My daughter has had many ear infections and bouts with excessive ear wax buildup over the last year and a half.. You, of course have to be careful poking objects into ears, but with a little care, this allows you to easily see if the ear is clogged or not, check the effect of your cleaning, and if it is clean then you can see if the ear drum and tell if it is puffy and red or not. Without this it was a lot of guesswork as to what was going on. It was worth the money and is well constructed. This tool continues to allow us to take a glance inside each ear to determine if we need to take her to the doctor or if we just need to flush her ears with saline to loosen built up earwax. It feels very solid in the hand and the light is bright enough to get a good view of what's happening in the ear canal.