Toy Review – The Rave 2 by We-Vibe

Back in 2017 I reviewed the original Rave by We-Vibe, and was sad to say I kinda hated it. I had just started trying to find good vibrators to hit my G-spot (which had finally woken up) and everything I saw about the Rave made it sound like a really good candidate – made by a highly reputable company, strong, rumbly – a perfect match. Unfortunately the thing that some people really seem to like about the Rave (or at least not mind that much) is what made it utterly unusable for me, and that was the shape. Normally I wouldn’t choose to review a second generation of a toy I didn’t like the first time if the thing that I didn’t like about it wasn’t very obviously changed, but I hoped maybe the Rave 2 would be an exception.

The Features

The Rave 2 is a long asymmetrical insertable vibe with about 3 or so inches of useable length. It’s fully covered in silicone, uses a magnetic charger, has 120 minutes of run time, is fully waterproof, and is app-compatible. The ad copy on We-Vibe’s website claims the Rave’s adjustable fit means it can be “worn during sex”, and also claims that the new second motor allows it to stimulate the G-spot and the clitoris at the same time. I guess we’ve got a lot to get into.

Toy Care

The Rave 2 should be washed before first use and after each use with warm after and a mild soap. A periodic soak in a 10% bleach 90% cold water solution for 10+ minutes will sanitize it. Due to the mechanical nature it should not be boiled or put in the dishwasher. Water-basesd and plant oil-based lubes are compatible. This is not an anal-safe toy.

Rave 1 vs Rave 2 – The Experience

Some of the changes made between the Rave 1 and Rave 2 I really like, while others really don’t move me, and of course there’s things I wish had changed that didn’t.

First, the addition of a second motor – I love this. This is the selling point of the Rave 2 for me. This is everything. The second motor is located in what’s sort of the “shaft” of the vibrator and is meant to provide stimulation to the vaginal entrance.

I’m not really sure how, in one part of the advert We-Vibe can explicitly say this, but in another part claim that one of these two motors is meant to hit the clitoris? While it’s true that the clitoral structure is much larger than the little exposed external bit at the top of the vulva, when most of us are talking about stimulating our clits we aren’t really talking about the internal legs that extend down and hug the sides of the vaginal canal from inside our body cavity. If this second motor is vibrating the entrance to my vag it’s definitely not hitting my external clitoral tissue. Can the Rave 2 just be used as a clit vibe? Of course, but not at the same time it’s being used on your G-spot.

Since I read that it was supposed to stimulate the vag before I ever saw the spec sheet that says it’s meant for the clit, I was prepared for vag stimulation – and am very pleased with it. The two motors are set independently and don’t run on a synced vibrational pattern, so it provides this sort of wave or back-and-forth of two distinct sensations. I’m compelled to say it feels more “realistic” even though that’s not actually how PIV works. Perhaps the dissonance creates just enough unpredictability that it feels a little less like using a hunk of silicone-topped plastic and metal. It definitely keeps my genitals interested – G-spot stimulation is the one time I will turn to a toy’s pattern options, because even very strong vibrations can quickly become too boring for the finicky princess that lives inside my vagina. What I find most interesting about the Rave 2’s vibrations is that the “steady vibration” is not actually a constant buzzing but instead is a fast thrumming pattern. I love everything about this second motor addition, I wish it were enough to make me love the whole toy.

The addition of a motor has necessitated a redesign for the buttons, but they still don’t really work how I’d like. You long-press the plus button to turn the toy on and it begins vibrating the vaginal motor. You can use the left and right arrows to find the pattern you want, and set the intensity with the plus and minus. You then press the wave button to switch to the G-spot motor while the first one shuts off. You do the same to set this motor. Pressing the wave again will make both motors start working. Once both motors are running, adjusting the intensity will affect both of them, and using the left and right arrows will move both motors to their next pattern settings. If you want a specific pattern at a specific intensity for one motor, and something else for the other, you have to adjust them to exactly that in their independent modes, or stop and turn the joint motor function off to readjust. The Duo is a toy with two motors that can be operated entirely independently of one another and the button pad doesn’t use hardly any more space than this one has. Womanizer and We-Vibe are sister companies, they use the same tech – there’s no reason the Rave 2 couldn’t have more versatile controls.

The instruction manual indicates that there are supposed to be 10 different patterns and presumably you’d get those in both motors. What I’m actually experiencing is multiple presses on the side arrows not resulting in a new pattern, and a lot of difficulty discerning all ten from one another. If you didn’t tell me how many were supposed to be there, I’d say there’s about 3 or 4 for the vaginal motor and 6 or 7 for the G-spot.

My final tiny gripe about the settings is that the toy starts off with setting the vaginal motor, but I tend to need to actually warm my vaginal opening up a bit before inserting a hard lopsided pointy toy into it, so I have to switch over to the G-spot motor to get the end of the toy vibing – the vagina motor doesn’t work until the toy is fully inside my vagina. This is where being able to adjust each motor as the toy is in full use would be really helpful, since I don’t want to warm up my vaginal opening with the same pattern and intensity that I will later want for my G-spot once the tip of the Rave 2 has been fully inserted.

