I knew the OhMiBod was a shoddy piece of crap from the get-go. I just didn’t have quite enough justification to state that blatantly in a review… until last night when my OhMiBod died. After about 1.5 uses, and right after I finished compiling a 33-song playlist of songs to test, it stopped working. As irritating as it was, however, it was not altogether surprising, and not altogether disappointing. A music-powered vibrator may sound fun, but once you use it, you know the truth. It’s like one of those dancing flowers — cute at first, until you realize wow, this thing has only the most rudimentary understanding of music.
The OhMiBod is a white, plastic vibrator that looks like a jumbo tampon. It comes with two different silver caps (one for music hookup and one to turn it into a regular vibrator) and a hot pink bag with “OhMiBod” embroidered on it, which is cute if you think hot pink is cute. I was surprised at how chintzy the OhMiBod was. It may look classy in pictures, but one glance at the cheapo silver caps and you’ll change your mind. Also, you have to bang the thing against a hard surface to even get the plastic battery sleeve out. Then, in the manual, the total hard-on killer: “Do not use rechargeable batteries.” Dude, you don’t get to cost $70 and then say that.
Well, you also don’t get to cost $70 and then die. But anyway.
There is one thing you should know up front. When listening to music with the OhMiBod, there is about a 50 millisecond delay between the music and the corresponding vibrations. For me, this is unforgivable. A music-powered vibrator that can’t even keep up with the music? It’s not a huge delay, or even a delay that most people would notice, but I noticed it — and it made me grate my teeth.
The OhMiBod’s box reads “The range and variety of vibrations are endless.” This is a lie. The range and variety of vibrations are extremely limited, and are often so non-specific that they could easily be replicated in any other vibrator with pulsation functions. The volume also has to be turned up to get decent-strength vibrations.
To gauge whether or not the OhMiBod will respond to a particular song, you must understand just how particular this little brat is. To say that it responds to a nice beat would be incorrect — what it really does is respond to a strong beat if there is not much else going on in the song. For instance, “Bonnie Taylor Shakedown (2K4)” by Hellogoodbye may have a killer beat, but there’s too much going on for the OhMiBod to respond to it. It becomes just a constant buzz.
Here are a few songs that the OhMiBod responded positively to before it died: “Guitar Hero” by Amanda Palmer, “The Beautiful People” by Marilyn Manson, “Miss Magnolia” by Matt Costa, “Music is my Hot, Hot Sex” by Cansei de Ser Sexy. However, even in songs like these, the OhMiBod tends to flake out when the chorus comes along, unable to distinguish the beat from everything else.
Also, being a moron, I attempted watching porn with the OhMiBod. Too bad it responds to only the most obnoxious and repetitive of moans.
I wanted to try Blink 182, Eve 6, Nirvana, Simon & Garfunkel, and the all-important “Drops of Jupiter,” but it died before I could.
So how about as a regular vibrator? It apparently has/had seven vibration patterns. I didn’t try them before it died, but I’m sure they wouldn’t be anything special. This thing is still made of plastic, after all. It’s no better than a $10 plastic vibrator, and that is exactly what it feels like in my pussy.
The thing that scares me about the OhMiBod is that I’ve seen several favorable reviews of it out there. Don’t listen to them, people. Sure, this thing sort-of vibrates along to some types of music, which is something few vibrators do. But it doesn’t do it well — and then it dies. You’d really be better off buying any >$15 plastic vibrator with a more pleasing shape and a nice selection of vibration patterns. I hereby rename the OhMiBod: the OhMiSuck.
[Read this review on XCritic.]
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May 30th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
i’ve always wanted to try a music powered vibe. i’ve had my eyeballs on the ivibe.. i think i’m glad i read your review! LOL
May 30th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Y’know, I had the opportunity to review the OhMiBod from Babeland … it looked kinda questionable, so I picked something else that week. Glad I did! I don’t have enough room in my toybox for cheap shit plastic crap.
May 30th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
You wanted to try Simon & Garfunkel? Which song? The only one I can think of that might work is “Cecilia.”
May 30th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
@Teresa: That was supposed to be kind-of a joke, but there are plenty that could possibly have worked: “A Hazy Shade of Winter,” “Keep the Customer Satisfied,” “A Simple Desultory Philippic,” etc.
