The video: Being in a long-distance relationship isn't easy. But of all the hardships, sleeping alone while your beloved is hundreds or thousands of miles away might be the worst. Now, a Scottish designer named Joanna Montgomery has created a product called "Pillow Talk" to ease the pain. Each member of a couple wears a special ring sensor at night, and places a fabric panel inside his or her pillowcase. When one person goes to bed, the ring wirelessly communicates with his lover's pillow and causes it to gently glow. When he puts his head on the pillow, he can hear the real-time heartbeat of his partner, no matter how far away. (Watch a video below.) It's "an intimate interaction between two lovers, regardless of the distance between them," says the design firm behind the project. Pillow Talk has garnered a great deal of interest online, and enough funding has been secured to make an industrial prototype, and, hopefully, bring it to market sometime soon.



The reaction: Wow, says Tara Kelly at The Huffington Post. This is a "potentially ingenious device." Sure, "it may seem extreme," says Megan Gibson at TIME. "But as anyone who has suffered through a long-distance relationship also knows, sometimes you need to go to extreme lengths to feel connected." Totally, says Whitney Jefferson at Jezebel. While this "super-fancy, high tech pillow" won't replace actually sleeping next to a lover, it "might make for a delightfully romantic gift on the next anniversary of your long-distance relationship!" See for yourself: