After salivating over it for many months I finally scraped some cash together and bought myself a DreamLover 2000 Pro and ChronoVault from DreamLover Labs. Nothing sponsored, I paid full price for it, so this is going to be an honest review.
First impression
First off: Both products are incredibly well-designed. From conception to execution you can just feel the love and the deep understanding of the lifestyle these guys poured into it. I'm nothing short of blown away. Extremely well done and I wish to send everyone involved my deepest admiration and congratulations.
I spent the first day after receiving the product just playing around with it. Initially I had some issues with electrode placement. I do not think that the placement recommended by the manufacturer is optimal. What I ended up using is a CB6000 with the hole placed slightly lower. That means that I can have the bottom electrode facing back towards me meaning it makes much better contact with the scrotum. This in turn makes the pain from the pulse focus on the glans which is a much "nicer", sharper kind of pain. I'll make sure to post some pictures of the setup when I can.
In depth: DL2000
The DL2000 has really only three, maybe four main features:
- It can shock you.
- It can vibrate.
- It can sense how it's positioned (accelerometer)
- It can detect whether the electrodes make a good connection (penis detector)
From other reviews I knew that some of the components of the receiver can be fragile. For example, the electrode and vibrator motor wires can break if bent too much. Most people who report these problems also report that DreamLover Labs is extremely responsive and helpful in dealing with these issues. Still, knowing this, I treated the device with great care from the start and I haven't had any problems whatsoever. Everything works, nothing feels particularly fragile. Overall I'd rate build quality as high to very high.
As for the penis detector feature, I tried it out and I got a green signal even when the electrodes were completely in the air, not touching anything. To enable the penis detector you set the LED color for each pulse type to black, so it's possible I did that wrong. Either way, the penis detector isn't all that interesting to me anyway since it can't report its status back to the computer. From what I understand there is no way at all for the DL2000 receiver to send messages back. That is ok, but it's definitely one feature that I'd be looking for if there is ever a successor model. Being able to log and download accelerometer data and randomly sampled penis detector data would be amazing and would open up lots of interesting new possibilities.
In depth: ChronoVault
Alright, the ChronoVault. I'm not usually someone to write one-sided reviews, but this thing is about as close to perfection as I've seen a product get. It is beautifully designed and cleverly engineered. The key is always tantalizingly close, yet kept securely behind the transparent dome, which feels extremely solid. There is no place to get a good grip on it, so you end up fumbling uselessly as your fingers slip again and again until the reality of your chastity sentence sinks in.
Not much else to say about it - the LEDs do a fun light show so it's definitely something that draws attention if you leave it openly on your desk. It has a ton of flexibility with respect to the timing options and the "owner lock" (where you lock yourself out from overriding the timer) seems to be implemented in firmware and even with reverse engineering the USB protocol, there doesn't seem to be a way to disable it. Once closed and locked, only brute force will open it and due to the clever engineering you'll need a lot of it and it won't be pretty.
Hacking time!
After playing with the remote for a day, my geeky nature kicked in and I started looking into ways to hack it, more specifically to write my own software that would control both devices.
I wanted my apps to be able to run permanently and issue commands at any time, so I first turned to the remote management functionality. It was fairly straightforward to write some code that emulated a user clicking the buttons in the DL Lounge interface. Unfortunately this had substantial latency (several seconds) and a lot of variance in that latency as well.
My second attempt was to have a DL Browser open a page which would run Socket.IO and take commands from a server I wrote. This felt like a bit of a hack, but it solved the latency issue. Unfortunately the DL Browser API was pretty restrictive: I had issues with the rate limiting - it would kick in sometimes even though the last command happened ages ago. Also some features like canine mode were just straight up missing from the DL Browser API. Overall the API just feels neutered - nothing I hate more than having my own access to my own hardware restricted. I always get around the restriction eventually, so all it does is waste my time.
In the end I wrote my own driver called Priestess that acts as a drop-in replacement for DL Uplink. It's basically a Node.js server with an Edge.js binding to a quick .NET library I hacked together.
This is what it looks like:
This finally gave me access to absolutely all features. I can even implement changes to pulse and timer settings if I need to.
Game time!
Now that I had unrestricted programmatic access to the device, the fun could begin. I christened my new software Pele, after the Hawaiian Goddess Pele, who reigns over volcanoes and fire. She's also associated with having a strong will and purpose and given that this software would be able to make its point very clearly to the wearer of the DL2000 she seemed to be an appropriate inspiration.
So far I've implemented three apps in Pele and here they are in turn:
App 1: Alerter
This is a very simple concept. When turned on you have to push a button every five minutes. If you don't you get a page (several weak pulses) every minute from the DL2000. If you still don't push it after a total of ten minutes, the paging becomes a level 1 pulse, level 2 after another five minutes and finally level 3. I never got to level 3, eventually the mind game just becomes too much: You push the button and the game starts over.
One way this could be used I envision is as a sleep deprivation method. You can fall asleep, but very soon the pulses are going to wake you up. Just something fun to play with.
