The Airbee Bluetooth vibrator is a rather unusual connected sex toy. Unlike its counterparts, which are mainly intended for couples’ play, it’s used solo.
In fact, this sex toy lets you work out your Kegel muscles in a fun way, by measuring your performance and tracking your progress over time.
It comes in two versions, which look identical. One is compatible with Android phones, and the other with iPhones.
The Espace Plaisir shop sent us the iPhone version. But unfortunately, I realised too late that it wouldn’t work with our Android smartphones. It was only after I’d unboxed it, tried it in offline mode, and desperately but unsuccessfully attempted to pair it with one of our phones or with a PC that we finally contacted the brand to ask them about it.
So in the end, I resigned myself to borrowing a friend’s iPhone so I could try it out.
Here’s the review of the Airbee Bluetooth vibrator.
Sex toy packaging
The packaging is nice, although disposable.
On the front, a magnetic cardboard flap covers a plastic window, through which you can see the sex toy.
The box opens at the top to reach the Airbee, held in place on a plastic support.
Before chucking this packaging in the bin, you can retrieve the little neodymium magnet that holds the flap in place and play with it. As for sexy, we’ll have to look elsewhere, but it’s too funny to miss out on.
What the Airbee looks like
Depending on the angle you look at it from and what your imagination’s doing at the time, the Airbee can look like a little man with a big nose, a bird’s head or a fish…
It’s made from a single piece, consisting of an elongated, rounded insertable part about 9 centimetres long, and a hollow area containing the only control button.
It comes in two colours: mauve, like the one we received, and pink.
Texture and materials
The Airbee is entirely coated in silicone, a body-safe material. Its surface is soft.
Powering the Airbee
The Airbee is rechargeable. Its cable has a proprietary connector: USB at one end, and a little pokey bit that plugs into the sex toy at the other.
It literally pokes into the sex toy’s arse, too. When we unboxed it, the hole for charging the sex toy wasn’t accessible, so we had to pierce the silicone with the charger tip to reach it.
We’d already run into this problem with a very cheap rabbit vibrator. But we didn’t expect to find it in a sex toy costing well over a hundred euros…
It’s advertised as waterproof, and it survived the dunking under the tap I put it through.
Using the Airbee vibrator
Working out your pussy isn’t the Airbee’s only purpose. It can also be used as a more conventional vibrator, for vaginal or clitoral stimulation.
Before we get down to business, just for fun, let’s watch a short video introducing the toy, featuring a vulva puppet that’s not at all creepy:
Offline mode
In “offline” mode, with only one button, the controls are fairly basic: you switch the sex toy on and off with a long press, and move from one vibration mode to the next with a single press.
If you simply switch it on, the Airbee doesn’t vibrate: it’s pressure-sensitive, rather like the SenseTouch mode on some Lelo sex toys, such as the Smart Wand, for example. Once pressed against the area you want to stimulate, it starts vibrating, more or less strongly depending on how much pressure you apply.
Used like this without a smartphone, it becomes a fairly conventional mini vibrator. The vibrations are decent, though not exactly mind-blowing.
Connected mode
Connection and app
The AirBee connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth…
And then… a nasty surprise (well, it’s not a surprise for you any more, since I’ve already told you in the introduction): my Android smartphone wants nothing to do with this unknown device. After trying various hacks, placing the thing in the middle of a pentagram drawn with lube, reciting a few incantations, and finally contacting the manufacturer, I realised it was a lost cause.
The AirBee iOS can only connect to an iPhone.
Disheartened, I buried it at the foot of a tree abandoned it in a corner.
It was only much later, when a friend offered to lend me her iPhone in the course of a conversation so I could finish this review, that I decided to pick up where I’d left off…
The same connected sex toys as ever: the OhMiBod BlueMotion, the We Vibe 4 Plus, the Smart Mini Vibe and the Airbee
To control it and play with it, you first need to download the KegelMate app from iTunes for free. If you have the Android version, the app is simply called AirBee on Google Play.
The app offers two modes to choose from: “Massage” or “Exercises”.
Massage mode
Massage mode is a screen where you can play around with the vibration modes and intensity. It brings to mind the “Touch” mode on the OhMiBod BlueMotion.
Exercises mode
Exercises mode is a kind of mini-game in which, with the head of the sex toy inserted into the vagina, you have to perform sets of pelvic floor contractions. The sensor is located in the narrowest part of the vibrator, which sits at the entrance to the vagina.
How an exercise works in the app (source: Google Play)
The “exercises” (it is a game, yes, but it’s also exercise) are pretty straightforward: you contract and then relax your pelvic floor muscles for the stated length of time, and repeat the process a certain number of times. Basically, Dance Dance Revolution for your pussy. (Note: but why didn’t they make a musical version of the app?)
At first, I found the exercises quite difficult: no matter how hard I squeezed, I could only get the cursor to react at random. But my pussy’s in good shape, so I was a bit surprised: were this app and sex toy aimed at vaginal workout fanatics, already able to crack hazelnuts with their pelvic floors?
I finally worked out what was going wrong: you really have to keep the vibrator positioned precisely for the sensor to deign to detect the pressure. In short, it detects pressure pretty badly, which is disconcerting and ruins a good part of the fun of the game.
Conclusion on the Airbee
The good points:
- The concept is innovative, useful and motivating all at once: doing Kegel exercises is essential, but it’s not exactly the most entertaining activity. So a fun incentive is very welcome.
The bad points:
- The badly designed sensor ruins the game and makes it difficult, even laborious, to use.
- The whole Android/iOS incompatibility business… Other connected sex toys (We Vibe 4 Plus, OhMiBod BlueMotion, etc.) don’t have this problem, so it apparently isn’t an unavoidable technical limitation. Why release two versions instead of taking the trouble to make one compatible device? Go figure. But it’s really bloody annoying, especially as it’s not explicitly stated anywhere.
- The quality doesn’t match the price. There are a lot of flaws, especially the proprietary cable that pokes into the sex toy even though the toy doesn’t have a hole for it to poke into. And above all, the sensor quality is truly dreadful.
Ultimately, the Airbee connected vibrator is a good idea… that deserves to be developed further. I was more than sold on the concept, but I’m not convinced by the result.
If you’re after a nice connected sex toy, for now I’d recommend going for the We Vibe 4 Plus instead.
Note finale du test
Les plus
- Innovative and useful concept
Les moins
- Poor detection, which makes use laborious where it should be fun
- Incompatibility between the Android and iOS versions
- The quality falls short
