Four brands come up constantly when people shop for nicotine-free inhalers, and they are not really the same product. One of them does not produce vapor at all. One is a pod system. Two are mostly disposables. The prices differ by a factor of five depending on how you count.
We are one of the four, so read this with that in mind — but we have tried to write the version we would want to read, including the places where somebody else is the better buy. All prices were checked on each brand's own site on 20 August 2026 and will drift; verify before you buy.
The table
| HealthVape | Ripple+ | Füm | MELO Air | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Format | Disposable pens + refillable HV0 pod device | Refillable POD device | Battery-free wooden inhaler with wood "flavor cores" | Disposable diffusers |
| Produces vapor? | Yes | Yes | No — flavored air only, no vapor, no battery | Yes |
| Entry price | $19.99 (single pen) / $29.99 (HV0 device) | $54 POD kit (from $74) | ~$93–$120 Journey Pack | $16.99–$19.99 per device |
| Refill price | $24.99 / 2 pods | $20 per pod pack (1,000 puffs) | Cores, 1 core lasts 2–3 days | n/a — buy a new device |
| Stated life | 1,600 puffs (HV0 device); puff count not published for pens | 500 puffs/pod, 1,000/pack, 1,000/disposable | 2–3 days per core | ~800 puffs |
| Ingredients | Vitamin B12, caffeine, melatonin, chamomile, GABA + kava, vitamin C, collagen | Botanical blends | Infused wood cores, no liquid | Melatonin or caffeine, vegetable glycerin, organic fruit extract |
| Social proof shown on site | Okendo reviews on-product | 21,342+ reviews sitewide | 4.3 average on Journey Pack | 5,000+ reviews sitewide (their blog cites 4.86 across 6,861) |
Füm is the odd one out, and that is the point
Füm does not make a vape, a diffuser, or anything electronic. It is a wooden mouthpiece with a replaceable, flavor-infused wooden core; you pull air through it and taste something. No vapor, no battery, no liquid, no charging. Their marketing is entirely about hand-to-mouth fixation and fidgeting, not about ingredients — because there is essentially nothing to inhale.
Buy Füm if the thing you actually want is the gesture, and you would rather nothing at all enter your lungs. That is a completely coherent position and no other brand here can offer it.
Skip it if you want flavor with any real presence. Air through wood is subtle by design, and the upfront cost is the highest of the four — the Journey Pack sits around $93 for the device plus six core packs, with BOGO promotions listed at $120.31 for two.
Ripple+ is the best-built pod system
Ripple's POD kit is $54 (marked down from $74), pods are $20 per pack, and each pod is rated at 500 puffs with 1,000 puffs per pack. Their site shows over 21,000 reviews, they run an actual culture blog, and the industrial design is the nicest in the category. It feels like a product from a company with a design department.
Buy Ripple if you care about how the object looks and feels, and you are happy to pay a premium for it.
Skip it if you are price-sensitive: $54 entry plus $20 refills is the most expensive ongoing pod economics here.
MELO Air is the cheapest per device, and the loudest on claims
MELO (HELOMELO) sells disposable melatonin and caffeine diffusers at $16.99–$19.99, roughly 800 puffs each, with a short ingredient list — the functional ingredient, vegetable glycerin, organic fruit extract. Their own comparison posts work out to about $0.02 per puff. That is genuinely competitive, and their review volume is real.
Where we would push back: their melatonin product page tells you that you will "fall asleep fast and wake up without morning grogginess" and describes absorption "directly into your bloodstream." There is no published pharmacokinetic data for inhaled melatonin. Nobody in this category — not them, not us — can honestly tell you an onset time or a bioavailability figure for this route. Treat that copy as marketing.
Buy MELO if you want the lowest per-device price and you do not mind disposables.
Skip it if you would rather not throw away a battery every 800 puffs, or you want more than two functional ingredients to choose from.
Where HealthVape actually fits
We have been doing this since 2017, which mostly means we have made more versions of the mistakes than the newer brands have. What we are today:
- The widest formula range of the four. Caffeine, vitamin B12, melatonin, chamomile, GABA + kava, vitamin C. If you want variety across a week rather than one product, that is our argument.
- The cheapest way into a refillable system. The HV0 rechargeable kit is $29.99 — a 600 mAh USB-C device rated at 1,600 puffs — and pods are $24.99 for two. That is materially below Ripple's $54 + $20, though Ripple's hardware is nicer. We do not ship a charging cable, deliberately; you already own six.
- Disposable pens at $19.99, with 10–20% off multipacks.
Where we lose: we do not publish a puff count on our disposable pens. MELO does, Ripple does. We should, and until we do you are comparing on incomplete information — so that column in the table above stays honest and empty. Our hardware is also plainer than Ripple's; if the object matters to you aesthetically, they win that.
The honest caveat that applies to all four of us
Nicotine-free does not mean risk-free. Inhaling flavored aerosol of any kind is not the same as inhaling nothing, and the long-term data on these products does not exist yet because the products do not have a long term yet. The Cleveland Clinic's write-up on nicotine-free vaping is a reasonable, non-commercial place to read the counterargument to this entire category, and we would rather link it than pretend it isn't there.
Füm is the only one of the four that sidesteps this entirely, because there is nothing to inhale. That is a real advantage and we are not going to talk around it.
Short version
- Nothing in your lungs: Füm.
- Nicest object, best pods: Ripple+.
- Cheapest single device: MELO Air.
- Widest flavor/formula range and cheapest refillable entry: us.
Buy on the format first, then the ingredient, then the price. And ignore anybody in this category — including anybody quoted above — who tells you exactly how fast their product will work.
