Love Nuts is a sex toy disguised as a flashlight

Love Nuts is a strange 2-in-1 product. It’s a female sex toy (vibrator) combined with a flashlight. You can operate it with an app, and I got a good look at it at the Techcrunch Disrupt event yesterday.

Amid the enterprise services and virtual reality startups, Love Nuts stood out as the only sex toy in the expo area. It certainly surprised me. It’s the brainchild of Donald Hsu, CEO of Taipei-based Love Nuts. He said it was inspired by a conversation that he had with a female friend, who lived with her mother in a very tight living space in Taiwan. She wanted to use a vibrator, but didn’t want her mother to find it.

“It was very awkward and she asked me how to hide her vibrator,” Hsu said in an interview with VentureBeat.

So Hsu set about designing a product that his friend could hide in plain sight. It’s shaped like an acorn with a vibrating top. And the other end has a light-emitting diode (LED) flashlight. So if another family member finds it, you can tell them it’s a flashlight and show them. Even the app is a little subtle, as it has squirrel and an acorn on it. Only when the squirrel starts humping the acorn can you tell that it’s not your usual cartoon app. You use the app to turn on or off the Love Nuts toy, and you can control the intensity of the vibrations.

“We created a way that you can relax at home with a flashlight,” Hsu said.

Later on, the app will add video streaming and remote control. Yes, you can raise your eyebrows at the possibilities that will enable with long-distance sex. The product is expected to ship at the end of the year or in early 2017. The company has 10 employees and it is raising a round of funding.

Above: Donald Hsu shows off the Love Nuts sex toy.

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi