For example, in the area of hackable unconventional sex toys, ideas I haven't seen here but that may be worth exploring: solenoid valves (to control fluid or air flows? — test! — have emergency release valves!); linear actuators and a few pumps (see above); in-line flow meters (to measure them? Interesting elements of breath control possible); pin lattices with solenoids/linear actuators/similar (programmable textures?); and, of course, inexpensive accelerometers.
Things I have seen, and played with which have been variously modified include certain TENS units (not really a fan) and 'violet wands' (a fan!).
There might be product ideas here, but they're likely to be kind of… niche. Still, kinky people can host quite dedicated niches sometimes (and that's about all I'm going to say about that here! <g>).
But also, hackable is really another word for customizable. Lots of vibrators on the market have buttons to increase/decrease intensity and alter vibration behavior. We're just trying to get down to the core of customizable, but also keep it super easy for people to do. Our goal is to have a bunch of click-to-download programs that let you easily modify how your toy behaves without having to get in to libraries and header files and debugging.
For what it's worth she's an academic in computing.