- ‘Kissenger’ device attaches to your phone and matches your partner’s kiss
- Silicone lips move in real-time with theirs through six micro-sensors
- The high-tech mouthpieces even let you smell your partner from afar
- Developers plan to create full-sized snogging silicon heads in the future
A robot set of lips is promising to put the passion back into long-distance relationships.
The Lovotics Kissenger is a silicone mouthpiece that allows you to smooch your partner from anywhere in the world.
The bizarre device connects to your phone and will match a partner’s lip movements and pressure in real-time.
As well as feeling the kiss of a long-distance loved one, the device even lets you smell them.
Scientists have created silicon robot lips that let you kiss someone from anywhere in the world. The ‘Kissenger’ mouthpiece (pictured) connects to your phone and will match a partner’s lip movements in real-time
The ‘Kissenger’ – a combination of ‘kiss’ and ‘messenger’ – is designed to make online video chat with a partner more intimate.
To use the device, distant lovers connect the mouthpiece to their phone and press their lips to it.
Kissenger’s software then reads the pressure from each pair of lips and transmits it across the globe to the mouthpiece at the other end.
It reproduces the exact force of each kisser using six mini-sensors.
And the silicon lining is designed to feel just like human skin, producing a realistic kiss in-time with a distant lover’s lip movements.
Distant lovers can simply connect the mouthpiece to their phone and press their lips to it. Kissenger’s software then reads the pressure from each pair of lips and transmits it across the globe to the mouthpiece at the other end. This image shows the two models available
Users can even put their partner’s body odour or perfume into the device for extra authenticity.
But the developers, a small team of engineers from City University London and Japan, are not stopping there.
They are now creating full-sized silicon heads.
Emma Yann Zhang, a Kissenger team engineer and PhD student from City University London, said:’ We want to make a robotic head with silicon to make a fully kissable robot using the same technology as the mobile phone version.
‘We’ll embed control sensors in the robot’s head instead.’
The team hope that their devices will one day be used to kiss virtual characters, such as popular virtual sex icon Lara Croft, too.
The Kissenger mouthpiece technology was revealed at the second Love and Sex Robot conference at Goldsmith’s University, London, on Monday.
The device is just a prototype for now, and date and price for sale has yet to be disclosed.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The silicon lining is designed to feel just like human skin, producing a realistic kiss in-time with a distant lover’s lip movements and users can even put their partner’s body odour or perfume into the device for extra authenticity
Many in long distance relationships suffer from a loss of intimacy with their partner.
But Kissenger’s creators hope to close that romantic gap.
Speaking to erotic industry news site EAN last year, Dinos Andreou, Business Development Executive of Kissengers, said:
‘There are thousands of ways someone can send a kiss, and having a device able to replicate all of them would mean restructuring a complete artificial mouth, lips and tongue.
‘Something like that would be extremely expensive to make with current technology and it would be a strange product on stand-alone basis as well as kind of creepy.’
‘We needed to focus on the simplest and most commonly used kiss, the simple smooch, and find a way of making the lips move in a realistic and acceptable way considering the limitations, and get the product to the market as quickly as possible.’
Mr Andreou and his team are not just targeting couples in long distance relationships.
‘Although long distance couples are the main customer group, they are not the only ones which exchange kisses,’ Mr Andreou says.
The developers are now creating full-sized snogging silicon heads, and hope to develop snogging devices that will one day be used to kiss virtual characters, such as popular virtual sex icon Lara Croft
‘Even couples who live in the same city but not in the same house would benefit from that.
‘Sending a kiss goodnight through the Kissenger would be a much better option than an “xxx” text message.
‘We are also targeting families where one child is abroad studying, or where the mother/father spends a lot of time at work away from their baby.’
The team eventually hope to create full-sized silicon robots.
‘The Kissenger is our first product, a baby step into becoming an independent company,’ Mr Andreou told EAN.
‘We will not rest until we are able to create a full-on surrogate which could transfer every single sense from across the globe.’
‘The uses and the good something like that can bring to mankind are endless.’
Pictured is the interior of each of the kissing devices, with wireless connectivity, actuator motors that drive the kiss, and silicon lips
