Walking Cane: An Honest Review of the Pros and Cons

The hard part of buying a cane is not the cane. It is the ten minutes you spend in the aisle deciding what owning one says about you. I postponed those ten minutes for the better part of a year.

Paula, my daughter, had been bringing the subject up since the spring before last. I told her I was sixty-eight and had spent twenty-nine years on my feet in a school cafeteria, and that my knees and I had come to an arrangement. Then a long grocery trip last November left my right knee aching the whole walk from the far end of the lot to my car, and I went home and ordered the HONEYBULL folding cane myself, on my own phone. Paula heard about it after the box arrived.

I have used it for about twelve months. This is not the piece where I tell you it changed my life. I still have osteoarthritis in my right knee and at the base of both thumbs, the same as the year I retired, and I still say so out loud. What the cane did was narrower than that. It made a handful of ordinary trips possible again without my paying for them the next morning.

How I've Used It

I bought it in November of last year, so roughly twelve months ago. It is aluminum, it folds, and the listing puts the weight at 0.44 kg, light enough that I stopped noticing it in my tote bag after the first week. The height adjusts from 30 to 36 inches with a push button, and the listing says that range suits people from 5 feet to 6 foot 5. I am 5 foot 4 and I keep mine at 32 inches. Folded, it is about 12.5 inches, close to the length of my forearm, which is why it fits in the bag at all.

Where it goes: the grocery store, the walk around the lake near my house, parking lots, the long corridor at my doctor's office. Where it does not go: inside my own house. My kitchen is small, the counter is three steps from the stove, and there is a mat in front of the sink that does a job a cane cannot. In twelve months I have not once needed the cane in my own home. I have also never fallen, before the cane or since, and I would like to keep that sentence true.

One trip stands out. Late in January the store was crowded and I parked further out than I meant to. I walked in with the cane, did a full circuit with a cart, and walked back out to the car. A year before, that same trip would have cost me the rest of the afternoon on the couch with my knee up. This time I put the groceries away and made supper. That is the whole claim I am making. Not that the pain went away, but that the afternoon did not.

The walk around the lake near my house is a mile and a quarter if you go the whole way around, with two benches on the far side and a stretch of old concrete where the roots have lifted the slabs. Before the cane I did the short arm and turned back. Now I do the whole loop most mornings I go, two or three times a week, and I use the benches less than I used to. It takes me about thirty-five minutes with the cane. It took me about twenty-five before my knee went bad, and I have made my peace with thirty-five.

I carry it in my left hand, opposite the bad knee. The listing calls the cane ambidextrous and I believe it, because when I tried it in the other hand at the store there was nothing to flip or swap. It took about two weeks before it stopped feeling like a piece of equipment I was carrying around and started feeling like something I was using.

What Nobody Tells You About a Folding Cane

Nobody tells you that a folding cane is a balancing aid and not a walking frame. It will steady you. It will not hold you up if the knee decides to quit on you. The joints in the middle are the reason it fits in a bag, and they are also the reason it is not the right tool for somebody who needs to put real weight through their arm. If you are at the point where you need to lean, you need a rollator or a walker, and this is not that.

The folding itself takes a little hand strength. With arthritis at the base of both thumbs I noticed that right away. It is not hard, but it is not nothing either, and if your hands are worse than mine you should try one in person before you order one online.

Nobody tells you the folded cane has weight in a bag. It is listed at 0.44 kg, just under a pound, which is not much until the same tote already holds a wallet, a pair of glasses and a water bottle. After the first month I moved mine to the car and I have not carried it on a regular basis since. Folded it is about 12.5 inches, and it lies flat enough on the passenger seat that I forget it is there.

Nobody tells you to check the joint every time you open it. I press the sections together and listen for the click, the same way I check that a door has latched. In twelve months it has never let go on me, and the push button has held its setting. I still check. It costs three seconds.

Nobody tells you the base collects things. Three tips mean three places for a leaf, a wad of cut grass or a piece of gravel to lodge, and a small stone in the wrong spot will click on a tile floor. I tap it out on the curb before I get in the car. That is the whole maintenance routine, along with wiping the base with a rag now and then.

The part of a cane that touches the floor is the part that wears. Every few months I set it on a level surface and see whether it still sits flat. Mine still does. When it stops, that is the signal to deal with it, not to keep going.

The Three-Tipped Base, the Best of It and the Worst of It

The free-standing base is the reason I like this HONEYBULL cane and not some other one. It sits flat on its own, on a base about 4 inches wide, and it stays up. At the checkout it stands beside me while I get my wallet out, instead of me leaning it against a counter and watching it slide. At the bench by the lake it stands on the pavement while I sit. That one small thing is worth more to me than the folding, honestly.

