Vaping has been around for a while now, and for many people, it provides a much healthier alternative to smoking. Thanks to the vast array of flavors along with the many different models on the market, it also provides a much more varied experience than cigarettes.

However, one advantage cigarettes have over vaping is in their simplicity since understanding all the impenetrable vape-related jargon can be confusing – so to help elucidate one such puzzling term, in this post, we answer the question, what does ohms mean on a vape?

How do vapes work? – An overview

Let’s start by giving an overview of how vapes work so we can see how ohms fit into the picture.

Nowadays, there are so many vapes available on the market, and they come in a whole range of different configurations, but at the most basic level, they all follow the same principles.

Vape juice (or e-liquid) is held in a tank or cartridge, and this is fed into the heating chamber.

The heating chamber, commonly known as the atomizer head, the coil head or sometimes, a confusingly, just the coil, consists of a wicking material that soaks up the juice and an actual metal coil that’s used to heat it.

The metal coil wound around the wicking material is connected to a battery, and the battery powers this coil, heating it up and causing the vape juice to convert to aerosol, which is what we commonly refer to as vapor.

You then suck on the mouthpiece of the vape, and this vapor is delivered to your mouth for you to inhale.

What Does Ohms Mean on a Vape?

The metal coils wrapped around the wicking material in vapes come in a whole range of formats, and this means different coils have different electrical resistances.

Essentially, the higher the resistance, the harder it is for the electricity to pass through the coil.

If the resistance is high, since it’s harder for the electricity to pass through the coil, it means the coil heats more slowly and doesn’t get as hot.

On the other hand, if the resistance is low, it’s easier for the electricity to pass through the coil, so it gets hotter more quickly and can reach higher temperatures – all of which has an effect on your overall vaping experience.

And this is where ohms come in.

Ohm (sometimes written as Ω) is the unit of measurement for resistance, so the ohm rating of your vape tells you about the resistance level of the coil it contains – so, for example, a coil rated at 1 ohm has a low resistance level while one rated 2.8 ohms has higher resistance.

How does resistance affect your vaping experience?

As we’ve mentioned, having higher resistance means your coil will heat up more slowly and won’t reach such high temperatures while vaping with a low resistance coil will give you higher temperatures, and the coil will heat up faster – but how does this change your experience?

The answer is that it affects your vaping in several ways, with positives and negatives associated with both high and low resistance coils.

1. Vaping with higher resistance coils

If you use a coil with a higher resistance rating, since it doesn’t reach such high temperatures, the juice will be vaporized more slowly.

On the downside, this means you will only get smaller clouds of vapor from your vape, and the flavors may be less intense.

With high resistance vapes, the throat hit may also be less intense, but whether this is seen as a good thing or a bad thing is down to personal preference.

However, if you use a high resistance vape, since less juice is being vaporized with each puff, your juice will not be used up as quickly, so this can make the juice last longer, saving you money.

Also, since the juice is heated at a lower temperature, it will not be as hot when it reaches your mouth and throat, so it won’t burn as much, something that many people may also see as a positive.

2. Vaping with higher resistance coils

If you use a coil with a lower ohm rating, since it can reach higher temperatures, more vape juice will be converted to vapor, resulting in bigger clouds. Getting more vapor from each puff can also mean you taste the flavors more intensely.

However, doing this will obviously mean your juice is used up more quickly, and heating a low-resistance coil in this way will also drain your battery faster.

With low resistance coils, you are likely to receive stronger throat hits, which may or may not be desirable, and the vapor will also be hotter when it reaches your mouth, so you may be at more risk of burning your throat and lungs.

Finding the right balance for your personal tastes is the key to enjoying your vaping as much as possible. Most vapes come in the range of 2.4-2.8 ohms, and many people find that a resistance of around 2.5 ohms produces the best results.

Is resistance the only thing that affects all of this?

From what we’ve said so far, you might be forgiven for imagining that resistance is the only thing that affects the performance of your vape, but this is not the case.

Several other factors are also in play, and one of the most important is the voltage of the battery.

The voltage refers to the amount of electrical potential energy the battery contains, and in layman’s terms, this is the amount of power the battery can deliver to the coil.

In other words, a high voltage battery has more power to heat the coil, so even with a higher-resistance coil, if the battery has a higher voltage, it can heat the coil to higher temperatures – and vice versa – so this is also something to consider.

Do you really need to know all the science?

In short, no, most vapers don’t need to worry about anything more than the very basics of the science behind vaping – just remembering that high resistance and low voltage equal smaller clouds and low resistance and high voltage equal bigger clouds is usually enough.

This is because most vapes are sold so that they just work – you don’t usually need to worry about making any of this yourself.

Your vape may come with different settings that you can adjust to customize your experience, but they are designed to be user-friendly, and you don’t need a deep understanding of electronics and electricity to use them.

The exception is for those using mod vapes where there is much more capacity for customization.

In this case, you will need to know a little more about the science behind resistance and voltage as well as things like Ohm’s law – but that’s outside the scope of this post.

What are your options if you don’t want to worry about ohms?

If all this sounds a little bit too confusing, what’s the most hassle-free way to enjoy a vape?

The simplest way to vape without having to worry about any of this is to choose a top-end disposable vape that is designed to allow you to just start puffing away with a minimum of fuss.

For example, the Jack’s Flask 9000 Puffs from Spiritbar would be an excellent choice.

This vape was inspired by the rum flasks carried by pirates of old and evokes the adventurous spirit of the high seas.

Each device contains enough juice for up to 9,000 puffs, and the vape is designed to be as simple to use as possible. There are no advanced settings to confuse you, leaving you to enjoy the high-quality juice without giving yourself a headache trying to work out the science.

What is sub-ohm vaping?

Something else you may have heard of is sub-ohm vaping, so what is this exactly?

In the early days of vaping, it was considered impossible to vape using a coil with a resistance of anything close to as low as 1 ohm, but nowadays, coils exist that are even lower than 1 ohm – and using one of these is called sub-ohm vaping.

These vapes are designed to produce huge clouds of vapor, giving you an intense hit of flavor in the process.

However, these devices are usually preferred by more advanced vapers, and if you’re a newbie, it’s probably better to stick to something simple like the Jack’s Flask we mentioned above until you have a bit more experience and feel like experimenting with other vaping possibilities.

Ohms measure resistance – but you don’t need to know the science

So there you are. The ohms rating on a vape tells you about the resistance of the coil, and as we’ve seen, this can have a significant effect on how you experience your vape.

However, for most people, it’s not necessary to have a deep knowledge of the science behind this to vape any more than you need to know about the workings of an engine to drive a car.

Instead, for most people, it’s enough simply to know the very basics of how resistance affects vaping and then to choose a device that provides the experience they most enjoy.

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