Surprise test! Get your pens out and set your brain to mathematics mode.

• How many amps are you drawing from your battery if you’re vaping at 40 W on a 0.4 ohm coil?
• What will the nicotine strength of the resulting juice be if 4 percent of the mix is a 72 mg/ml nicotine base?
• If you make a 3 mm diameter coil with 26 AWG Kanthal A1, how many wraps should you use if you want a final resistance of 0.6 ohms?
• How much money will you save over a year if you switch from a pack-a-day Marlboro habit to a Halo Tank Kit?
• It’s safe to say if you can answer those off the top of your head, you are the pinnacle of vape-nerdiness. And you must be really, really good at maths.

For the rest of us mere mortals, questions like those above are an unwelcome barrier standing in the way of vaping nirvana.

As smokers, we barely ever had to calculate anything, and Ohm’s law meant very little to us outside of some dim memories of school physics lessons, but for a vaper, these types of questions come up surprisingly frequently.

Thankfully, the age of iPhones, Androids and app-stores helps us avoid all of this unwelcome maths, and there are legions of vaping apps out there to help you find the answers to questions like this without having to break a mental sweat.

But what’s the best vaping app to help you calculate the amp-draw of your setup? Which apps will take all the tedious calculation out of DIY mixing? What should you use if you just want to track how much you’ve saved since switching to vaping?

We’ve put together this ultimate guide to vaping apps and calculators to give you the answers.

Types of Vaping App

For the purposes of this guide, the available apps and web-based tools have been split up into a few basic categories: savings calculators and quitting tools, Ohm’s law and coil building calculators, DIY e-juice mixing calculators and apps that do a little bit of everything.

There is quite a bit of overlap, though.

For example, an app that’s primarily intended as a coil building calculator may have a DIY mixing calculator too, and many other apps also offer savings calculators or other features. The last section is really there to acknowledge this overlap, but it’s specifically for the jack-of-all-trades type of vaping apps that really can’t be put into any specific category.

In other words, the sections will be useful if you’re looking for something specific, but don’t read too much into where a specific app is placed.

Best E-Cig Savings Calculators and Quitting Tools

For smokers just switching to vaping, the most important vaping apps are the ones that help you track your progress and remind you how much you’ve saved by making the switch.

These all tend to work in the same way: you enter your quit-date, how many cigarettes per day you smoked, how much each pack costs and how much you spend on vaping gear. Then the app returns information like the total amount you’ve saved by switching, how many cigarettes you’ve avoided, and sometimes additional information like the health benefits you’ll be enjoying based on how long you’ve been a non-smoker.

There are many great options, too, but some come particularly widely-recommended.

E-Cig Diary (Android):

This is a simple app that covers all of the core features you’re looking for in savings calculator, including a listing of how many days you’ve gone smoke-free, how many cigarettes you’ve avoided and how much you’ve saved (in Euros only, though).

It also has some basic tools (for mixing e-juice, estimating your battery lifespan and an Ohm’s law calculator), although you can only use them a limited number of times if you don’t click on some banner ads or upgrade to the paid version.

Vape (Android):

This is another app in the same vein as above, featuring all of the core features – showing your quit-date, the number of cigarettes you’ve avoided, the money you’ve saved thanks to switching and the date you break even in terms of cost– and also letting you know when you will have reached specific milestones for health improvements (e.g. increased circulation after two weeks).

It also has achievements, a decent e-juice mixing calculator and a recipe book. This is also free.

Although not specific to vaping, there are a couple of other options that allow you to track your savings on cigarettes, the number of cigarettes you’ve avoided and more.

QuitNow! (iOS and Android):

This offers the standard set of features in addition to achievements, milestones for health benefits and a supportive community to offer tips.

Smoke Free: (iOS and Android)

This app takes a more evidence-based approach, giving you tips to help you get through cravings and the process of quitting altogether. They’re also collecting (anonymous) data so they can research which techniques help people stop smoking.

This is about what the app does, though, not what approach you use to quit, and they’re quite supportive of vaping overall. You can opt-out and still use the app for free if you prefer, too.

Best Vaping Calculators

For longer-term vapers, the various types of calculator available are the main reason to download a vaping app.There are a few main purposes for using a vaping calculator:

• Using Ohm’s law to work out how much current you’ll be drawing from your battery, or your wattage.
• Working out how long your battery will last with your specific setup.
• Finding out how many wraps of coil you’ll need to end up with a specific resistance.
• Finding out the quantities you should use when mixing your own liquids to get what you’re looking for.

There are a lot of apps that do all of this, and some also incorporate savings calculators and other features too. They’ve been loosely grouped together for this post as Ohm’s law and coils apps, e-juice calculators and the multi-purpose options that encompass pretty much everything.

Ohm’s Law and Coil Building Apps

Ohm’s Law (iOS):

This is a very simple, free app that does what the name suggests. Simply enter any two values (either your voltage, wattage, resistance or current) and it will tell you the values of the other two. It’s free, too.

MicroCoil Pro (iOS and Android):

This app is an ideal tool for vapers who build their own coils. You simply enter details about the coil you’re hoping to build – like the number of wraps, the diameter of your coil and more – and it tells you the resulting resistance. You can also enter the voltage and the app returns the wattage and current.

There are many other features too, including an atomizer database (with suggested coils), the ability to share coils with the community and information on battery life. It also shows an adaptive heat coefficient so you can build your coils accordingly and maximise flavour. It costs £3.72 on Google Play and £3.99 on the App Store.

