Some big opportunities are coming soon for the SexTech industry, would you like to get an insider’s perspective? We are an engineering and product development firm with years of experience developing products at Apple, Tesla and Immersion in haptics, the hot buzzword gaining greater traction now. In fact, Immersion Corp. has been in the adult novelty news lately, and we were responsible for building a significant portion of their haptics patent portfolio. We also own significant issued patents related to this field, so join us on a brief tour of the road ahead, as we see it. The novelty industry is poised to break through with some amazing new products consumers love, but only if they get their product designs and patents right!
While we could pursue multiple topics beyond haptics to include VR/AR, next generation camming, AI, etc., let’s focus first on hardware, the toys themselves, as they are where some of the greatest advances are ready to emerge. For many years, the toy industry has made millions of happy customers with simple vibration, what haptics engineers call “vibra-tactile.” And hey, who is going to complain about millions of happy people?! But there is more, and it’s ready to come to life.
One perspective is that while vibra-tactile products can continue to make happy customers and successful companies, stroking and squeezing or expanding, also known as bio-mimetic devices are the next great leap forward. Why? They feel great, offer a novel set of stimulations, can provide compelling products to both women and men, plus extend to interactivity as well. Why would anyone care? Because "bio-mimetic” translates to how humans often make love together, regardless of gender or orientation - it’s one of the great things we do! And it’s what humans have done for millions of years - stroking toys can mirror our native intimate expressions.
With such strength, one might wonder why stroking toys have not reached mainstream success. The truth is there have been some early versions over the years, but few were compelling or well-engineered. Some toys have had basic reciprocation, various moving weights, even a few men’s devices attempting to replicate movement with soft rubber belts or jerking a sleeve up and down. But nearly all of them are noisy, clunky, bulky, un-realistic or poorly made - you all know who you are!
Our testing indicates that both women and men love stroking toys - why not, they feel great! The challenge to the bio-mimetic revolution in the market from an engineering standpoint, however, has been two-fold: 1.) developing something realistic, compact and quiet, and 2.) having issued patents to cover the innovations. There are many ideas making their way around the industry now about how to make it happen: lead screws, cable drives, ‘pearls on a string’ with a helix drive, even shape-memory alloy (SMA) - we’ve developed all of them through prototypes. Even if those terms are outside your awareness, know that many systems have been tried and even patented.
But the best, by FAR in our experience, is what we call a Fiber Drivetm, effectively a motor-driven synthetic muscle fiber that is: fast if needed, smooth and slow if desired, low cost, easy to assemble, very compact, highly controllable, reliable and very very quiet. It enlivens the erotic experience without getting in the way of pleasure with complexity, noise or boredom. In our years of pushing the R&D boundaries of this industry behind the scenes, this new system is the best ever and we now have a significant new patent issued on it! These are exciting times for our company and the industry, but most important for future SexTech consumers. Innovation is nothing without happy customers!
So now the opportunity stands before the industry. Who is ready to embrace the future? While much has been said about the adult industry being early adopters of new technology, in our view most has occurred on the content delivery side: VHS, DVDs, paywalls, streaming, now with some amazing work being done in AR and VR, etc. But from our view of the tangible products side, the novelty industry mostly keeps churning out the same ideas over and over. Sure, there are some great innovators out there, but you are rare! Enough of mediocrity! Please stop making products in new colors or incremental changes and calling it innovation, folks!
To be fair, hardware development is…hard! With our founders names on 67 haptics patents, we know how challenging it can be. There is a reason many companies keep regurgitating the same ideas endlessly: innovation can be risky, expensive and time consuming. But great new designs already exist - we have several of them available to license that can make the future easier to reach. And consumers are talking! We have solid inside information from senior executives from a number of manufacturers that consumers are starting to demand products that are truly new, compelling, quiet, affordable, compact, reliable and attractive. The future of SexTech includes stroking toys that are well-designed and backed by viable, substantial patents.
So who is ready to differentiate their products and change the product landscape to their advantage? Who has vision, courage, cash, engineering talent, IP and determination to make the next insanely great thing? We see companies that may have one or the other, but no one who has it all yet, even those who might claim they do. But we do believe someone will, and they will likely end up working with Intimuse, as we have the goods: the best designs and newly issued IP, not old and stale Immersion patents near the end of their lives. In fact, our latest wide-reaching patent is issuing now.
We challenge the novelty industry to rise to the occasion of building the future. Why hide behind your current portfolio of average ideas? Get out there, be bold, take some chances, dare to succeed instead of being small and limited. Think big, be decisive and unleash the amazing potential of human pleasure - millions in profits await. The new world is waiting for those ready to be amazing, but not forever!
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John McCoy is the co-founder and CEO of Intimuse, a SexTech product development company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can find him at jm@intimuse.com