YOOO - discreet massager discontinued by Fun Factory - review by Alan & Michele

Fun Factory has always been known for their unique designs for sex toys, but they've really shown us something new with the Yooo. Designed as three connected balls, if you turn the toy upside down it resembles a Mickey Mouse head with one swollen ear, which makes it discreet since it doesn't look like a sex toy.

The center ball, which is about 2" wide, sports a round plastic control panel on top of it and silicone over the rest. The other two balls, which are 1-1/2" and 1-3/4" wide, are all silicone. Each of the two smaller balls has a separate vibrating motor in it, but they are controlled simultaneously.

The most obvious use for the Yooo is to lay the smaller balls over the clit and vaginal opening together, but it works just as well against the anus and testicles or to lay sideways and slide it up and down the underside of a dick. The toy can also be used as a body massager, or angled so that only one ball is used to stimulate any spot you choose.

The matte finish silicone is firm with some surface pliability, odorless, and has a seam that runs around the entire toy. We couldn't feel the seam during use, but the silicone is a serious dust/lint/hair magnet and creates enough friction that we both find it uncomfortable to rub against our skin without some lube. For genital use it wasn't as much of an issue because, barring the dick-sliding technique, we found that we could take advantage of the roly poly design and do more rocking than rubbing. For naked body massaging it's another story.

According to the instruction manual, when the toy is off the control panel is supposed to light up "with a touch" to indicate that it's ready, but ours seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes it works, and other times we can fondle it all we want to with nary a blink of response until a button is pushed. Makes sense in a kinky sort of way.

During use the control panel lights up, again, seemingly at random, but it's fairly intuitive to use. There are 3 raised buttons: a plus symbol, a minus, and an asterisk, arranged in what would be the points of a triangular formation with the Fun Factory logo in the center. You hold down the plus button for a couple of seconds to turn the toy on, and then press to escalate through 8 levels of steady vibrations. The minus works exactly opposite. The asterisk gives an extra boost of power no matter what level you're on. While on the highest level of steady vibrations, you can press and hold the plus button again to access 4 additional patterns of vibrations. Three are different speeds of a ball-to-ball volley pattern, and the fourth is a fast pulse. Pressing the minus button takes you out of the patterns mode and back to the highest level of steady vibrations.

The buttons are stiff and take a fair bit of force to activate, which we believe that would make it difficult for people with arthritis or any form of hand-related disabilities to use.

The vibrations are hard to describe. Usually vibrators have either rumbly deep-penetrating vibes that feel more massage-like, or high buzzy surface-tingling vibes that can get irritating, but somehow the Yooo manages to feel rumbly yet surface-tingling at the same time. It's not for lack of power, which is well above average, but it is an odd combination of a buzzy rumble. We also noticed that the motors don't seem to be completely in sync, so it feels more like it's giving off warbling vibrations instead of truly steady ones.

Overall it's a quiet toy, so unless you're sharing a room with someone you won't have to worry about noise.

Every time we drained the battery (which takes an hour or less, depending on how what level it's on) it took roughly 6 hours for a full recharge, so our suggestion to anyone who plans to be a frequent flyer on the Yooo shuttle is to plug it in for a while after each use. It has a safety feature to keep it from overcharging, so this would be your best bet.

We used the term "plugged in" loosely here, because the Yooo actually charges magnetically. There is a small disk attached to the plug's cord, and you line up the "Fun" logo on it with the matching logo on the center of the control pad to get it to connect. It's not the strongest magnetic connection, so bumping it can dislodge the disk and it can take some wiggling to get it lined up right to begin with.

-------> CONTINUED

Once it's placed correctly and working, the "Fun" logo glows red and the control panel's lights pulse, both of which will stop when the charging is complete.

Being waterproof, the Yooo is easy to clean with antibacterial soap and running water. You can also wipe the balls down with a 10% bleach solution if you want to share it or switch from teasing the anus to the vaginal opening. We've found that the easiest way to bleach toys is to buy Clorox Germicidal wipes (try OfficeMax or Amazon). They're already saturated with a 1:10 mixture, so you don't have to mess with mixing your own. Just wipe, leave it for a minute, rinse, and go.

The box that it comes in could be used for storage, but we find it easier just to put our Yooo in a Ziploc bag. We wouldn't recommend dropping it in a drawer or a travel bag without some sort of lint-free protection, because it picks up dust and such that you never knew you had.

Our last bit of advice is never use a silicone-based lube with the Yooo because, as with any silicone sex toy, silicone lubricants can really total the toy's surface.


Alan says:
I was impressed with this toy, but all in all not $100+ dollars worth of impressed. On one hand there's the solid design, nice variety of vibration levels, and that unusual vibration type that feels great to me. On the other hand, the charge time-to-use time ratio bites, it numbs the fingers over time, and I find the silicone drags more than is comfortable for me without lubing it up every time. It's too bulky to use during sex too, so with all those factors combined it's not destined to get as much use as a lot of our other toys do.

Michele says:
I agree, it's nice but not awesome or anything. The buttons are a bitch for me to push (flares the carpal tunnel after a while) and I lose track of which ones are where if I'm trying to use the toy on myself. The balls don't line up on my anatomy to hit my clit and vag opening together either; it's more like it hits my clit and one edge of the opening. The vibrations are strong enough that I *should* be able to get off on them, but there's just something about the Yooo that doesn't make that happen, which is something that I've never been able to say about a Fun Factory toy before. It does make a good body massager, but I can name a dozen other toys that I'd rather have on my clit.

Ah here we are again, stuck without the right opinion option to choose for the follow up. We chose "still don't like it" but it would be better to say "still like it but won't say it's all that." Like we predicted a year ago, the Yooo hasn't gotten an abundance of use in our lair, and almost none sexually. Its best use has been as a foot massager, for which it does very well.

Though it hasn't gotten much use, it still holds a charge for the same amount of time as it originally did and it doesn't show any signs of wear. The buttons haven't gotten any easier to push either.