Vaper’s Toolbox (Android):

Vaper’s Toolbox offers the core features of coil-building calculation and an Ohm’s law calculator. You set your wire type, how many coils you’re using in your build, the gauge (or thickness) of the wire and your desired resistance to find out how much wire you should cut.

If you want to know how many wraps to use, you can enter the length of wire you’re using, the diameter of the coil you’re building and the lengths of the leads (or legs).

Finally, the Ohm’s law calculator works as you’d expect. The app isn’t the best-looking, but it gets the job done well and it’s completely free.

Coil Calculator (iOS and Android):

This app allows you to find out the resistance and the wire length to cut for a given wire type, number of wraps and a leg/lead length. It’s fairly basic, but it’s a viable option for iOS users who can cope with a bare-bones experience. It costs £0.79 in the App Store and £0.50 on Google Play.

Cloud.Box (Android):

This is a combination of two different tools: CoilToy and Juice Cook.

CoilToy works like the others in this list: you set the parameters for your coil – including the wire gauge (in AWG – American Wire Gauge), your coil diameter and the type of coil (e.g. dual or single coil) – and your target resistance, then it will tell you how many wraps to use.

Juice Cook is an e-juice mixing calculator, which allows you to build a library of your ingredients and recipes, and calculate how much of each ingredient to add to mix at your desired nicotine level. The app costs 60 p.

Best DIY E-Juice Calculators

E-Juice Lab (Android):

This app is a user-friendly e-juice calculator. You set your desired PG/VG ratio and nicotine strength, the strength of your nicotine base you’re using and how much flavouring you want to add, and the app returns how much of each you need to add on a percentage basis.

You can also build your juice based on how much of each ingredient you’re adding and the app displays the resulting PG/VG ratio and nicotine level.

It’s free, so it’s definitely worth trying out.

E-Liquid Calculator (Android):

This app includes both a simple e-juice mixing calculator and wattage and resistance calculators.

The layout is very straightforward, and it works very much in the same way as e-juice lab: you enter some key details and it tells you how much of each ingredient to use. The results display in ml and drops for each ingredient (and, once saved, the weight too).

The wattage and resistance calculators are basic, but they’re handy extras that work as intended.

Sadly, the options appearing on the App Store for iOS seem to disappear fairly quickly, so iPhone and iPad users may be better off using an online option like the calculator on E-Liquid Recipes, or some downloadable software:

• E-Liquid Recipes (Online): This online calculator has all of the basic features, along with a catalogue of flavourings, and it displays results in ml, grams and a percentage of the final mix.
• E-Juice Me Up (Downloadable software): This is a basic DIY mixing calculator, but it’s free and gives detailed results in ml, drops and a percentage of the final juice.
• Juice Calculator (Downloadable software – link goes to Dropbox): This is another easy-to-use software calculator that works in the same way as most. Select your target characteristics, add your nicotine base and flavourings in the “New Ingredient” window and you get a result in drops, grams, ml and as a percentage.

Multi-Purpose Vape Calculators

Steam Engine (Online):

This is the ultimate web-based vaping calculator, with options for Ohm’s law calculations, coil-wrapping, DIY mixing, battery life calculations and an even more detailed calculator for coils.

VaporCalc (Android):

VaporCalc combines a DIY e-juice calculator with a coil calculator and Ohm’s law calculator to offer everything a vaper could need. The app is very easy to use and completely free, although admittedly not the best in terms of appearance.

Vape Tool (Android):

Another jack-of-all-trades app, offering a coil making calculator, a DIY mixing calculator, user-created juice recipes, an Ohm’s law calculator, a battery life calculator (with an estimated remaining puff count), a “sweet spot” finder for your setup, a catalogue of vaping batteries and some FAQ articles.

The layout is very user-friendly and it’s easy to get to grips with, so it comes highly recommended. It’s also free, but there’s a pro version if you need more features.

Sweet Spot (Android):

This multi-purpose app offers a DIY mixing calculator, a “sweet spot” finder (with the ability to save configurations), a nicotine calculator (to compare your nicotine intake as a smoker and a vaper) and a vape shop locator. It also has a savings tracker, along with calculations of the number of cigarettes avoided and how many days you’ve been smoke-free.

The user interface is good, with no unnecessary clutter, but the sweet spot finder doesn’t seem happy unless your wattage is very low, likely because it’s an old app (last updated in 2013).

Vape Boss (iOS and Android):

Vape Boss aims to offer the ultimate vaping app.

It has a coil building calculator and Ohm’s law calculator (powered by Steam Engine), detailed listing of devices and e-liquids, a vape shop locator, a juice finder, wish list, wiki and more. It even has its own social media network.

The only downside is that the extra features (which you probably don’t need) could have been replaced with an e-juice calculator, battery lifespan estimator and other useful tools. It’s a free app, though, and such a big catalogue of devices and e-liquids isn’t easy to find elsewhere.

Tons of Great Apps, and It’ll Only Get Better

So whatever you’re looking for from a vaping app, you’ll be able to find it. At the time of writing, most of the apps are for Android devices, but there are still many solid options for iOS users, and more will undoubtedly be released in the near future.

If you have an Android, you really are spoilt for choice, including plenty of multi-purpose apps like Vape Tool which could easily serve as your stand-alone vaping app.

Since the majority of the apps are free, it’s worth exploring the options to see what works best for you before settling on one, but I’d personally pick Vape Tool as the stand-out free option and MicroCoil Pro if you’re happy to spend a bit of money.