Pipedream Rechargeable Roto-bator Review

I find myself on an endless quest for a sex toy that simultaneously both feels great and also fulfills my ASFR (Alt-Sex Fetish Robot) interests, my forced orgasm/milking interests, my bondage/predicament/peril interests, or sometimes all of these fantasies combined into a mélange of good old-fashioned, weird, sci-fi, pervy fun.  First off, all sex toys (in my opinion) would be useful in ASFR fantasy fulfillment.  If a robot had the parts to bump bits with a human, presumably they’d have similar functions to existing sex toys.  And while classic dildos and insertable vibrators don’t interest me much personally (given my anatomy and personal tastes), I can definitely say that I’m a fan of most bullets, wands, or anything else that goes buzz-buzz.  It’s just that, sadly, I wish they also went beep-boop.

I have spent many a night (to say nothing of other times of day) with multiple bullet-style vibes affixed to my parts, whirring, whizzing, and firing off several vibration patterns at once, all while lying stretched out and pretending to be bound to an exam table and fondled by a horny and/or sadistic gynoid.  And, it seemed to me that finding some kind of stroker was the obvious next choice, but most classic strokers are typically user-powered or, if they do have an auto feature, still fundamentally handheld devices.  This made stokers less appealing to me, as I could just as easily jerk off without a toy; nothing I tried really felt good enough to warrant the tradeoff of having to hold a toy.  That is until I tried the PDX Hydrobator, which we’ve lovingly dubbed “The Dick Hammer” (as it looks like what The Hammer Brothers throw at poor Mario and Luigi). 

For the TL;DR crowd, I’m going to provide this quote from that review, as it points out the contradictions involved in trying to review such toys as both a robot sex fetishist and simply as a person with a penis trying to be objective about the sensations. 

Lexi: Do you find the stroking sufficient?  

Me: “It’s complicated.  If I were looking to just use it to get off, I would say no.  Where the stroking and vibration does feel good, I wish the speed of the stroker would get two to three times faster-paced.  Almost double what the highest speed offers. However, because I have fantasies involving involuntary ejaculation, specifically in the realm of being dominated by a robot, I find the lack of fulfillment fulfilling.  If that makes sense.”

This is all to say that I’m still not sure if the PDX Hydrobator warrants the tradeoff, given that it’s not a totally hands-free toy, but it did lead me down a path to search for one—a path that lead me to the Rechargeable Roto-Bator Mouth – Penis Masturbator by Pipedream.  This is a toy that I dislike almost everything about and yet still find myself wanting to use it often…  Great, more contradictions from this guy; perhaps not the most useful thing in a review.  Well, here’s the thing: I think this toy, with a redesign, could be the best stroker-style sex toy on the market.

 

Let me begin with what I dislike about the Roto-Bator. 

First and foremost is the entire outer capsule; it feels flimsy and cheaply made.  In fact, a few times while using it, it literally fell apart.  From the motor base detaching from the body’s shaft to the fake TPR (thermoplastic rubber/resin) mouth tearing away from the insertion point, it just barely holds up to a single use, let alone multiple revisits.  Second, it is absurdly under-powered, so much so that, all the lube in the world notwithstanding, the toy will actually cease working upon further insertion of oneself into it.  Force may equal mass times acceleration, but when one’s mass causes friction to counteract said acceleration…look, I don’t want to hypothesize about what might or might not have been the muse for Newton’s laws of motion, I’m just trying to jerk off here.  Third, while disassembly is fairly easy, especially since it seems to want to come apart of its own accord as I mentioned before, re-assembly is a very different story.  Until I powdered the TPR sleeve, it absolutely would not slip back inside the canister. 

Moving on, I did have some mixed feelings on the Roto-Bator as well.  The mouth, other than its starting to tear away from the cylinder as stated above, I personally find unappealing both visually and in concept.  This may just be a “me” thing, since I don’t personally understand the need to shape the entry point (of strokers, specifically) to look like mouths, anuses, vulvas, etc.  I do understand that appeal in other toys, where the objective is to simulate sex with a partner in a more realistic way, e.g. real dolls or other such partial or full bodied sex dolls.  When done on strokers, it just gives me the sense that these shapes are pandering to masculine insecurities, but your mileage may vary.  I also find myself torn by this next part: it’s so cool, but with the toy already lacking the power necessary for its intended purpose, the extra power they’re wasting on the light show is just upsetting.  Yes, that’s right, I said “light show;” this toy, as it spins, shoots out multicolored lights that make it look like you’re fucking a disco party.  (Yes, the entire party at once.)  I would absolutely adore this feature just for the novelty of it if the damn thing put out enough power to keep spinning once my dick was inside of it, but as it is it just feels like wasted energy. 

 

With all that said…

I do have some wonderful things to say about the Roto-Bator, if not without some serious caveats and hacks to get it to work.  When I did get it to work, it felt goddamned amazing.  Instead of using vibrations and/or automated vertical stroking motions, this toy spins a fingered TPR sleeve around your cock.  You can set it to rotate unidirectionally (clockwise or counterclockwise) at three different speeds, use a varying speed setting, or set it to oscillate back and forth at two different possible intervals, though in my opinion the two oscillating settings are the only ones worth a damn.  When I initially tried it on the default setting (unidirectional rotation), it felt okay, but this is where I immediately noticed that the more of me I put in, the less and less it was capable of spinning.  So the first hack was just pulling out enough so that the motor didn’t stop or strain.  This makes the toy essentially a just-the-tip type toy.  The next thing I noticed was, although the sleeve felt nice, it was also a bit irritating after a few minutes, as the unidirectional rotation was not offering a good enough sensation.  I decided to try the oscillating pattern and voilà.  But in this moment of pleasurable discovery, I tried once again to insert myself deeper into the tube, and, once again, it stopped.  Ultimately, during my first trial I ended up just getting frustrated that it didn’t have enough power and stopped, disassembled, cleaned out the lube, and left it to dry.

The next day, I looked at the parts and decided to give it a thorough examination; now that I had a better idea of its actual functionality, I wanted a closer look.  This is where I discovered that the TPR mouth had started tearing away from the cap.  I also noticed how far away from the inner sleeve the cap/mouth actually keeps you.  From the point of entry (and there is some give because of the soft TPR), there is about a 1.5–2″ gap between the outside of the toy and the inner sleeve.  I wondered if this was a design to help keep your dick as far out of the toy as possible, perhaps a way the manufacturer was trying to troubleshoot the friction issue?  I started to re-assemble the toy, and as I did, I had the urge to try it again.  After all, I generally like to try everything a few times before making a final judgement.  After about 10 minutes of struggling to get the sleeve inserted (here’s where I learned about the powder trick), I decided to give it another shot and lubed myself and the toy up.  This time, I skipped right to the oscillating setting, slid in, found the sweet spot and really started enjoying the hell out of the toy.  I was sitting on the edge of a chair and all was going well until BANG!, the entire base, consisting of the motor and rotating mechanism, fell to the floor with a crash.  I may have found the sweet spot as far as depth goes to keep the toy running, but I now realized that the cheaply-made design had essentially caused it to unscrew itself. 

 

Perhaps surprisingly at this point, my first instinct wasn’t to throw the Roto-Bator away but rather to desperately scramble to get it back together again.  Up until the moment the toy fell apart, I was really getting used to where to position it, to optimize both its functionality and the stimulation I was really enjoying.  So, I found myself faced with a new challenge, namely how could I troubleshoot this next issue?  I snapped and twisted everything back into place, grabbed a piece of Gorilla tape, and used it to connect the base to the shaft, thus eliminating the auto-disassembly “feature” that I’m certain the manufacturer didn’t intend for.  With hack number two done, I was ready to quit working and get back to jerking, but before I did, it dawned on me that the 2-ish inches of dead space inside was really unnecessary if I was going to be controlling the depth manually, so hack number three was removing the entire top cap with the TPR mouth.  I applied some extra lube and got back to things, and within seconds, the toy’s mechanical sounds were whirring and wooing and my fantasies of a beautiful gynoid taking advantage of me had come flooding back.  The tape holding the whole contraption together held up, and with the TPR mouth gone, it was much easier to control the minimum depth the toy allowed for without going in blind, so to speak. 

An issue I have with most auto strokers, as mentioned in the previous Dick Hammer review, is that because they don’t change the stoking pattern through feedback the way a human partner would, there is a feeling of mechanical dispassion that comes along with getting off with one of these toys.  I don’t find this to be the same with vibrators, since the stimulation is more directed at a single spot.  It’s something I both like and dislike, or indeed like that I dislike, depending on the fantasy involved.  I found that getting off with this type of stroker was much easier, as the oscillation offered a more direct stimulation and, while still having the dispassion of a robot, felt miles better than other strokers.  This is why I think the tradeoff of having to hold it is very worth it in this case; with all of its problems, this is the best feeling stroker that I have tried to date, and not only is it the best, but I also thoroughly enjoy the stimulation that it delivers as it’s like nothing else I’ve ever felt.

I’ve used the Roto-Bator a handful of times since and always come to the same conclusion about my opinions on it: I hate it because of the work I need to put into making it work, but I love-love-love the way it feels once I do.  I think this toy would do well with an extensive redesign, as the cons severely outnumber the pros at this point, but even though you can’t really use it as intended, the one pro is that it feels fucking amazing.  Here are my final thoughts. 

Pros:

• Getting off feels awesome
• 100% worth the trade off being handheld though I do still wish it was totally hands free

Cons:

• Needs to be constructed more sturdily
  
• Needs 50-75% more power
• Maybe (if more power doesn’t help) needs shallower fingers to cut down on the friction
• Needs less dead space between the opening and the sleeve
• Could get rid of all rotation patterns and stick with 2 or 3 oscillating ones
• Need to get rid of the lights and anything drawing power away from the motor
• Could get rid of the fake mouth and just have an opening

At this point, I don’t know if I’d recommend the Roto-Bator to anyone unless they were willing to purchase it knowing that they’d need to make their own modifications to it.  With a redesign, I think this has the potential to be the best auto stroker on the market for general use, especially for the ASFR crowd.  I would love to see more toys like this on the market if they were designed and manufactured with higher quality and more power in mind.

Signing off for now, your friendly neighborhood (robot-loving) Dick Wound  

 

Thank you to SheVibe for sending us this product to review!