Whether you are new to vaping or an experienced enthusiast with multiple advanced vape kits to your name, you probably have some questions about what wattage you should vape at to enhance your overall experience.
Every vaper is different, with their preferred styles and e-liquid flavours, so the best wattage for vaping will change from one person to the next. That being said, you can follow some general rules to fine-tune your vape wattage to suit you.
In this article, we’ll reveal everything you need to know about vape wattage, from how wattage affects the quality of your vape to the best wattages for vaping in different styles and with different devices.
What Is Vape Wattage?
A watt (W) is a unit of power, while wattage is a way of measuring the power of an electrical device. For example, lightbulbs are categorised by their wattage, such as a 60-watt bulb.
Therefore, vape wattage is the amount of power that is used by your vape device. Disposable vapes and e-cigarettes often have fixed wattages, which means they use the same number of watts every time. In contrast, variable wattage vape mods allow you to adjust the wattage, or amount of power, used by your vape.
How Does Wattage Affect Your Vape?
Before you can decide what wattage you should vape at, you need to understand how wattage affects the function of your vape. Each time you take a hit on your vape, electricity flows through the vape coil to generate the heat needed to vaporise the e-liquid stored in the vape tank.
Changing the wattage of your device affects how much electricity is flowing through the coil, which, in turn, affects its temperature. The more power you have flowing to the coil, the hotter it will get and the more e-liquid it will vaporise.
As well as producing more vapour, which is ideal for performing vape tricks, higher wattages increase the temperature of the vapour itself. Warmer vapour intensifies the flavour of certain e-liquids, in particular richer flavours such as coffee, chocolate and tobacco, providing a truly indulgent vaping experience.
Unfortunately, there are some downsides to vaping at higher wattages. Every vape coil has a maximum recommended wattage. Routinely meeting or surpassing its maximum wattage can cause the coil to overheat, burning the cotton wick and leaving a burnt taste in your mouth.
Vaping at higher wattages also runs down the battery much faster, meaning you will have to charge your vape kit more frequently and potentially replace its battery cells. Our advice to anyone planning on regularly vaping at higher wattages is to carry around a couple of spare batteries to ensure your vape always has power.
There is a common misconception that vaping at lower wattages causes the coil to burn faster when, in reality, the opposite is true. Choosing to vape at lower wattages significantly improves the lifespan of your vape, putting less strain on the coil as well as prolonging its battery life.
The obvious drawback to vaping at lower wattages is that a cooler coil will produce less vapour, leaving more experienced vapers feeling short-changed and craving additional hits. That being said, lower wattages tend to be the best for vaping inside, as smaller clouds of vapour are less likely to draw unwanted attention if you are trying to vape discreetly indoors.
A further drawback to vaping at too low a wattage is that it can result in leaking or ‘spitting’ due to the liquid not getting vaporised properly.
While vaping at high wattages enhances richer e-liquid flavours, the cool vapour produced by low wattages makes menthol and fruity e-liquids taste crisper and more refreshing.
What Is the Best Wattage for Vaping?
In light of the variety of flavours, devices, and vaping styles in common use today, naming the best wattage for vaping that satisfies every vaper is impossible. Deciding what wattage you should vape at is ultimately up to each individual vaper, and this choice is subject to change as your tastes mature or your experience with vaping develops.
Nevertheless, we have included some universal truths about vape wattages below to make it easier for you to choose a wattage that works for you.
Beginner vape users typically favour the accessibility of disposable devices for their first vape, and these fixed-wattage e-cigarettes tend to have the lowest wattages on the market.
Ranging between 7W and 20W, these low-wattage disposables offer newcomers a satisfying hit of nicotine without overwhelming them with thick vapour. This makes them ideal for anyone trying to make the switch from smoking to vaping.
As more seasoned vapers move on from disposables to pod kits or advanced variable wattage vape kits, they tend to increase the wattage on their devices so that they can begin to explore the depths of flavour that come with warmer and denser vapour.
Most experienced vapers are content to stick around the 40W to 60W range for daily use, so they can access the subtler notes of their e-liquid flavours without compromising too much on battery life.
As for vapers looking for a stronger throat hit or those pioneers in search of the best wattage for vaping immense plumes of vapour, they have been known to crank their devices to between 100W and 200W or beyond!
While there’s nothing wrong with being adventurous from time to time, we would strongly advise against consistently vaping at wattages exceeding 100W unless you have money (and coils) to burn.
What Is Your Preferred Vaping Style?
One of the most important factors to consider when choosing what wattage you should vape at is which vaping style feels most natural to you. If you’re unsure how to vape, Vape Town has a straightforward guide introducing you to the two most common methods.
Even if you’re familiar with mouth-to-lung and direct-to-lung vaping, you might not realise that each style is directly related to your vape wattage or, rather, how much wattage can pass through its coil.
Unlike battery cells, the electrical power of coils is measured in ohms (Ω), and unlike wattage, the higher the level of ohms a coil has, the less power is able to handle. To put it simply, if you want to increase the wattage of your vape device, you need to decrease the ohms of its coil.
If you are most comfortable with mouth-to-lung vaping, then you should keep your device between 7W and 20W. This wattage should be paired with a higher resistance coil, ranging between 1.0Ω and 2.0Ω.
- What is the best wattage for direct-to-lung vaping?
In order to vape in the direct-to-lung style, you will need a coil with a lower resistance, ideally below 1.0Ω. If you ever wondered why they are called ‘sub-ohm vapes kits’, now you know! The best wattage for vaping with a low-resistance coil is generally 40W and above, with lower ohm levels making way for increasingly higher wattages.
- What is the best wattage for different ohms?
Mismatching your wattage to the ohms level of your coil is the easiest way to damage your coil. If you are unsure about the maximum recommended wattage range for your vape coil, you should be able to find it written on its original packaging, in its instruction manual, or written on the coil itself.
If you’re on the market for a new coil and are wondering what wattage you should vape to match its ohms, check out our list below. Note that this is a rough guide to follow, although you should always follow what the manufacturer suggests to run your coils at as they can vary significantly from company to company.
- Coils with 1.4Ω have a higher resistance. They are best suited to low wattages of 10W-14W to accommodate a mouth-to-lung vaping style.
- Coils with 0.8Ω to 0.6Ω have lower resistance. The best wattage for vaping with these coils is 15W-25W to facilitate a direct-to-lung vaping experience.
- Coils with 0.4Ω to 0.3Ω have even lower resistance. They should be paired with wattages between 30W and 40W.
- Coils with 0.2Ω have very low resistance. These coils are suited to high-powered devices with wattages between 40W and 60W.
- Coils with 0.15Ω have close to the lowest resistance on the market. They are designed to handle higher wattages of 60W-80W.
Still Unsure About What Wattage You Should Be Vaping At?
Choosing the best wattage for vaping is by no means a straightforward task. Even with all the information we have provided, it can be difficult to know what wattage you should vape at until you have tried out a few and figured out what you prefer. This is the beauty of variable wattage vape kits.
If you’re the type of vaper who changes up their flavours quite often, or if you’re curious to try out the different vape styles, check out our collection of vape kits to find a device that appeals to you.
Need more tailored advice about the best wattage for you? Get in touch with one of our vaping experts and assemble your perfect vape kit with us today!