The problem that killed me the first time and is doing it again is the shape. The asymmetry just doesn’t fit my body. The Rave 2 comes with a posable shaft which I suppose is nice, but was never really an issue for me with the original. Actually bending the shaft makes the discomfort all the more worse for me – it may help someone else, but all I feel is more angles. The Rave 2 has a slightly squishier shell on it and that does help a little, but not enough. The part I really can’t stand is the tip.

The highest point of the insertable end is off-centre, with a ridge running down the opposite side. That ridge feels so incredibly pointy and stabby to me, even if visually it doesn’t appear to be that substantial. We-Vibe added an extra plane to the Rave 2 that breaks up that side ridge but I still find it to be wildly uncomfortable. The description of the ridge indicates that you’re meant to twist the Rave for enhanced stimulation, but for me that just means scraping the ridge around the walls of my vagina while the off-centre bulge pushes on areas I don’t want pushed. I make no secrets about my anatomy not being great fans of wild shapes, but even this fairly innocuous deviance from the “natural” is just all wrong. The Rave hurt, the Rave 2 still hurts, I’m apparently not going to be able to get away from that.

The App

Historically I’ve not loved the We-Vibe app. I discussed it fairly in-depth in my wearables review, but the gist of my dislike is that it just feels underdeveloped and unintuitive. It has seen some upgrades since I last logged on, but I still find it lagging far behind other industry giants like Lovense. The real-time control requires more constant fiddling, and the personal sequence creator isn’t available unless/until a toy is connected (and I still hate how it’s set up.)

The “Single Vibe” option operates the G-spot motor at a fixed pattern, and you just slide the circle up or down to control intensity. For a long time I didn’t think I could change the pattern because the little squiggle doesn’t visually appear as a button, but it turns out tapping on it will allow you to choose from the ten pre-sets.

The “Multi-Vibe” mode is a little more interesting in that it allows you to separate the controls for the vaginal motor and G-spot motor, however it’s also a bit confusing to initially set up. In order to split the controls you double-tap the button that hovers in the centre circle. To put them back together you drag one on top the other. You get to choose between your favorite 4 patterns, and again you have to tap the icons that don’t actually look like buttons to choose them. The bottom right box starts out blank and dragging the vibrator icons into it will just turn them off, even though dragging them into the centre circle also turns them off. You can add a fourth vibe pattern by hitting the plus icon. I’m not sure why it wouldn’t just come with a fourth pre-loaded. Once I realized I could add a pattern of choice in that space, I felt even more certain that the other three weren’t customizable (and was obviously wrong about that, but the icons don’t look like buttons, and why are three pre-loaded but the fourth isn’t?)

The “Playlist” mode is still the same as before – where you have to create your personal vibration pattern in a sequence of picking from their pre-loaded patterns and setting a time duration, over and over and over and over and over and over until you’ve reached the amount of time you wish to spend.

I really truly hate this way of personalized pattern creation, and it is so clunky when compared to Lovense’s simple recording while drawing on the screen with your fingertip while the timeline advances. We-Vibe’s version of screen drawing lags pretty badly and isn’t nearly as sensitive, and doesn’t record. Lovense also lets you create these patterns without having a toy connected, so you can do it before you actually want to play, and you can also upload them to the community database to share. Some of my favorite sequences are ones I’ve downloaded from people I’ve never had any other interaction with, they just create good patterns. We-Vibe doesn’t have anything like that, and it also doesn’t allow a partner who I might want to give control of my toy to the opportunity to pre-build something to send me.

One nice thing they do (and honestly this may have been a feature all along, I cannot remember) is allow you to set the max range you want your toy to vibrate at, regardless of what you or a partner actually try to do in the control tabs.

Regardless, the Rave isn’t the type of toy I would personally use a remote for – even if the app were to my liking, I need clitoral stimulation as well, which means I don’t have enough hands to also fiddle around with my phone. I could see a use for the remote tech with a partner, provided we didn’t experience the connectivity issues that all my app-enabled We-Vibe toys have been plagued with, but if I’m doing that I’m picking a toy that’s more comfortable for me first and foremost, and probably also something I don’t have to hold onto myself – let’s make it fully someone else’s responsibility if we’re going to go through the trouble, right? For that I’m going with the We-Vibe Jive.

Should You Buy This?

Ehhhhhhh.

Look, my biggest issue is the shape. It hurts me. I can’t get past that. If you are not someone who is injured by weird sharp ridges in their insertables then you’re golden! All my complaints about the buttons and the app can be overlooked for the actually very good addition of the second motor. I love that second motor experience. That is delightful. If this isn’t going to cause you pain, I think it can be a lot of fun.

If you had the first Rave and really like it, I think it might be worth the upgrade.

If you’re more sensitive like me, if the buttons irk you, and/or if you’re looking for the most outstanding app experience, then I’d have to say no, the Rave 2 isn’t going to suit you.

Big thanks We-Vibe for sending me the Rave 2 for review! You can get your own by Clicking Here

You can also find the Rave 2 at Lovehoney