Forget Cheetah Blades. This Prosthetic Socket Is a Real Breakthrough

Garrett Hurley, LIM’s co-founder, tweaks the Infinite Socket. LIM Innovations

San Francisco Prosthetic Orthotic Service, located just around the corner from the Painted Ladies, is a fairly standard prosthetics shop. There’s a receptionist or two in front, with some small rooms behind them where people get fit with prosthetics. Past the rooms, beyond an unmarked door, there’s a workshop where prosthetic parts are made. Here, tools hang on the walls above ovens and lathes, and everything seems to be covered in a fine coating of white plaster dust.

But down a narrow flight of stairs, in the basement, there’s a different sort of prosthetics operation at work. Instead of saws, it has 3D scanners. This is the de facto lab for LIM Innovations, a small start-up whose work stands to dramatically improve the lives of countless amputees. LIM’s creation, the Infinite Socket, is a complete rethinking of a crucial prosthetic component, bringing modern technology and thoughtful design to bear on a long-ignored pain point. Where traditional sockets are good for maybe an hour of comfortable walking, an early tester of LIM’s said he walked eight miles around hilly San Francisco on his first day with the prototype.

The Problem With Sockets

It’s not unusual to hear about the latest advances in prosthetic limbs. Think carbon fiber cheetah blades and electronic knees controlled by microprocessors. Less glamorous, but just as important, are prosthetic sockets—the pieces connect those sophisticated prosthetics to peoples’ residual limbs. The prosthetic limb may look cool, but the socket is the real point of contact. It’s the interface where the hardware meets the human.