To kick off the "Moving all of my sex software repos to the Metafetish Github Org" article series, let's return to one of the first libraries I ever wrote for sex tech: libtrancevibe.

For those not familiar with the TranceVibrator, I wrote a big article about it back in 2005. Since then, the device has seen a fair share of activity, including a DIY Version of the toy, being the basis for Second Life Teledildonics, and make twitter vibrate. In the past couple of years, the creator of the drmn trancevibe DIY toy even went back to find out there were LEDs originally planned but never filled in.

I was pretty fond of TranceVibrator, obviously. It was USB, and it vibrated, and that's about all I needed to get attention back then. Unfortunately, time has not treated libtrancevibe quite so well. The drivers started breaking on Vista, apparently worked on Windows 7, but are now completely broken on Windows 8 and above. I'm guessing this is due to the fact that most released drivers were written in 2006, based on libusb-0.1. We're now at libusb 1.0.19, so things are due for an upgrade.

But does anyone care?

After doing some research, the only still active users of the Rez TranceVibe are customers of the Second Life sex store Xcite!. The Xcite Touch! System, modeled on top of the work I did on SL Teledildonics, uses the TranceVibrator for real world vibration based on Second Life genital interaction.

I don't miss Second Life.

Anyways, it looks like they actually outsourced their own version of the hardware. The Harnett Technology Solutions USBMC-01 is basically a USB key with a small motor driver, into which you can plug any vibrator with the usual 2.5mm mono audio jack. As far as I can tell, this is on only product Harnett Technology Solutions sells, too.

Taking a look inside their controller software, it looks like it's a java application built on top of the Drmn Trancevibe driver code. This would explain why it doesn't work on Windows 8.

Even so, it looks like Xcite is still selling and using the interface. Once that goes away (though, as with many things involving Second Life, it may be oddly immortal), the advent of easier to build/control arduino toys and other products on the market may mean the end of the Rez TranceVibrator.

3 years ago, I filed a bug on my own project to bring libtrancevibe up to libusb-1.0, but it's gone nowhere.. If for some reason, anyone out there still has one and is interested in seeing that happen, please comment on the bug, or email the tips email at the bottom of this page. I kinda doubt I'll ever get around to it otherwise.