One Tuesday at the hardware store I counted how many times I set the cane down over the course of an hour. Nine. At the register, at the seed rack, twice in the aisle with the light bulbs while I read the back of a package, and at the counter where they cut keys. Nine times, and it was standing upright every time I turned back around. A cane that leans needs something to lean on, and there is not always something.

The worst of it is uneven ground. Three points do not sit level on grass, on gravel, or on the old brick sidewalk near the library. On those surfaces it rocks, and rocking is the opposite of what you want from a cane. I use it on store floors, pavement and the smooth concrete around the lake, and I take it slow on anything else. If your daily walk is across a lawn, know that going in.

One more thing about the base. It is wide, about 4 inches across, and in a tight aisle with a cart you will notice it. I caught it on the corner of a display once. Nothing happened, but I look now.

Height, Fit and the Two Weeks

The push button makes the height easy to change, and easy is not the same as correct. What I was told, and what I would pass on, is that you stand up straight in your everyday shoes and let your arm hang, and the top of the cane should come to about the crease of your wrist. Mine is at 32 inches and my arm is nearly straight when I walk. Set it too high and you will hike your shoulder. Set it too low and you will stoop. Have your doctor or a physical therapist check the fit if you can. I had mine checked.

Nobody warns you that 30 to 36 inches sounds like a generous range and it is not. Two inches is the difference between a cane that fits and one that does not. I started at 34 because I assumed taller meant more support, and I hiked my right shoulder for four days before I worked out why my neck hurt. I set it to 32, checked it against my wrist, and the shoulder ache was gone inside a week.

The other thing nobody tells you is which hand. You carry the cane on the side opposite the bad joint, not the same side. My right knee is the bad one, so the cane is in my left hand. It feels wrong for the first few days and then it stops feeling wrong. I had it backwards for a week before I knew better.

The listing says the height range covers people from 5 feet to 6 foot 5. I am 5 foot 4 and mine sits at 32 inches, right in the middle of it. If you are near the top of that range, set it before you lean on it, because 36 inches is where the adjustment stops. If you are under 5 feet, this is not your cane, for the same reason at the other end.

What It Has Not Done

It has not fixed my knee. Nothing has. I still take my glucosamine capsules with breakfast and supper, I still wear the knee wrap for the two or three hours of Sunday cooking, and I still sit down partway through. The HONEYBULL cane is one more thing in the row, not a replacement for the others. Sunday dinner never stopped. It got easier, and the cane is part of why.

It has not helped around the house, and I want to be clear about that, because people assume a cane is for the house. Mine is not. Indoors I have the mat in front of the counter and the wrap on my knee for Sunday cooking, and that is what carries me from the stove to the sink. The cane stays by the door.

It has not made me stop noticing it. This is a medical-looking object, and I have not fully made my peace with carrying one at sixty-eight. I am aware of it the way I am aware of my reading glasses. Some days that bothers me and some days it does not.

Where it lives is the passenger seat of my car. I drive a small sedan, and the folded cane fits on the seat beside me or down in the well without getting in the way of anything. When I get out, I open it before I stand up, not after. That order matters more than I would have guessed.

It has not replaced my doctor. I am not a nurse and never was. If your knee has started giving way, or you have numbness, or you have had a fall, that is a conversation with your doctor before it is a conversation with a shopping cart.

The cane did not give me back my thirties. It gave me back the walk from the far end of the grocery lot to my car without paying for it the next day.

Who This Is For

This is for somebody who is steady on their feet but does not trust the distance. Somebody whose knee or hip aches after a long trip and who wants a hand for the far end of the parking lot, the walk around the lake, the corridor at the clinic. It is for somebody who wants something that folds small enough to live in a bag, stands up on its own, and does not need two hands to manage in a checkout line. With more than 31,000 ratings behind it, it is a reasonable first cane.

If you are replacing a cane you already own because the old one falls over every time you set it down, that is the exact problem the HONEYBULL three-tipped base solves. It was not my situation, since this was my first cane, but it is the reason I would buy this one again.

It is also for the grown kids reading this on behalf of a parent. If your mother has started avoiding the store because of the walk in, this is the sort of thing that gives back a trip. My Paula was right and I was stubborn, and it took me a year to say so.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if you need to put weight through your arm. That is a walker or a rollator, full stop. Skip it if you have had a fall, or if your knee gives way without warning, because a cane that folds is not a cane that catches you. Skip it if most of your walking is on grass, gravel or broken pavement, because the three-point base will rock and you will spend the walk fighting it. And skip it if the look of the thing is going to keep you from using it, because a cane in the closet helps nobody. That last one is not a joke. I know exactly how that goes.