Leatherman Tread Tool Bracelets - Awesome or Impractical?
Leatherman made a bracelet with a variety of tools called the tread. They're now OFFICIALLY retired & only made by Chinese manufacturer(s) — much cheaper. Should you still buy one?
A few years ago, I noticed Leatherman was making bracelets. But not just any bracelets, at well over 100 dollars, their Tread line featured not precious metals, nor even jewels, but a selection of tools that you carry with you anywhere and everywhere. Theoretically ready to get you out of whatever tight spot you found yourself in.
Awesome! Right?
While interesting items, judging by the fact that these are now listed on Leatherman’s Retired Products page, they were evidently a less-than-successful product. Read on for some ideas as to what might have happened, and how you can get a reasonable facsimile of the Tread at a… reasonable price today.
If you’re into offbeat engineering, real-world builds, and practical tech thinking, subscribe 👇
An awesome tool… for $125?
When I first saw these devices advertised, I was enthralled with the idea that I could have a selection of useful implements constantly on my wrist, ready to go at a moment’s notice. Your wrist-tool can be customized based on the links you leave on or take out, with sections that act as:
Hex keys
Screwdrivers (phillips and flathead)
Torx bits
Glass breaker
Cutting hook
Pick/SIM card tool
Bottle opener
And more! It’s a fantastic idea. However, this was a bit hard for me to swallow at something like $125. Not exactly an impulse buy at my vaguely defined income level…1
The Tread is conceived
So how did this wackily useful tool come about? According to this 2017 Leatherman article, the idea for the Tread was born out of a frustration with security at Disneyland Ben Rivera, their CEO at the time:
our president and CEO, Ben Rivera, was on a family trip to Disneyland. They were in line to go through security and he had a Leatherman Skeletool on him, which has a knife blade on it. He had it on the outside of his pocket and flipped it to the inside while he was in line. Security saw it and told him he couldn’t bring it into the park, considering it a weapon
The article continues on about the device’s construction. It’s generally quite favorable to the product, as one would expect given its publication on leatherman.com. I DO think this bit is a bit ironic from my 2026 perspective:
When Tread first launched two years ago, it broke the multi-tool industry. It was game changing and there was nothing like it on the market: the world’s first wearable multi-tool.
I’m not sure what “broke the multi-tool industry” was supposed to mean, but I rarely saw them, and now they’re not sold by Leatherman. Maybe “broke” is misapplied. I did reach out to Leatherman about why they retired this product, but there was no response.2
Knockoffs(?) are embarrassingly good - better even?
After discovering this tool, I did what any budget-minded person with an apparently laissez-faire and/or fungible view on intellectual property rights would do and went on AliExpress to see if I could find a knockoff. There I ordered not one, but TWO of these fancy techno-bracelets for a total of $61.09 from the prestigious Shop911952037 Store.
I fully expected something of medium-to-poor quality. However, while I haven’t examined one of these bracelets direct from Leatherman, what I received appears to be an actual Leatherman Tread bracelet in both the smaller LT version.
Why do I think this is the Leatherman bracelet? Besides what seems to be very good quality, “Leatherman” is actually stamped into the bracelets more than once. To help justify the purchase in my mind, I don’t think Leatherman was actually selling a black version at the time. They certainly aren’t now.
But is it actually a good tool?
As cool of a concept as this is — a set of tools literally around your wrist — there are some drawbacks. The screwdriver and other similar tools are going to be your most used implements. However, all of them are extremely short, as in virtually no shank whatsoever. If the hole is recessed, or if there are other protrusions nearby, you’re going to have a hard time.
OTOH, the big flathead screwdriver could be useful for prying or tightening certain things, e.g. camera equipment👆 And if you’re into opening bottles a lot, the bottle opener would certainly come in handy. However, for all but the most rudimentary fastener driving tasks, you’re going to want to reach for actual screwdrivers. Even something like a traditional Leatherman would be a big improvement, and you’re typically gaining a knife and pliers.
