The kissing robot is supposed to help couples with intimacy during video calls. It was created by a Chinese startup company when there were frequent and extensive lockdowns in China due to the three-year covid-19 pandemic. “I was in a relationship at the time, but I couldn’t meet my girlfriend because of the lockdowns,” said inventor Zhao Jianbo of the reason he came up with the idea of creating a kissing device.
Silicone lips connected to the app send a kiss. The Chinese invented a kissing device | Video: Associated Press
At the time, the inventor was studying at the Beijing Film Academy, and in his graduation project he focused precisely on the lack of physical intimacy during video calls. He later founded Siweifushe, which launched its first MUA product on January 22, named after the sound people make when kissing.
In the first two weeks since the kissing device was launched on the market, over three thousand units were sold in China, and the company subsequently received another 20 thousand orders. The MUA is sold for roughly 260 yuan, which translates to about 840 crowns.
The device looks like a mobile stand that users attach to their mobile phone and pair it with the app. Realistically pouty silicone lips protrude from the front of the kissing machine, to which the app sends kiss data collected by users’ motion sensors. The lips then start to move and also heat up slightly during kissing, which is supposed to increase the authenticity of the experience.
Although MUA was created primarily for long-distance relationships, it can still be used by users who anonymously pair up with strangers. If two people connect, they can request to exchange kisses. Individual users can also upload their kiss to the app so other people can download it and see if they like it.
Some users appreciated the kissing machine, others found it vulgar and scary. “I think it won’t help, and I think it’s really perverted to buy such a thing,” Huang, a Beijing resident, told Reuters after watching a video of a user kissing the device. Some people on the Chinese social network Weibo also expressed concern that the device could be misused to create online erotic content, which is strictly regulated in China.
The MUA is not the first device created for the purpose of kissing from a distance. In 2011, researchers from the University of Tokyo invented a “kiss transfer machine”, where the user had to put a machine with a straw into their mouth and the other user’s straw started to move in the same way. Five years later, the Malaysian Imagineering Institute produced a similar device called the “Kissinger”, which was made of touch-sensitive silicone but did not look like realistic lips.
