I Tested This Stroker With BOTH Of My Hands Behind My Head - VICE
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When it comes to male sex toys, a “hands-free” description gets tossed around as easily as a selling point. You know how every single food and drink item suddenly has to have “protein” in it? Yeah, it’s like that.
Sorry, but Pop-Tarts don’t need to have protein in them, and most strokers still require hands.
Plenty of automatic strokers wear the “hands-free” label, but you’re still gripping the thing while the motor does its job, and most of them are bulky, awkward, and about as sexy as a power tool. If your hands have to stay on the device, it literally isn’t hands-free.
The Lovense Solace Pro is the first one I’ve tried that truly earns the word.
It clamps to your desk, holds itself at whatever angle you pick, and strokes on its own, at up to 300 strokes a minute, if you’re trying to get crazy. You run it with six buttons on the body or through the Lovense Remote app, and it can even try to sync to videos and livestreams. Lovense markets it as an “AI-powered blowjob machine,” which is about as subtle as this category gets.
Yes, you use your fingers for controlling the speed and pattern of the device while using it, but ultimately, this is a hands-free—”hands-off,” rather—device. And I love it.
The Solace Pro is the real deal if you want a hands-free stroker that’s actually hands off. The desk mount and motor do your bidding, the controls are simple enough to use mid-session, and the sleeve housing is easy to clean. On that note, though, the stock sleeve is good, but not thrilling, and the AI Sync feature, which is still in beta, is hit-or-miss for me. It’s one of the best hands-free male toys I’ve tried, and anything holding it back is a lot more of a nitpicky complaint coming from someone who’s always only just wanted hands-free solo sessions.
I used the Solace Pro the way it’s meant to be used: clamped to a desk, lubed up, and left to do its thing. The “hands-free” claim was the biggest test, but so was how the controls worked in the moment, how the sleeve felt, how easy it was to clean, and how the app and sync features behaved.
For syncing, I tried Lovense’s VibeMate and its AI mode with videos and livestreams, and I tried hard (OH so hard!) to connect it to SexLikeReal, where my Max 2 had previously synced with VR on a Meta Quest 2.
Lovense’s setup is three steps: tighten the clamp onto your desk, slide the stoker portion onto the mount, and adjust the angle, which can swivel through 180 degrees. After that, you lube up, slide in, and let it go. I never had to hold it after tightening it into position. Can I tell you how amazing that is? Rollercoaster, hands up in the air!
When you’re done, the stroker clicks off the motor as easily as it clicked on, so there’s no finagling with a bulky device afterward.
The device itself has six buttons, including power, thrust depth up and down (which can be in increments as small as 0.65 mm), stroke speed up and down, and a pattern button. Pattern mode runs four routines that change up the depth and speed, and they’re pretty great. The best part is that tapping any other button ends a pattern, so you never have to hold anything down or dig through some kind of menu. If you need to stop on a whim (or when you’re about to finish), you can.
The stock sleeve feels good, but there’s nothing overly special about the internal texture. Replacements exist (in both Neutral and Vagina sleeves), but they look to be basically the same design. I’d love an entire lineup with different textures and patterns, which would push this even more onto the top shelf where it already sits. The stoker casing is a win, though, because it opens at both ends, and you can flip the sleeve inside out to clean without worrying about stretching it.
The Lovense Remote app lets you control the toy by touch, sound, or motion, and connect with partners remotely, which is nice for those long distance relationships. VibeMate’s AI mode syncs the Solace Pro to videos and livestreams, but Lovense’s sync is still in beta, and it showed.
Sometimes it was spot on. Other times it moved at random. The tech clearly works, since my Max 2 previously synced to video pretty well, but the Solace Pro isn’t there yet. Or maybe things have changed since the last time I synched my Max 2. As hard as I tried, I just couldn’t get the Solace Pro to connect to SexLikeReal for real-time simulated strokes.
And while I’d love to try syncing it with an adult game to see how it performs, my gaming PC is currently out of commission. I’m excited to eventually try it out when I get a new one.
No need for a fully hands-off stroker? Check out my complete list of some of the best sex toys for men.
Yes, with some help. Lovense sells replacement sleeves for the Solace Pro, in a neutral version and a more realistic one, plus a Grip Kit that it says holds most third-party sleeves with an adjustable strap. I haven’t tried the Grip Kit, so I can’t speak to how well it holds up, but it’s the obvious fix if you want more texture options than the stock sleeve offers. I’ll be making that purchase soon!
Lovense lists a maximum noise level of 63 dB, which its own comparison chart puts between a normal conversation (55 dB) and a TV (70 dB). Anecdotally, it’s definitely not quiet. If you have a less-than-sturdy, slightly wobbly desk, it’s probably fair to say that the rumble will cause your desk to shake even more, adding to the noise.
The Solace Pro is easily one of the best hands-free male strokers I’ve tried, mostly because it’s the rare one that really is hands-off completely.
If you want a stroker that mounts to a desk, runs itself, and has controls that don’t make you think, this is it. If you want a sleeve that makes your toes curl out of the box or synching capabilities you can count on consistently, both need a little more work. More sleeve options and better AI Sync would make this a no-brainer.
Until then, it’s the one I’d immediately point hands-free shoppers toward.
