This list started with a search that failed. I wanted an app to log coil life: how many days each coil lasted, which juices gunked it up fastest, and the date of my last swap. Nothing like that turned up, but the hunt did surface four vaping apps I had never used, and they are useful whether you are new to vaping or have been building coils for years.
Why most of these are Android apps
It helps to know up front why the list leans so heavily toward Android. During 2019 there were widespread reports of serious illness among people who vaped, and lawmakers around the country responded with calls for bans, steep taxes and tighter rules on marketing. JUUL withdrew its flavored products, and other companies renamed fruit and dessert e-liquids and took food imagery off their labels. The industry’s position was that its products were made for adults.
Apple reacted by clearing vaping apps out of the App Store. By November 2019 nearly all of them were gone, with a few exceptions such as some cannabis-related apps. Apple gave public health as its reason, although there was later talk that the company’s image was the real concern. Whatever the motive, the removal left iOS users with fewer ways to work out e-liquid recipes, check a coil build safely or keep a record of what they vape. Several of the tools below can still be reached from an iPhone through a web browser.
The four apps
Vaffle (Android, free; VFamily on iOS)
Vaffle launched in 2018 and was built together with a site called Heavengifts. It is a social network for vapers. Instagram tends to hold back vaping posts because the products are age-restricted, so Vaffle gives that content a home, and you will find familiar Instagram vape personalities and YouTube reviewers posting there. Apple has pulled Vaffle from the App Store, but it remains a free download on the Play Store.
The layout will feel familiar if you use other social apps:
- a personal feed and a general feed
- a tab for vape reviews, which is the part I like most
- short video uploads inside the app, plus linking of longer YouTube videos from your account
- a tools area with a vape calculator, a vape diary, a DIY e-liquid section and more
You can also list your favorite brands, your current setup and hardware you have owned, which makes it easy to find people with similar taste. Like any young app it has the odd bug. In my experience a message to the developers usually gets a reply and a fix.
Ohm’s Law (iOS, free with in-app purchases)
Ohm’s law describes how current, voltage and resistance in a circuit relate to one another. Anyone who builds coils needs to understand it first, whatever wire you wrap, whatever resistance you aim for, and whether the build goes on a squonker or an RDA.
There are plenty of Ohm’s law and resistance calculators on both platforms. This one stands out for how simple it is: enter any two values and it works out the rest across power, wattage, current, resistance and voltage. That makes it a good fit for beginners, and a sensible check for anyone planning a low-resistance, high-power build. The free version shows ads, and a small one-time purchase removes them.
The Vape Tool (Android, free with ads, paid Pro version)
This is the Android counterpart to the app above, and it does more. It bundles three tools: an ohm calculator for coil builds, a resistance calculator and a battery life calculator, all aimed at building coils safely.
What I use most is the mixing and recipe feature. If you have wondered about making your own juice and did not know where to begin, it gives you a starting point, and it doubles as a notebook for storing recipes. We post DIY recipes on this blog now and then, and this is a handy place to keep them.
E-Liquid Recipes (Android, free with ads and in-app purchases; website for iOS)
Some vapers get bored with big-brand juices, or want a strong version of one flavor that no local shop carries. That is usually how people end up mixing their own, measuring as carefully as a baker would.
E-Liquid Recipes is built for them. You can:
- search by flavor profile
- adjust the VG/PG split and the nicotine level, and scale the batch size
- read what other mixers thought before you commit to a recipe
- publish your own recipes with a description and emojis that sum up the flavor
I have used it to look up seasonal ideas such as pumpkin in the fall and cookie flavors around the holidays, and peach in both fruit and candy styles, peach being my favorite. Android users get the app, and everyone else can use the website in a browser.
Wrapping up
Android users can install all of these and see which ones earn a place on the home screen. On iOS, the browser versions cover much of the same ground. Vape apps may return to the App Store one day. Until they do, a web browser is the way to reach these tools from an iPhone.