May 30th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I’m sorry, but as soon as I read “jumbo tampon,” I was totally turned off.
May 30th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
@Backseat Boohoo: Yeah, that was the point. It’s a horrible design.
May 31st, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I have the naughtinano….how it’s different, I’m not sure…perhaps it works on the nano ipod?? and this one doesn’t?
either way – they both are awful. dreadful. the naughtinano (is it naughtibod now?) is pretty much the same. And similarly I was appalled by the cheap plastic “silver” cap that the silver flakes off of.
Why do so many shitty shitty vibes cost so damn much money?
May 31st, 2009 at 4:06 pm
@Lilly: Good to know. I’m sure they hike the price because of the novelty of music + vibrator. But it’s such a failure, such a failure.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:27 am
Hey, Love the review, but I am still upset that you didn’t get to try my song suggestion(Satisfaction by Benni Benassi). I think it would have kicked ass, you should go listen to it anyway, so you can atleast see why I recomended it. Also, not that I don’t belive your review that its a p.o.s. but do you think that banging it against that hard surface to get the battery out might have had something to do with it dieing on you. NOT THAT I DON’T TRUST YOU, I’m just asking. Anyway, keep up the good work.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:06 am
WOW! What a scathing review!
I’m actually surprised you have such a bad experience with the OhMiBod. It’s actually a product I know pretty well, as I recently interviewed the inventor in this month’s copy of Jacques magazine (jacquesmag.com) and wrote my thoughts here:
http://champagneandbenzedrine.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-i-became-one-groupies-real-life.html
The trick with this product is that it doesn’t respond to bass, as most people assume it would. That means you have to fiddle with the volume to get that ’sweet spot’ where it works best – it’s next to useless cranked up to it’s loudest.
But breaking after two uses IS unforgivable – I’d email the company and see if you can get a new one. Many of the points you made are valid, but I’m sure they’d agree that you deserve a working model before you condemn it completely!
June 1st, 2009 at 12:22 pm
@Champagne and Benzedrine: Well, I just did not find it to be a very good toy, even before it died. The delay really bothered me, and I was not at all impressed by its response to most songs. Honestly, I don’t want a replacement, because I wouldn’t use it.
June 1st, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I am VERY impressed that you managed to pick up the delay… You must have a very acoustic pudenda! You must post your list of 33 songs, though – even if you never get to try them out!
June 1st, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I’ve been using an OhMiBod as part of my music system for a few years. It still works, but it was always a poorly-designed toy. As far as I can tell, it seems like the motor goes at just three speeds, low, medium, and high, and it’s easy — SO EASY — for music to slip under the low range and get no response, or spill over the high range and stay on constantly, dull and numbing.
I use it together with a bunch of other music-responsive sex toys — two electrosex units, a light-and-sound machine, a massage cushion. I wrote about it all here: http://unsafewords.com/?p=246
Taken by itself, the OhMiBod is just cheap plastic and cheap electronics from China. But there’s something to be said for the marketing: the makers used iconographic graphic design to make the notion of sex toys more appealing to hip young techno-savvy women who’d shy away from dropping that ol’ back massager between the thighs. Adding on OhMiBod blogs and iTunes playlists meant that this vibrator wasn’t just a guilty secret; it turned masturbation into a social act, as many sex toy blogs do.
June 1st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
@Themistokles: it’s easy — SO EASY — for music to slip under the low range and get no response, or spill over the high range and stay on constantly, dull and numbing. That’s exactly right. I didn’t try many slower, lighter songs, but I did notice that they elicited a very, very weak response from the OhMiBod. And the more upbeat songs tended to drift into constant vibration territory.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:18 am
When I wanted to review this, it was out of stock. Maybe that’s a good thing!
June 7th, 2009 at 8:04 am
The OhMiBod was actually the first vibrator I bought. I never got a chance to use it because it broke upon inserting the AA batteries, which really pissed me off. I was shocked at how cheap the plastic on the caps were. The only good thing to come of the $70.00 I spent on it was the headphone splitter, the extension cord for headphones, and the bag which I use to hold tampons. Irony.