Lelo Mona Wave

The Lelo Mona Wave takes the Mona and adds motion, meant to do the g-spot stroking for you. For me, sex toys don’t replace a human. They’re a great accompaniment. I love using them by myself and with a partner. But just as a penis or finger or tongue could never vibrate and nearly never achieve the orgasms (for me) that a good vibrator can, a sex toy can never feel like oral sex or the thrusting of a penis or the stroking, much-lauded “come-hither” motion of a finger or two. Yet sex toy companies, Lelo included, keep trying to create sex toys that seem to be aiming for replacement rather than harmony¹. They are also creating sex toys that promise way more than they can deliver, in my opinion. 

Right on the box, Lelo proclaims: “The orgasm to end all orgasms²” and “The world’s first g-spot massager that rises and plunges within³ like the natural caress of a lover’s fingers”. That’s really putting the pressure on. 

PROS: Let’s start off on a good note, eh?

• The entire thing is finally covered in silicone. There’s still a seam between the white and color, of course, but it’s not as bad as before. Plus now the buttons are covered in silicone which also makes things much easier on cleaning.
• There’s an instant-on instant-off button. Rather than pressing the power-up button to turn on and pressing the power-down to turn off[ 1. Which honestly has led to more dead Lelos for me than any other brand, simply because the lowest vibration setting is SO low you might think it’s off when it’s not], you now simply press the center of the control panel
• Awesome colors that are not so gender-binary focused. Black! Cobalt Blue! (update: naturally they had to get rid of the black. assholes. it’s replaced with a bright fucsia)
• The Wave can be slowed down or turned off, or the vibrations can be turned off
• Think outside the box – people whose fingers fatigue easily could consider using it clitorally for extra help

In addition to this instant-on button, Lelo Mona Wave will also remember what setting you were on when you last left off, if that appeals to you. Also, while I’ve never had a problem with ABS plastic as a material, combining it like Lelo has done for so many years can simply result in issues with cleaning, like around the crevices and cracks. I don’t feel that the lack of raised buttons makes life any harder, either. 

CONS: Well, we had to get here eventually, you just didn’t think it would be so soon……

• Vibrations are not as rumbly or as strong as Mona
• Motion transfers – a good, pelvic-floor clench means the handle moves, not the head
• So many patterns. It’s like IKEA, you can get lost in the patterns and you can’t even turn it off to start fresh at the beginning.
• That noise, though. 
• Meh.
• That price, though.
• Need firm pressure? Forgetaboutit. 

I was seriously bummed to find that in order to accommodate the Wave feature, they dumbed down the vibrations. They are not as rumbly as the Mona 2 and they are not as powerful. In fact, the Lelo Mona Wave’s vibrations are less than the freaking original Mona which I tested on whatever charge it had left after sitting around from the last time I had to check vibration strengths which was a few weeks ago. I even asked my husband’s opinion, so that I wasn’t unintentionally biased, and he definitely thought the “blue one” was less powerful. Doing the cheek test⁴, the vibrations of the original Mona seem to be more far-reaching on my face than the Mona Wave. In the video clip below, you can see how the Mona 2 (in red) simply sounds lower-pitched in the glass, and splashes some of the water out. The Mona Wave doesn’t create a splash. Literally. It’s a big let-down for me. Mona 2 was never enough for me for g-spot vibrations, not like the L’amourose Rosa Rouge is, but with a little patience it could get me off clitorally. 

So let’s go back to physics class – when you’re holding it firmly by the handle and there’s nothing impeding the movement of the head, sure, the head wiggles. But as soon as there’s resistance introduced, the movement has to go somewhere, so it goes to the handle. This isn’t to say that it’s a dead fish once inserted, but there is less movement. In the video clip below (sorry, it’s gone) you hear and see how fast the top speed of the wiggle is, and then the slower speed, and finally see how much less it moves when there’s resistance.  Yes, you can run the Mona Wave with just the arm moving and no vibrations, the arm moving slower with wave-pulsing vibrations, vibrations with no arm movement, or arm movement with a big variety of pulsating patterns. The + and – keys only control the vibration intensity. To change everything else you must cycle through with the up and down arrow keys. To get back to the default setting of high arm movements and straight vibrations, just click the hell out of the down arrow until everything seems to be back where you started from.

I like a lot of pressure on my g-spot, and it’s why I adore the firmness of the Njoy Pure Wand so much. Aimless, passionless stroking is not going to impress my g-spot, I need pressure. That doesn’t really happen with the Mona Wave for me. In fact, I felt no “zing” of “yeah, that’s the spot!!” like I can even by simply inserting a girthy dildo to provide passive pressure. Yeah, I can feel the movement but it’s not earth-shattering, there’re no fireworks.  I normally (except for the Pure Wand) don’t get a ton of enjoyment out of just g-spot stimulation alone. But g-spot stim will greatly help along a clitoral/blended orgasm – making it happen faster and be much more intense. So when I tried the Mona Wave along with other toys, I didn’t get that speed-up effect nor did it make my orgasm more intense, nor did it draw out the length of the orgasm. 

So, the noise. I’ve had louder vibrators, certainly. The Magic Wand is louder. But as you can hear in the video, that movement is coupled with this odd, robotic sound. I envision those old RC toys with legs that walked, like the puppies or robots. It can be a little….off-putting, to some people. It doesn’t bother me per se but if you need a quiet vibe, this isn’t it. The high-pitched sound of the moving arm can be heard more easily than the low-pitched rumble of the Mona 2, for example. (Sorry, video is gone and I can’t be arsed to recharge the Wave just to remake the videos)

Forget g-spots for a minute. Can the Mona Wave work as a clitoral vibrator + massager? Meh. I’m unimpressed frankly, and that’s mostly because it’s a lack of decent vibrations. Under good circumstances the Mona 2 can get me off clitorally but the Mona Wave? Nope. And if movement + pressure is going to work for me, it needs to be directed to that certain spot on the right side of my clitoral hood. The Mona Wave is too wide to do anything pinpoint. But what about prostates? ehhhh. Is the design of the Mona considered borderline anal safe, since it does get thinner in the neck and then flares out in the handle? I guess? I don’t think the Lelo Mona Wave is going to make waves for prostates, either. Again, there’s a lot of resistance and so the movements will be dulled. 

In the end, I’m going to give the Lelo Mona Wave a pass because it is not AWESOME and I don’t even think it’s better than the Mona 2. I’d simply rather do it my own damn self. Much like the Fun Factory Stronic Drei, which moved even less, I’m clearly not the target audience for these tech-fancy moving sex toys. And with a price tag of $149 for the Lelo Mona Wave (and $169 for the Lelo Ina Wave which I suspect would fail even more for me) it’s just not enough AWESOME for the price. If it had the same level of vibrations as the Mona 2 and were priced lower I’d say why not, go for it but it’s $40 more. 

A big thank you to SHEVIBE for being amazing and sending me a Lelo Mona Wave to review!