Keeps on Ticking: OhMiBod Brings Sex Tech to the Apple Watch

M. Christian
5 Min Read

Control many pleasurable features from the comfort of your own wrist.

Have you ever been enjoying a state-of-the-art pleasure device—one that hums, strokes, vibrates, oscillates and/or does all of that and more—but wondered why the controls for all of these are limited to either your computer or smartphone?

Well, you’re not the only one.

But lucky for you, and all those other folks out there who keep thinking why we don’t have smart watch integration, some sex tech companies are bringing just that to their integrated devices.

Smartwatch fun from OhMiBod

The most recent one comes from OhMiBod, the makers of a wide range of respected pleasure products targeted at couples and women.

According to Engadget, OhmiBod will be releasing in the spring of this year an Apple Watch version of their popular smartphone Remote App.

Unfortunately, the details are a bit scant but it’s pretty much safe to say that it will function very much like it’s smartphone cousin: allowing users to select preset vibrational patterns, create their own by hand—or possibly even allowing users to use their own voices to do the same.

Keeping with speculations based on the idea that it will work like their smartphone app, the SmartWatch should equally be able to be used with all of Ohmibod’s products, with perhaps the exception of the Lovelife and ClubVibe devices.

Talk dirty to me, Alexa

But manual control is only part of what’s coming. By using the watches pulse rate monitoring function users will also be able to set the app to increase or decrease its intensive to match their heart rate.

The next step beyond smartwatches is to cut out the physical middleman and go straight to voice control.

OhMiBod is on this as well: they are working on a way to integrate their products with Alexa Skill, so someday, if you have that Amazon smart home hub, you’ll be able to tell your integrated OhMiBod devices to turn you on—and then some.

Lovense sees the future

But OhmiBod isn’t the only developer who has seen the potential in linking their products to smartwatches. Back in 2015, Lovense ran an Indiegogo campaign for their own Apple Watch app that would give its users a way to control their Lush Bullet Vibe—allowing for some surreptitious erotic play.

While the Lovense campaign page is still up, according to the last update they’d been having problems with Apple regarding their Apple Watch app—and any integration with it and their products is missing from their site. The smartphone version, however, is still available to download and use.

It’s going to come

person with disability sign in front of a house

Despite these headaches with folks like Apple, it’s clear that one day—hopefully very soon—integration with smartwatches, and smartphone systems, is simply a matter of time. For one thing, it could boost sales of both erotic devices as well as the tech that would make using them much more pleasant—and exciting. Money, as they say, always talks.

There’s also the bigger issue: sex tech controlled via smartwatches, and especially via voice commands, could bring their use to those with disabilities. This would give so many people access to erotic pleasure and happiness they might not otherwise be able to easily attain.

People with vision or mobility challenges, for instance, could have access through their own voices; or via a smaller, more comfortable smartwatch interface. The heart rate function could also be critical for those who might want to experience arousal but who also have heart or circulatory concerns.

The same could even be created for those with neuromuscular or neurological issues: a watch being able to keep tabs in case of distress as well as delivering pleasure in safe as well as arousing ways.

But, like said, this is just a matter of time: eventually money will speak louder than prudery—but, more than this, manufacturers might actually come to understand and accept that allowing this ease of use is the right thing to do.

Image sources: OhMiBod, Marco Verch

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M.Christian (they/them) loves nothing better than exploring the intersections of sex and technology—and speculating on the future of both. A highly regarded erotica writer they have six novels,12 collections, 100+ short stories, and 25 anthologies as an editor to their name. Their non-fiction regularly appears in many sites, but they're most proud of being a regular contributor to Future of Sex. Of their erotic fiction, Tristan Taormino said that “M.Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart, funny, frightening, sexy—there's nothing [they] can't write about… and brilliantly.” Reflecting their unique ability to sympathetically and convincingly write for a range of genders and sexual orientations, their stories have appeared in multiple editions of Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, The Mammoth Books of Erotica, and others. Their collection of gay erotic fiction, Dirty Words, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. While a majority of their stories have been collected into books like Dirty Words, their fondness for combining sex and science fiction is clearly evident in collections that include Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, Skin Effect Effect, Bachelor Machine, and Hard Drive: The Best Sci-Fi Erotica of M.Christian. As a novelist, M.Christian’s versatility is on full display with Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Brushes, Painted Doll; and the somewhat controversial queer BDSM/horror/thrillers Finger's Breadth, and Me2. M.Christian has worked on the industry’s production side as an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books and as a Publisher for Digital Parchment Services. The latter dedicated to celebrating the works of science-fiction legends such as William Rotsler, Jerome Bixby, Jody Scott, Arthur Byron Cover, Ernest Hogan, and James Van Hise. Covering topics like BDSM safety, sexual education, senior sexuality concerns, queer and gender issues, plus reviewing a variety of sex tech products, M.Christian’s non-fiction has appeared on sites like Kinkly, Tickle.Life, Sexpert, Queer Majority, Sex for Every Body, and—of course—their ongoing work for Future of Sex. If there’s anything M.Christian enjoys more than writing, it’s teaching. A featured presenter, sometimes with their friend Ralph Greco Jr, at national sex and BDSM events, they have lectured on kink play (with an emphasis on safety), polyamory, boosting sexual creativity, and erotica writing--for beginners or those wanting to go pro. M.Christian is a cohost on two popular sex-education podcasts: Love’s Outer Limits with Dr. Amy Marsh and Licking Non-Vanilla with Ralph Greco, Jr.
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