HAKENO Adjustable Dumbbells Review: A Pair Included, Not Just One

Most adjustable dumbbells that land near £280 quietly sell you one dumbbell. The HAKENO 15 in 1 gives you two. That single fact reframes the whole comparison, because a lot of the flashier names people cross-shop against are priced per single unit, and by the time you double them up you're looking at a very different bill. At around £279.98 for the pair, the HAKENO is trying to win on maths as much as engineering.

Each dumbbell adjusts up to 24kg across roughly 15 settings using a dial fast-adjust, and the set replaces a whole rack of fixed dumbbells while taking up the footprint of two trays. The headline verdict: this is a genuinely good-value way to get a full adjustable pair into a small room, held back by the usual compromises of the fixed-length adjustable format and a 24kg ceiling that will frustrate stronger pressers. If you're a beginner or an intermediate lifter who wants one purchase to cover most of a home workout, it earns a look.

Who it is for

This suits the person setting up or filling out a home gym who wants breadth without a wall of fixed dumbbells. Beginners doing curls, presses, rows and squats get everything they need from one box, and the adjustability means the set grows with you instead of forcing a new purchase every time you get stronger. That breadth is the point of owning dumbbells at all, because muscle-strengthening work is one of the few things every major health body agrees you should do: the NHS recommends strengthening activities on at least 2 days a week, and even a minimal-dose approach to resistance training is enough to build strength and muscle mass in most people. A single adjustable pair covers all of that.

Who should think twice? Anyone already pressing heavy. If you flat-press dumbbells above 24kg a side, or you're close to it, you'll hit the ceiling of this set fast and should budget for a heavier range from the start. Our best adjustable dumbbells UK guide covers sets that climb higher.

Build and the adjustment system

The mechanism is the familiar dial-selector idea done at a budget price. Each dumbbell sits in its own cradle; you turn the dial on the end to the weight you want, and when you lift the handle out only the plates for that number come with it, the rest staying behind in the tray. HAKENO quotes 15 weight steps up to 24kg, so you're jumping in increments of roughly 1.5kg to 2kg as you climb, which is fine enough spacing for progressive overload without leaving big gaps between settings.

The handle has an anti-slip texture that holds up when your hands get damp, and there's a safety lock so a half-turned dial can't dump plates onto your foot mid-rep. Build quality is the strong point for the money: metal plates, a solid handle, no obvious flex. The honest caveat sits with the parts you can't see. A dial system has springs, pins and stacked plates where an old iron dumbbell has none, and that's the trade you accept for the convenience.

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In use

For curls, rows and lateral raises the HAKENO behaves like a normal dumbbell, and that's the best thing you can say about kit like this. The weight sits balanced, the grip holds, and swapping from a set of hammer curls to a heavier row is a quick turn of the dial rather than screwing collars on and off. Presses are where you feel the format. Because the outer shell stays the same length whatever weight you dial in, a 10kg setting is still a long dumbbell, so on a flat or incline press the ends sit wider than a fixed 10kg would and the movement feels slightly clumsy until you adjust to it.

Goblet squats are fine, since you're holding one dumbbell vertically against your chest and the length points up and down out of the way. Our goblet squat guide walks through the form if you're new to it. The two frustrations both come from the mechanism. First, that rattle: at lighter settings a few plates are doing nothing but riding along, and they can knock about audibly on faster reps. Second, and more limiting, you can only change weight in the cradle. If you like dropping the weight on the floor between sets for a burnout, you can't, because the dumbbell has to go back on its base to reset. Plan your weight before you pick it up.

The 24kg ceiling is the last honest limit. For most people that's plenty of headroom for months of training, and there are dozens of effective moves well under it, plenty of which our best dumbbell exercises piece covers. But strength climbs, and pressers in particular will find 24kg a hand starts to feel light on the bench sooner than they'd like.

Value

Here's where the HAKENO makes its case. A single Nuobell or a Bowflex SelectTech dumbbell often costs about what this whole pair does, and you need two of them to actually train. Those premium sets buy you a more refined dial, a longer reliability record and, frankly, more peace of mind on durability. If budget genuinely isn't a concern and you want the set most likely to survive a decade of daily abuse, the Bowflex SelectTech 552 review lays out what the extra money gets you.

For everyone counting the cost, the HAKENO's pitch is straightforward: a complete adjustable pair for the price of a single premium unit. You give up some polish, the rattle is real, and the mechanism is less proven over years. What you get back is 48kg of loadable weight, a small footprint and a set that covers most of a home workout on day one. Against fixed dumbbells bought a pair at a time, or against single-dumbbell adjustables dressed up to look cheap, it's an easy set to recommend for a first serious home gym. Compare it with plain iron in our best dumbbell set UK guide, and browse more kit in the home gym section.

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