I’ve had a Research & Desire Chastity Lockbox for a while now. I didn’t want to write my review too early and really give it a good test first. Luckily I have an in-house chastity sub to try it out for the practicality of day to day management of the lock and the opportunity to try out the remote options too.
What is it?
The lockbox is a 3D printed enclosure with clever electronics that allow the lock to be controlled remotely by a keyholder, by a timer and by interaction with online voting. You can use it for short locks plus it’s small enough to carry around day to day for those in long-term locks. It could also be used for self-bondage locks.
What functions does it have?
- Constantly monitor and control your device from anywhere in the world.
- Lock lengths from 30 seconds to 1000 years!
- Any key can be added to the box with space for multiple keys too
- Emergency unlock can be enabled and disabled
- Notification sent to the keyholder each time the box is locked and re-locked
- Random lock lengths within a set range
- Interaction with public online voting to add time to your lock
- Remote connection with a keyholder anywhere in the world
- Long battery life
- Built in ability to break into the box in case of emergency with a replacable panel
- No access to manipulate the code of the box
- Hide the remaining time on a lock for extra mystery
Is it any good?
Linking the box to a phone and getting it online was simple. Getting set up with the online interface wasn’t immediately intuitive but I got there in the end. You set up the accounts for the sub and key-holder separately and you can link the locks between them.
We played around with some locks lasting a few minutes to get a feel for the functions which I highly recommend. Don’t get too excited and set up for days in case you haven’t tweaked the settings quite right!
There is loads of space inside the box for any size of key and indeed multiple keys if you need that. We’ve a wide variety of cages and locks here and didn’t find any whose keys would not fit.
From the point of view of long locks there’s an ability to allow short breaks during the overall lock for things like hygiene or times where having the cage on is inappropriate. My sub does some sport activities that would be potentially dangerous to have a load of metal about their privates! I got a notification each time the box was accessed and I had complete control over when those unlocks could be.
There would be the opportunity to cheat and not put the key back in the box at these times as there is no way to detect the presence of the key. If I was to suggest an improvement to the box that would be it.
For short term locks or use for bondage it’s easy to set up both fixed and random times that the box will unlock. The added bonus of hiding the time gives an extra level of uncertainty that will appeal to a lot of people.
Controlling a box completely remotely without having direct access is easy to set up so long as the owner of the box itself is trustworthy enough to actually put in a key. You’ve got a couple of options in giving up control from having a key-holder directly taking charge of the settings to offering yourself up to the mercy of the internet vote. You do get to set a maximum time that you are comfortable with, so you’ll not accidentally be in perpetual lock. Maybe that’s part of your fantasy, but in reality it’s very sensible. You can also set up more than one key-holder, but I didn’t test that part out.
Emergency unlock is available for when an urgent situation arises. There is an option to set up a lock with this disabled, but I personally wouldn’t do that. If the electronic fail-safe is turned off the team at Research & Desire have designed in the possibility for a partial deconstruction of the box though you’ll have to purchase a replacement part if you use this.
Being able to control the box from anywhere in the world depends upon it having access to the internet via logging it in from your phone. If you are traveling with the box this is a bit of a fiddle to do. Without an internet connection the box settings cannot be manipulated, so asking for an unlock from your key-holder on the move isn’t as straightforward as I’d like.
Overall impression
There was a bit of a learning curve in setting up the box but once you get past this it’s a neat little piece of kit. You’d have the ability to play with it with someone local or remote and if you have no partner there’s the online community happy to vote you into a frenzy. I’d like it to be more straightforward to use on the move and also a way of checking if the key has actually been returned to the box after a brief unlock. Overall though I quite like it and also having people I can control without having to directly manipulate their box.
I wouldn’t have a reason to buy a second box at the moment, but I’d potentially consider it.
Have you tried the lockbox? Want to know more about any of the features? Leave a comment below!