Review: Coconu Wave Massager

There’s something so approachable about palm-sized vibrators like the Coconu Wave. They’re round-edged and soft, small enough to tuck into a nightstand or backpack, and fit perfectly into your hand.

Because of that, they’re intuitive in a way that other sex toys aren’t—they work in harmony with your hands to create an elevated sexual experience, for yourself or partners. Coconu’s Wave Massager exemplifies these qualities with such expertise that you’d never guess it’s the company’s first vibrator.

Carefully Crafted

I’ve tried a lot of first-draft vibrators from sex tech companies that typically specialize in other areas of the industry. I have yet to try one that’s unusably bad, but they all share a certain quality. There’s a tentativeness in the design, a sense that this product is a version built up by someone without much institutional knowledge. Sometimes the battery life falls flat, the shape is weird, or the motors are more buzz-buzz than rumble-rumble. But that’s to be expected! You have to make mistakes to get good at something.

That’s why the Coconu Wave surprised me so much. It’s a simple little thing, but there’s meticulous attention to detail in every component, the first of which is the silicone. It’s coated in platinum-cured silicone, and it surrounds the rigid internal structures with a sufficient thickness that still feels squishy to the touch. The silicone is exceptionally soft, smooth, and silky, never dusty or dry.

When you apply a few drops of water-based lubes, sometimes the silicone outer shell of low-quality sex toys can acquire a kind of squeaky feeling (like being squeaky clean) to the touch. It’s a mood killer. The Coconu Wave Massager avoids this pitfall entirely, which makes sense considering the company’s main specialty is lube. The Wave takes to water- and coconut oil-based lubes like a fish to water. The silicone shell becomes slick and smooth (like the inside of your cheek) but never sticky or squeaky.

How the Wave’s silicone outer takes to lubes is an important quality not just from a sensory-preferences point of view, but functionally, too. Because the lube distributes so easily over its surface, the Wave provides rich sensations even when it’s not turned on.

Riding the Wave

When you turn it on for the first time, you’re treated to a pleasantly light but deep-penetrating vibration, more rumbly than buzzy. It’s not what I’d characterize as a high level of intensity and it falls on the lower end of that spectrum, but the vibrations travel surprisingly deep even on the lowest vibration setting.

Notch the intensity up one level and the Wave positively sings. This mode is great for indirect stimulation and the vibrations travel pretty deep on nearly any part of your body. The tip of the nose is a great place to test how deeply you’ll be able to feel the vibrations from any given vibrator, and with the Wave on its second intensity level, I could feel it deep in my sinuses. That’s pretty unusual for a toy of this size. For instance, the Dame Pom, which I regard as one of the best small vibrators I've ever tested, produced similar results on the nose-tip test—and it’s twice the price of the $50 Wave Massager.

The internal motor is powerful for its size. It has 10 vibration settings to cycle through; the first two provide consistent vibration at different intensities, and the remaining eight cycle through different vibration patterns. It’s a decent amount of variety for a toy this size. The Dame Pom only has five intensities and five vibration patterns.

Photograph: Coconu

The patterns feel unique and identifiable, which isn’t always the case on smaller toys. Often I’ll cycle through vibration patterns that feel mostly the same, buzzing at intermittent or slightly less intermittent intervals. The patterns on the Wave each feel like they have a personality—like they were selected because of how well they show off what this toy can do.

Even on the stock standard tap-tap-tap vibration pattern, the Wave gives you everything it’s got. The vibrations penetrate deep, and the tempo is right in the Goldilocks zone of not too fast and not too slow. The same can be said of the other patterns too. I haven’t found a single pattern I didn’t like, and that’s surprising because vibration patterns aren’t usually my favorite thing. It helps that the patterns on the Wave are all relatively simple but satisfying, none of them are out here trying to play improvisational jazz on your genitals.

Palm-sized vibrators often make excellent companions for a relaxing bath. The silicone shells they’re typically wrapped in make for excellent waterproofing, but unfortunately, the Wave is an exception here. It’s not bath proof. It’s labeled water resistant, but the instructions explicitly warn against submerging it in water.

As for battery life, the Wave sits in the middle of the pack. You can get about an hour off a single charge, which isn’t atypical for a toy this size. The Dame Pom is about the same.

Palm Reading

It’s hard not to return to the design. It’s shaped like a little raindrop, with one end that tapers into a rounded tip. One side has a flat, recessed plane, and the other is rounded. Its design foregoes any symmetry, bilateral or otherwise, and each side, edge, and tip offers different sensations.

During testing, I found that how you hold the Wave can dramatically change the experience you get from it. Even subtle shifts in how you’re holding it during use can impact how its vibrations feel. The rounded side fits comfortably in the hand and the tension of the muscles in the palm can shift the angle that you’re holding the Wave. How you’re resting your fingers on the back can even provide different sensations.

Photograph: Coconu

Think about how you hold a mouse—resting your hand on it, with your fingers on the left and right buttons. Now think about how much movement you can get out of it without moving your wrist. Every one of those positions your hand takes is pushing the mouse against your desk in a different way. Each of those slightly different variations in muscle tension and finger placement has a tangible effect on which parts of the Wave are touching which parts of you or your partners.

The Wave is a simple vibrator, but it’s been carefully crafted with your pleasure in mind, and it shows. It’s an aesthetically and functionally thoughtful vibrator. Every detail feels intentional because those details inform your experience of actually using the Wave. There are some interesting ideas at play in the design of the Wave, and if this is Coconu’s first vibrator, I can’t wait to see what its second one looks like.