I was excited about this one, for three reasons: (1) both of us love anal play; (2) oddly, we don't have a vibrating butt plug of any type; and (3) my/our experience with the Wink Vibrator had left me with a very good impression of VēDO products.
Like the Wink, The Rio Anal Vibe is well-packaged and nicely-constructed from high-quality silicone and well-formed plastic parts. As a vibe, it requires a battery: a single AAA, which is fine (I'll come back to this again later), but is not included. It has a simple button on the bottom of the plug to turn on the vibe, and boasts 10 vibration modes! And it's waterproof, so you can take it in the bath or shower with you. And it comes in a nice array of colors (we got the purple one, as shown, but I almost picked the blue one).
We've tried out the Rio on each of our asses, and it has gotten a fair amount of use since we bought it a couple months ago. There's a lot to love, but also some things that keep me from wholeheartedly recommending it.
The size of the Rio is nice; not too big, which would obviously limit its usefulness—and yet it's big enough that you never get to that point where you can't feel it "in there" anymore. For an average-sized hole, it's almost the perfect size. The stop at the base is also well-sized and shaped, so that it doesn't get in the way while doing its job. The design of this plug is striking, because it is more angular with defined edges, and it looks beautiful to behold (especially if you love sex toys!). However, the atypical shape has a downside: it looks and feels (to me) as though the space between the bulbous part of the plug and the base is narrower, just enough that it's a little more difficult to get it all the way in (especially in hubby's ass).
Once fully inserted, though, it does stay in place—most of the time. There was one occasion when it when it popped right out of hubby while he was bent over me in a doggy position. Of course, when you're using a plug then your butthole is going to loosen up, and I had used a liberal amount of lube to get it inside him that time... then, bending over and not "clinching" combined with those other factors, and out it came. It could happen with any smaller plug, I suppose, but it hasn't ever happened before to us. We've found with the Rio that, if you work it all the way in, then hold it there for a bit, usually we will "contract" around it enough to hold it in effectively.
Another quirky thing about the shape and build of the Rio is that it's a little bit "pokey." As you can see from the picture, it has a fairly pronounced point to the tip, less rounded than other plugs we've used. At the same time, the silicone, while soft-ish on the end, is surprisingly rigid when you're trying to stab this thing into someone's bung-hole. Both of us flinched at a "miss," which taught us each a valuable lesson on being gentle with our partner's assholes.
Now, the vibe part is very nice, and I must say that this has definitely piqued our curiosities about anal vibes in general. While it claims 10 different vibration modes, I had a little trouble discerning all 10 while it was inside me; several of them are quite similar. Nevermind that, though—all of them feel very nice! And, the vibe is very quiet, which is great. The switch is adequate: it works well enough, and it is placed where it has to be placed on a toy like this, but you also can't help but hit it when trying to insert the Rio into your own or someone else's ass. The tricky part of the switch, though (as I discovered first with the Wink Vibrator) is that you have to HOLD the button in for several seconds to turn the vibe off.
The choice of the AAA battery is an interesting one. It definitely is a more common battery size/shape than, say, the little button cells, and we are more likely to have spares in the house because of that. On the other hand, this particular choice means that the vibe part of the toy protrudes out of the bottom of the plug quite a bit—which makes it easier to reach to switch to a different vibe mode, but it also means that you cannot sit very comfortably with this thing in your backside. (I don't know about you, but this limits its use for us fairly significantly; it's not all that uncommon for one or the other of us to have a butt plug in while we're watching TV, or even out to dinner.)
The folks at VēDO claim that the battery life is 2 hours, but our experience has been different. Normal battery life seems to be more like 1.25 to 1.5 hours. Of course, if you leave the battery in and put it in a suitcase, the switch is not hidden enough to where it won't accidentally be turned on and run down the battery entirely, forcing you to go battery-shopping on your vacation... or, ahem, so I hear.
VēDO says this toy is 100% non-latex and is phthalate free, and thus hypoallergenic. It cleans up easily with soap and water or a specialized toy cleaner; you can submerge it, because it's waterproof, as long as it is fully assembled (but don't try to wash it when it's disassembled, or you may ruin the electronics).
In summary, hubby and I both love the way the Rio Anal Vibe feels when it is inside us; it's well-built and has nice features. It also has a handful of problems that could each be addressed to make it (or maybe Rio 2.0, if you will) a perfect anal vibe.
I give it 3.5 out of 5 "Os," holding back for the reasons I listed above—but don't miss the really great parts I mentioned, too. The Rio really is a good toy, and one that we've already gotten a lot of great use out of!
(If you like this review, check out all of My Reviews.)
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