We've covered a lot of long-distance lovemaking tools before here on Gizmag – from the tragically innocent Haptihug Telecuddle interface, to the slightly more sleeves-up Kissphone, to the remotely-controlled VIVI vibrator setup at the business end. But none have been quite as "meat and potatoes" as the remarkable LovePalz his-n-herz telehumping setup, which interface with a pair of iPhones to allow simultaneous face-to-face and pole-to-hole communication (to coin a phrase) over any distance.

As a part-time touring musician, I spend a lot of time away from the missus. As any other long-distance couple will tell you, Skype and FaceTime have been an absolute revolution in remote intimacy. Put it this way – if there is indeed some shady government agency out there recording all our web traffic, those guys have seen far more of my glistening undercarriage than they ever signed up for. "Join the NSA, they said. "It'll be just like James Bond, they said." Sorry, lads.

There's never been any doubt in my mind – somebody was going to come along and work out a way to transmit the ins and outs of human intercourse in real time – and the LovePalz system, as crude as it is, looks like it's got a nose ahead of the industry.

The LovePalz ZEUS - for him

It's a two-part system that operates as a pair of Bluetooth iPhone accessories. For him, it's the ZEUS, a handheld, cylindrical, vibrating pocket vagina that's no doubt fairly similar to the venerable Fleshlight when it's not paired with a smartphone. For her, it's the HERA, a similarly cylindrical toy with a multi-speed, piston-driven power wang.

The LovePalz HERA - for her

The magic is in the sensors in each device. The ZEUS is able to read the speed of the gentleman's amorous thrusting, and transmit each poke to the HERA's piston motor. And when the lass on the receiving end clenches up her lady muscles, the HERA is able to sense the pressure and transmit it back to the ZEUS, which tightens its grip on the gentleman accordingly.

All this happens while the lovers are face to face on a video call.

Of course, there's a lot more going on in the average boudoir romp than just poking and squeezing – otherwise I'd have a reputation as a decent lover. And there's no getting around it – men are easier to please than women, so while the ZEUS looks like it'll be absolutely fantastic for the lads, the HERA takes a pretty rudimentary and rudely mechanical approach that probably won't do an awful lot to get the lasses across the line. Not the ones I've known, anyway.

And you just know this kind of system is going to be abused by lonely single gents that want to hook themselves up to both ends of the device and do what the girls have been telling them to do for years.

Still, I think this kind of thing is a significant step forward, right at the cutting edge of teledildonics – an industry that should probably avoid cutting edges altogether. But if LovePalz can get this system into the manufacturing stage, and harder still, get its app into the iTunes app store (then again, this sex toy app got in just fine), I'll happily put my hand up for a review unit. Even if only to further horrify the poor bastard working my NSA datastream file. Incoming!

We've covered a lot of long-distance lovemaking tools before here on Gizmag – from the tragically innocent Haptihug Telecuddle interface, to the slightly more sleeves-up Kissphone, to the remotely-controlled VIVI vibrator setup at the business end. But none have been quite as "meat and potatoes" as the remarkable LovePalz his-n-herz telehumping setup, which interface with a pair of iPhones to allow simultaneous face-to-face and pole-to-hole communication (to coin a phrase) over any distance.

As a part-time touring musician, I spend a lot of time away from the missus. As any other long-distance couple will tell you, Skype and FaceTime have been an absolute revolution in remote intimacy. Put it this way – if there is indeed some shady government agency out there recording all our web traffic, those guys have seen far more of my glistening undercarriage than they ever signed up for. "Join the NSA, they said. "It'll be just like James Bond, they said." Sorry, lads.

There's never been any doubt in my mind – somebody was going to come along and work out a way to transmit the ins and outs of human intercourse in real time – and the LovePalz system, as crude as it is, looks like it's got a nose ahead of the industry.

The LovePalz ZEUS - for him

It's a two-part system that operates as a pair of Bluetooth iPhone accessories. For him, it's the ZEUS, a handheld, cylindrical, vibrating pocket vagina that's no doubt fairly similar to the venerable Fleshlight when it's not paired with a smartphone. For her, it's the HERA, a similarly cylindrical toy with a multi-speed, piston-driven power wang.

The LovePalz HERA - for her

The magic is in the sensors in each device. The ZEUS is able to read the speed of the gentleman's amorous thrusting, and transmit each poke to the HERA's piston motor. And when the lass on the receiving end clenches up her lady muscles, the HERA is able to sense the pressure and transmit it back to the ZEUS, which tightens its grip on the gentleman accordingly.

All this happens while the lovers are face to face on a video call.

Of course, there's a lot more going on in the average boudoir romp than just poking and squeezing – otherwise I'd have a reputation as a decent lover. And there's no getting around it – men are easier to please than women, so while the ZEUS looks like it'll be absolutely fantastic for the lads, the HERA takes a pretty rudimentary and rudely mechanical approach that probably won't do an awful lot to get the lasses across the line. Not the ones I've known, anyway.

And you just know this kind of system is going to be abused by lonely single gents that want to hook themselves up to both ends of the device and do what the girls have been telling them to do for years.

Still, I think this kind of thing is a significant step forward, right at the cutting edge of teledildonics – an industry that should probably avoid cutting edges altogether. But if LovePalz can get this system into the manufacturing stage, and harder still, get its app into the iTunes app store (then again, this sex toy app got in just fine), I'll happily put my hand up for a review unit. Even if only to further horrify the poor bastard working my NSA datastream file. Incoming!