Ben
While we’re no strangers to people hacking together their own custom sex tech, or the technical capabilities afforded by device control on cam sites, it’s not every day that someone creates their own Twitter-responsive sex toy, which is exactly what ‘Sam’ has done.
Sam, known also as Space Buck, or Buck, created the ‘Double Oh’ by modifying an otherwise standard $1 vibrator, and connecting it to a modified remote controlled battery. For a toy you put up your ass, it’s the sort of thing you really want to get right.
For Sam’s purposes, the exploratory toy was connected to Twitter’s API, meaning that the more likes and retweets his Twitter poll got, the longer, and more intense, the vibration would become.
“Here we go: my open-source Wi-Fi vibrator is in my butt again. Instead of running a guestbook, it’s reading the status of this tweet. Vibration intensity is controlled by the poll. Liking the tweet means 10 more seconds of vibration. Retweeting means 30 more seconds of vibration.”
While it’s made some minor ripples on the Web already – being mentioned in Mashable, among others – this sort of functionality isn’t really anything new: sex toys from Lovense, Kiiroo and other manufacturers have long been hooked into cam sites, to allow performers’ toys to respond to ‘tips’ in much the same way.
What’s notable, of course, isn’t just that this is a solo hobbyist playing around, but that control of the toy was posted publicly on a mainstream social network, where anyone could interact with it.
Sam explained to SEXTECHGUIDE that the notion of both public and private control are both important.
“The key idea was to add new functionality to existing battery-powered vibrators, ones that people have already bought and formed bonds with. Making them useable for, say, sex work on cam, or for remote fun with a single partner, are both important to me,” he says.
“My main technical goal is almost complete: it is to build a remote-control battery with as many features as possible. My main artistic goal may never be finished: it is to explore the new opportunities afforded by teledildonics, and explore the relationship between internet, sex, and identity.”
Read Next: DIY sex tech: The people experimenting with homemade BDSM and kink devices