Impression: Gets annoying real fucking quick. One minute intervals is long enough so you can't exactly predict when the pulse is going to hit, so once you get to level two you're just hunched over in anticipation half the time. I haven't tested it as a sleep deprivation method yet, but it certainly seems like it'd be extremely devious and effective.
App 2: Fondness
This is inspired by the excellent Fond of Writing app. Basically you have to type 15 random preselected sentences that have to do with being submissive. Every typo means a level 2 pulse. Stop typing for 1 second and you get a level 2 pulse plus another level 2 pulse every second thereafter until you start typing again.
Based on these rules you can get through the whole exercise without getting shocked once. But the threat is always near enough that you become surprisingly focused and very quickly you get very, very good at typing these sentences. I'm really looking forward to playing with this concept of DL2000-enhanced learning some more: Maybe I can finally add some spice to my boring sessions of reviewing Chinese vocabulary flashcards.
Impression: Tons of fun. The instant shock when you make a typo is just unlike anything I've experienced before. This is by far my favorite game for the DL2000 so far.
App 3: Debug
This is just a very simple page giving access to many of the DL2000's features. (I'll eventually implement every single one on this page.) Thanks to the way Node.js manages asynchronous events and due to the fact that I use Node.js across the whole stack (including Priestess) all the buttons are incredibly responsive.
What's next
I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do next. I want scheduled events to happen that trigger "games" automatically. So imagine for example the following morning ritual. 7am, you get paged, waking you up. You know you have five minutes to get to the computer (else... well... let's just say you'll learn quickly to always make it in time...) Once there, a "morning ritual" starts which basically consists of some fun kinky games with the DL2000. After the morning session, Pele will go into day planner mode. Basically it will give you slots of time to complete certain tasks within a time limit. For example: 60 minute time slot for workout, 20 minutes for shower etc., 1 hour work, 15 minute break, 1 hour work, 1 hour lunch, etc. If you finish any task early, you have to report it and your day schedule will move forward immediately. If you don't complete the task within the limit you must abort it and report failure to Pele.
(I noticed just from experimenting so far, that the DL2000 is actually just a really neat little notification system that reaches you wherever you are in the apartment and that is on you no matter what. (Whereas, who knows where your phone is at any given time.) The DL2000 has a feature where you have 10 configurable vibration patterns you can use to communicate one of ten commands. There might actually be a product idea here for a wristband or something that you can wear all day and night and that just provides some basic notification features in an unobtrusive form factor. But I digress.)
At the end of the day there is a leisure section where all your saved time goes from any tasks you completed early. If you failed any tasks, you get damage points which accumulate until they reach a random threshold. Once that threshold is reached a punishment is issued. The system should be set up in such a way that punishment can be completely avoided by being reasonably disciplined. On the upside you'll earn rewards like vibrator activations in the DL2000, a chance to be unlocked and edge or even a chance to be unlocked and orgasm. These rewards (except orgasm of course) will be awarded pretty frequently and liberally since they double as increasing your arousal and sexualizing good behavior.
Over time, I'd like to make Pele smarter to take in information from other sources to cross-reference with your self-reporting. For example it could query Github to see if you've checked in any new code during the time you were supposed to be coding. Or it could query the wifi wattmeter on your Steamwave to see if you've taken the time to cook a healthy meal or just microwaved something for two minutes.
WTF is the point?
Now, if you're reading this, there is at least a decent chance that you *get* what the point of this is. For those who don't, well, I'd describe it as a scientific interest into ways that BDSM and self-improvement intersect. It's a way of tinkering with technology in order to create interesting situations that make you learn something new about yourself. I probably wouldn't want to live under this kind of "motivation aide" forever, but who knows? Eating healthier, never missing a workout and being super-aroused by the whole thing - seems like there are worse ways to spend your time.
The main question I'm trying to answer for myself if how big of an impact doing this for a few weeks can actually have. Will I get tired of it after a day? Will I keep going until a lot of these tasks become solid habits? Maybe I'll even keep this tool around forever. You don't know until you try.
Like I mentioned before, more than the pure pain and pleasure aspect of it I think what's going to make a big impact is the timed notifications and enforced structure to your day. Awake, asleep, when worn 24/7 the DL2000 is with you all the time and it can always get your attention. That makes for very interesting, very comprehensive time management.
Open source
Due to the fact that it uses some reverse engineered code, I'll need permission from DreamLover Labs to release Priestess. And without Priestess there is no point is releasing Pele. So watch this spot, I'll direct them to this post and try to get their permission to post both projects. I'm sure they'd love to see some great use cases and new selling points for their hardware so maybe they are willing to have their driver code opened up a little bit to make it happen. I certainly think it's a very attractive proposition.
I wanna emphasize that I'll respect their decision either way. But I certainly hope they'll see the benefits of making their hardware platform more attractive for software developers. And if I'm allowed to release Priestess that would certainly accomplish that.
Let me release the Priestess, don't keep her chained up!
Feedback
So, what are you guys' thoughts? If it wasn't for the price, would you buy the DL2000? What features would you like to see in Pele? Any suggestions for future iterations of the hardware?