This Chinese kissing device lets you kiss over the Internet | CNN Business

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Want to send a kiss to your distant lover? A Chinese contraption with warm, moving silicon “lips” seems to have just the answer.

The device, billed as a way to allow long-distance couples to share “real” physical intimacy, is causing an uproar among Chinese social media users, who have reacted with both intrigue and surprise.

Equipped with pressure sensors and actuators, the device is said to be able to mimic a real kiss by replicating the pressure, movement and temperature of a user’s lips.

Along with the kiss motion, it can also transmit the sound the user makes.

However, while many social media users saw a funny side to the device, others criticized it as “vulgar” and “creepy”. Some expressed concern that minors could buy and use it.

“I don’t understand (the device), but I’m totally amazed,” said one of the top comments on Weibo.

On the Twitter-like platform, several hashtags about the device have racked up hundreds of millions of views over the past week.

To send a kiss, users need to download a mobile phone app and plug the device into their phone’s charging port. After pairing with their partners in the app, the partners can start a video call and broadcast replicas of their cuddles to each other.

According to China’s state-run Global Times, the invention has been patented by Changzhou Vocational Institute of Mechatronic Technology.

“In my university, I was in a long-distance relationship with my girlfriend, so we only had contact with each other over the phone. That’s where the inspiration for this device came from,” said Jiang Zhongli, the main inventor of the design, the Global Times said.

He said Jiang had applied for a patent in 2019, but the patent expired in January 2023, and now Jiang was hoping someone else could expand and refine the design.

A similar invention, the “Kissinger,” was launched by the Imagineering Institute of Malaysia in 2016. But it came in the form of a touch-sensitive silicone pad, rather than realistic-looking lips.

Although advertised for long-distance relationships, the Chinese device also allows users to anonymously pair up with strangers in the app’s “kissing square” feature. If two strangers successfully match and like each other, they can request to exchange kisses.

Users can also “upload” their smooches to the app for others to download and experience.

On China’s largest online shopping site Taobao, dozens of users have shared their reviews of the device, which is priced at 288 yuan (US$41).

“My partner didn’t believe you could kiss (long distance) at first, so his jaw dropped when he used it… This is the best surprise I’ve given him in our long distance relationship,” commented one user.

“Thank you technology.”