Review: Laifen Wave

The Laifen Wave electric toothbrush is Laifen’s second product offering in South Africa, following the launch of its hairdryer. We reviewed the Swift Special hairdryer last December.

Laifen claims that the Wave electric toothbrush is the first to both oscillate and vibrate. It comes in three different finishes: white, aluminium alloy in silver, and brushed stainless steel.

Laifen Wave Quick Look

• 66 000 vibrations per minute
• Oscillates at a 60° angle
• IPX7 waterproof rating
• 3 brush heads included
• Magnetic fast charging in 2 full hours
• 900mAh battery lasts 30 days (if used 2x a day)

What’s in the box

The Laifen Wave comes with 1x handle; 3x brush heads (super-clean, gum care, ultra-whitening); 1x magnetic charging cable; and paperwork like the user manual and quick start guide. The Laifen SA team included a 2-pin plug.

I was sent the brushed stainless steel colour so the brush heads are transparent, like the aluminium version but the white colour brush has white heads to match.

The packaging feels like an Apple product, from the box down to the sealing strips you peel off when opening, to the clean inside finishes and the way the cable is wrapped.

The toothbrush has one main power button, three LED light indicators on top to toggle between the levels (1,2,3), a travel mode icon, and the battery lights.

Laifen App and Set-up

You need to download the Laifen Wave app and sign up before pairing your toothbrush to it via Bluetooth. I linked in on iPhone and found no issues setting it up. It was seamless.

The app is very simplistic, which speaks to how “less complicated” it is. One of the key differentiators here for me is that the Wave is an electric toothbrush, and not necessarily a “smart” toothbrush because it doesn’t give you brushing stats.

The clean interface shows your linked product and battery life at a quick glance but once you tap into it, you can see full controls for the toothbrush, and of course accessing the settings for firmware updates and calibration.

The main Wave tab has controls for power, travel mode, high frequency mode, and tweaking the three levels you can program to your liking.

It makes sense to choose each level to correspond with the brush heads, as there are three heads and three modes you can save.  Each setting for a level lets you choose vibration intensity, swing amplitude, and swing speed.

The default brushing time is two minutes, but you can change this. There’s a button for “Zone Change Reminder” which is useful as it notifies you when to change quadrants. In a two minute brush, you will spend 30 seconds on each quadrant.

It’s a fuss-free, straight forward interface that helps you set up without necessarily needing to go back in.

Using the Laifen Wave 

I’m definitely not one to read user manuals (haha), so I played around with pressing the buttons before figuring out how to switch the toothbrush off and put it into “travel mode”.

You do this by long-pressing the power button on for 2 seconds. This will take you into and out of flight mode. The toothbrush will make a beeping sound and the plane will flash. Using this mode prevents accidental activation in your bag.

A single press of the power button will start or pause brushing, while a double press will let you switch between the brushing modes.

As mentioned earlier, the Wave claims to be the first toothbrush to oscillate and vibrate at the same time. This means it oscillates 60-degrees and vibrates 66 000 times per minute. For this reason, once I put toothpaste on the brush, I spread it across my teeth and then switch it on, otherwise it will fly everywhere.

After brushing for the first time, you get an idea which settings you would want to change. I personally keep the vibration level to 1 and tweak the rest to my preference. I am very happy with the brushing results and how clean my teeth are, which is clearly noticeable.

I have accidentally hit the power button while brushing and had to start again, it didn’t seem to pick up where it left off. So that was a disappointment but I do find I have to make an effort to not accidentally hit it.

The Wave is easy to use once you set it up to your preference. I like the notification when to change quadrants. I don’t feel the need to keep logging into the app, as you can use it as normal once set up.

Unfortunately there is no charging dock; you have to charge it lying flat as the connector is at the base. The battery life is quite long, it lasts 30 days when used twice a day. This, alongside travel mode, makes it an excellent travel companion,

The Wave starts at R1900 for the white, R2300 for the aluminium silver and R2800 for the brushed stainless steel. The Laifen South Africa website sells 3x replacement brush heads for R395 and a travel case for R395.

I love that you don’t need to use the app daily but just to monitor battery life or change speed, duration and intensity. A great option for anyone who has never used an electric toothbrush before.