Ironically, when wrist-worn and inactive, the tools to stick out a bit, potentially getting stuck on things and/or causing damage. Plus, the standard version especially a bit heavy if you’re not used to it. Finally, you or others may assume that the thing on your wrist that looks like a watch will tell time, setting you up for disappointment when you look down and twist your wrist an attempt to obtain temporal information.
Maybe I could learn to live with it, or even install a clock face as a link. Neither has yet come to fruition.
To be fair, Leatherman did come out with the Tread Tempo, which HAS a watch face built in, but that seems like a dangerous situation for a watch. Also, no knife (though it does have a cutting slit) means that you can generally take it onto an airplane without getting hassled. Recent rather positive experience in this footnote 👉3
A neat concept, not a neat product?
Bottom line: Do I like my (knockoff) tool bracelet? Yes. Do I wear it a lot? No.
Was the Tread a good product for Leatherman? Apparently not. They no longer sell it. Presumably people didn’t want to pay $100+ for such device, especially when what appears to be an extremely good version (even better, one might argue, as I did’t see the LT version in black) is available directly from China for less than half that.
Since Leatherman didn’t answer my queries, I’m left wondering what happened. Was it simply too expensive and/or unpopular? Did Leatherman contract a manufacturer that simply sold these products to anyone even with an agreement in place, and/or did another entity rip the design off down to the Leatherman marking (creating competition)? Was some deal made to allow others to sell them after it was officially retired?
While Leatherman’s official answer wasn’t forthcoming, I did find this discussion about the Tread’s demise on Reddit, including the following comment from VesuvianRocket2:
I built these when I worked for Leatherman as a temp years ago. They were Garbage to put together and the fault rate on parts was TREMENDOUS. They were spending a ton of money reworking parts and rethreading every single component. They spent so much money trying to make these work and they just never did. It was a Bad Product, so they stopped making them. We built them for maybe 6 months. I was hired to help staff that line, so I went when they did.
I haven’t verified ‘Rocket’s claims, but this seems plausable. Cool ideas don’t always work out the way you want. I’ve certainly made my share of misses over the years. -JC
Techadjacent is where I share engineering ideas, builds, and practical tech analysis. Subscribe to get the next post in your inbox — published weekly👇
Thanks for reading! I hope you follow along on this Techadjacent journey. Fair warning: I can and do get a little off-topic in the footnotes. Get in touch: hi@jeremyscook.com, leave a comment, or just reply if you’re reading this as an email!
Note: Some links may be affiliate
Addendum/Footnotes:
I don’t remember the exact price, but it was over $100 IIRC. As for my income:
Technical Content Creator Business Update 2026: What Worked, What Didn't in 2025
If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you may be confused about what I do for a living, or perhaps you think I get paid to write. Perhaps you even think I get paid to write on Substack.
OK, there was an email response:
I recently took a trip with my family to see some friends in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, also visiting Glacier National Park. It was quite nice there, though when I stepped out of the airport in Tampa (near midnight) I was shocked at how humid it is. Apparently it’s always like that here; I’m just used to it.
Anyway, I took my Tread bracelet, along with a black Citizen watch that has a similar look. To the Tread’s credit, it came in handy in at least two situations. First, it allowed me to loosen a reflector on one of the bikes we were using in order to lower the seat. Its little cutting hook also allowed me to elegantly dispose of a clothing tag, rather than struggling with it and potentially ripping the fabric (as one does).
Waiting at the airport for our connecting return flight, I had switched to my traditional watch. However, I found myself missing it when my younger daughter rode on a moving sidewalk escalator thing over and over for entertainment. I pictured her hair getting sucked into the moving rail and thought it would be really nice to have some sort of cutting apparatus ready to go for such a situation. But that didn’t happen, and the Tread, in my carry-on luggage, was never questioned.
When I got home, I also tightened a bicycle seat down because it was handy. So maybe the Tread (knockoff) is more useful than I gave it credit for in the bulk of the article, which largely written before that journey.