In the age of the internet of things, we’ve seen smart watches, smart shoes, and smart bikes to go along with our smartphones. But here’s one you may not have seen before: smart underwear.
Yes, it’s a real thing. Shenzhen-based smart underwear startup Cueme revealed to Lieyunwang recently that it has raised three separate angel rounds totaling over US$2.2 million in its quest to make underwear decidedly less boring. The company offers vibrating underwear for men and women including briefs and bras, which can be controlled via a smartphone app.
If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because condom brand Durex first floated the idea three years ago, when it announced Fundawear. Durex’s vision was smartphone-connected underwear with built-in vibrators that could be activated remotely via smartphone: touch a spot on your phone and the corresponding spot vibrates in your partner’s pants.
The Cueme team at work.
Fundawear never materialized, but Cueme founder Li Lingxiao has taken the same approach and is seeing it through. The startup is currently in the process of mass-producing 10,000 pairs of its underwear, which will become available for purchase next month through a Taobao crowdfunding campaign. Each pair will go for US$53.
The underwear works with a controller that connects to your smartphone via bluetooth. The controller is removable so that the underwear can be safely washed – up to 200 times, the company claims.
Li doesn’t see Cueme as a sex toy. He told Lieyunwang it’s designed to be a kind of medicine for sufferers of long-distance relationships, a way to reach out and touch someone through the phone. It can also be used to reach out and touch yourself; women, for example, can cue themselves up a pre-programmed breast massage routine while they’re wearing the bra if they so choose.
Cueme’s clearly not quite ready for primetime yet. Its website is kind of a mess, and when Tech in Asia emailed its publicly-listed sales, tech support, and customer service contacts – the only contact information Cueme has listed – all three returned with “failed to send” error messages. But frankly, there’s nothing else quite like this on the market. Long-distance couples have other options, of course, like Singaporean startup Vibease. But in terms of vibrating underwear, Cueme might have a head start.
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