IMTOY Piu

I’m always on the look out for new and exciting innovations in sex toys, especially when it comes to things like Masturbators – which for the most part, are pretty much all the same.

Cut to June 2015 at the ETO show in Birmingham where I am introduced to an exciting new concept in masturbation by a new(ish) company IMTOY. We had a play around with the product and initially we were very excited about this product. A couple of months later, I drop them an email to see if they were willing to send us one to test – and they did! Hurrah! It arrived a few days later and I was full of a child-like sense of glee and excitement.

The PIU is a ‘revolution’ in masturbator technology. It houses 3 ‘powerful’ motors with 30 (yes, 30) settings to provide intense stimulation. It connects to your laptop or smart device via Bluetooth so you can use the PIU along side the companion app which plays videos that you can purchase, so as you watch the ‘antics’ on screen – the PIU reacts accordingly. This sounds amazing, right? Was I about to have my mind blown? Well, the short answer is no…

First Impressions

You know how much of a sucker I am for gorgeous packaging and this is NO exception! It really is a well thought out package. There is a smooth, black outer slip which when removed, leaves you a bright red presentation box. Lift the flap and you are greeted by the toy – the PIU. It’s sat in a tray that feels like it is made of silicone (fancy!). Underneath that, is a black tray which slides out from the bottom. Inside there you’ll find a leather-effect storage bag, and 2 smaller boxes containing a manual and the USB magnetic charger respectively.

All in all, I was pretty impressed with how it was packaged and I was still extremely excited to give it a try. You’ll need to charge the PIU up before you use it. Attach the magnetic charger to the toy and then plug into your laptop. Charging time seems to vary each time – it’s usually a minimum of 2 hours – sometimes longer. The battery life, well that’s debatable. I’ll get to that later.

The toy features a ‘mouth-like’ opening which is about 3.5” in depth, and is around 2” wide. There is a ‘bump’ in the base which is designed to rest against the frenulum (and contains 2 of the motors) with an additional motor (and stimulating nodule) right at the back.

The toy can be used 2 ways – on it’s own, and controlled via the buttons on the top of the toy or via the app with Bluetooth. To use it with the app, you’ll need to download it from the App Store (on iOS it’s called PIU Player).

In Use

After charging up the toy, I wasn’t able to give it a try straight away. I came back to it 2 days later, went to use it – and it wouldn’t work. It would turn on, buzz away for a couple of seconds and then turn off. It was like it was completely flat. How odd. It couldn’t be broken already, could it? So I thought I would stick it back on to charge. Couple of hours later, it buzzes into life. It had simply lost it’s charge VERY quickly, and without even being used. That’s NOT a good start, but I’m prepared to forgive it, provided it could ‘blow’ me away with it’s ‘amazing’ sensations.

Using it Manually

So if you are just going to use the PIU on it’s own, to operate, you simply press the power button. When you first turn it on, the tiniest, most buzziest sounding motor starts up. At first, I couldn’t work out where it was coming from. It was so incredibly weak and almost non-existent. But I could hear it, buzzing away like an angry wasp. As I put my fingers inside, I realised this was the third motor, right at the back (designed to come into contact with the tip of the penis). I could still barely feel it, and thought that this was not a good sign of what’s to come.

Pressing the arrow to the right, suddenly the 2 other motors burst into life, and here I was met with a more pleasant ‘rumble’. I thought I would go through the 30 different vibration modes, to get a feel for the PIU before I defiled it. As I scrolled through, I was confused. Where are the different vibration modes? All I could feel was one singular consistent vibration that just ‘increased’ in intensity. I thought I must be doing something wrong, because I didn’t even need to press the button 10 times (let alone 30 times) to get to it’s ‘top’ speed. I tried everything, but these different vibration settings feel like a complete myth at this point.

So after bring it back down to ZERO, I lubed up and slipped inside. After turning it back on, I really did have to laugh at that first motor. It really is so incredibly weak and it barely registered any sensation. Once the secondary motors kicked in, things got a bit more interesting, and the PIU sent some nice rumbles through my penis. However, the motors feel slightly ‘misplaced’ – they were providing some nice sensations, don’t get me wrong – but they were missing around the frenulum – which is where you really want them. Vibrations usually work an absolute charm on me – but here, even on the top speed, all I could get was just a nice ‘feeling’. At no point was it even bringing me close to orgasm.

The top of the PIU is flexible, allowing you to squeeze it for a tighter fit – I thought this might be worth trying. However even creating a tighter seal could not save me from the mediocre vibrations. They just aren’t strong enough, or even providing the stimulation in the right place. After an hour of trying to get something going, I gave up.

Using it with the App

If I thought the manual experience was annoying, nothing could prepare me for the complete and utter frustration with the app. So when I initially downloaded the app (direct from the website) I was greeted with a fairly plain looking app, which asks me to create an account (I did). Once your inside, it will help you pair the PIU with the device and will then give the option of downloading a video from their ‘store’ or uploading your own (which despite trying MANY times, I simply could not get it to work).

In the store, you will find clip after clip of censored pornography, all with titles in Chinese, and all ‘hetero’ (so nothing for my taste, unfortunately). You pay for videos with ‘Credits’ and you are given 1000 free credits to get you started (although I never could work out how you would purchase more). The videos ranged from 200-500 credits apiece. After choosing your video, and downloading it – the PIU (providing you have paired it correctly) will start ‘interacting’ with the movie when you play it.

I say ‘interacting’ because all it did was vibrate in a completely random fashion – it’s supposed to represent the action going on, but unless the conversation was REALLY intense, the vibrations made no sense.

A little while has gone by, and I have recently upgraded my phone. When I went to re-download the PIU app, I was redirected to the iOS app store, where I downloaded the PIU player. Uh oh… this doesn’t look too good. Now, when the app is loaded (and after signing in) – instead of finding the videos I was expecting, it now appears to be almost like a YouTube app, with clips from various TV shows and movies. Um, this… this isn’t right.

So after going back to the website to check I had downloaded the right thing, I kept getting re-directed back to the PIU player… which now lacks the ability of connecting with the device, and doesn’t feature any adult clips on it at all (and that’ll be because it’s now in the App Store and would not comply with Apple’s strict terms). So basically, the ‘interactive’ element of the PIU is completely redundant (at least for now it is – I have no idea if they are doing something new or different, but frankly, I don’t give a damn).

Clean-up and Maintenance

The PIU is waterproof, so can be taken in the bath or shower (if you so wish) and can be thoroughly cleaned with some warm water and toy cleaner. When storing, you can used the enclosed storage bag to keep it nice and clean.

Summary

Never have I used a product that promises so much and delivers so little (well, that’s not strictly true…) I was so let down by this device, and what makes it even worse is that it retails for $225 (£147). It is definitely NOT worth that at all. OK, let’s start with the positives. As a concept, it’s a great idea and really, it should work – vibrating masturbators are great fun, and when done right can provide some incredible sensations. It’s waterproof, made of body safe materials and rechargeable.

Sadly, this does not make up for sub-standard vibrations, a major lack of function in terms of patterns and settings, and for an app, which is now basically redundant (but prior to that, still needed a lot of work to be more inclusive). To make this a success, IMTOY will need to look at the motors, look at the battery (as it loses it’s charge far too quickly, even when it’s not been used after charging) and address the app. But in it’s current state, I cannot and would not recommend the PIU to anybody.

Where To Buy

If you want to buy a PIU, you can buy one direct from IMTOY

The PIU was sent to me for free in exchange for my honest review by IMTOY. All thoughts, experiences and opinions are 100% my own, honest thoughts. Afiliate links have not been used within this post.