The Zalo Bess was my most surprising stand-out toy from 2021. I placed it joint second on my top 10 of 2021 with the We-Vibe Tango X, although to be honest I think if I were writing that review now I’d place the Zalo Bess at second place on its own. It’s become my most commonly used vibrator, and the one I reach to by default.
While it didn’t quite reach the same level of favour as the Bess, I also really liked the Kyro, the wand vibrator I reviewed from Zalo’s Ancient Egypt themed Legend series. I am a sucker for good design, jewel tones, and the shade of blue-y green that Zalo have going in that line. It also helps that the Legend series is the line where Zalo seem to have finally managed both beautiful designs and vibrations that aren’t buzzy. So when I was offered the Aya as a review product, I obviously said yes, if only to see if that quality carried on through the rest of the collection.
The Zalo Aya
Like the other toys in the Zalo Legend series, the Aya comes in black, green, or purple, and I—of course—picked green. It also comes at a reasonably high price point, costing $99.
Unlike the Zalo Bess or Kyro, the Aya is designed to be used hands free. The gold shell is actually a magnet, which is meant to be placed over the top of underwear to keep the vibrator in place. It’s very similar to the We-Vibe Moxie or Satisfyer Sexy Secret, with the exception of the fact that neither of them come with a g-spot attachment.
The Aya can be controlled with the included remote, or though Zalo’s app (which allows for long distance as well as local control). While these allow for partnered play, they also mean the Aya is a good fit for solo play where you want to keep your hands doing something else, whether that’s to sext or write, tie rope, or massage your body.
Wearing/Using the Zalo Aya
The Aya is very much designed for people who wear knickers. I am very much not a person who wears knickers, and it’s only with my tighter briefs that the Aya sits in place correctly. In fairness, this is the case with the grinding toys that I love as much as it is with the Aya, and I’m happy to keep around a few tighter pairs of briefs from my sluttier gayer days for that reason.
A similar caveat is that I have not found a way to make the Zalo Aya work while packing. This does somewhat limit the spaces and ways in which I use the Aya. While not everyone who packs does it day to day, the way in which my personal dysphoria manifests is that I want to die if I do anything more than take the bins out without wearing a packer. I’m sure from the description of the Aya, a fair few of you had some really fun cruel ideas about public play potential. I honestly cannot say anything about this (other than that I personally would not do this kind of public play for ethical reasons) as my Aya has remained a strictly at-home toy.
That said, within the context of ‘being worn without a packer, in reasonably tight underwear’, the Aya works well. It’s not too wide, so I don’t find it significantly changes the way I walk. It’s comfortable to sit down wearing— I don’t feel like I get jabbed in the crotch with it.
The G-Spot Attachment
The Zalo Aya is the first wearable vibrator I’ve seen that has the option for internal vibrations as well as external ones, which is pretty cool! Unfortunately, I generally hate internal vibrations (in my vagina at least— anal is all good), so while I did test how well the silicone of the g-spot attachment transferred the surprisingly rumbly vibrations, I did not stick it in myself.
The Aya was disappointing on that front. You do feel vibrations even at the tip of the attachment, but they’re very weak and feel buzzy, especially compared to the vibrations near the base. The toy also doesn’t delivery much pressure to the g-spot. If you’re somebody who only needs a light brush against your g-spot to orgasm, then it might work out for you, but if you need focused and firm g-spot stimulation, it’s not going to work out for you. Personally, I would be disappointed by vibrations this shallow and weak on a butt plug, and that’s a kind of product where I’m not looking for targeted vibration.
The g-spot aspect of the Aya is honestly a bit shit. I don’t think it really adds anything other than another feature to pop on a list (a bit like the Zalo Bess’ vibrating handle, which is poorly thought out and I have literally never used).
Remote & App Control
The remote on the Zalo Aya isn’t very noteworthy. I didn’t have any issues with connection, the buttons were easy to press, and the controls are relatively intuitive. Other than the fact it uses one of the weird batteries that nobody likes, I have no complaints about it.
This is not the case when it comes the Zalo app. Which is the ‘Zalo Remote Pro’ and not the very similarly named ‘Zalo Remote’, just to confuse things. It doesn’t help the pages and icons are also very similar.
Firstly, the translations aren’t great. This becomes an issue when the UI is hard to understand, or even incomprehensible at times. A great examples of this is on the very first screen when you open the app. You can use the Zalo app without creating an account, but I wouldn’t blame you for not knowing this, as the first screen you see is a login screen.
Leaving aside the fact it isn’t a registration screen (my partner filled in her information and was confused as to why registration wasn’t working), the button that allows you to use the Aya without an account is just a line of text that doesn’t look like a button. It also says ’solo pattern’, which isn’t intuitive to me as a user (and why I didn’t click on it until after I had already registered). When you enter ‘solo pattern’ mode, you’re presented with a pop-up that also doesn’t really explain what it does, or what will happen when you hit either answer.
I do appreciate that the registration supports Sign In with Apple, which you can use to hide your email. It’s also not very fiddly to connect the Zalo Aya with the app, especially compared to the Satisfyer app. However, it’s so easy that my partner (who is more knowledgeable about device security than me) is a little bit worried. The Satisfyer app locks devices to a single phone once they have been connected, and the pairing of the Zalo seemed too seamless for that to be what was happening in this case.
I also really want to flag that, despite the fact I did not provide a phone number to the Zalo app, the settings ‘find me via phone number’ and ‘find me via email’ are on by default. This is really bad from a security perspective, especially as it’s not made clear to users that this happens before they provide their email address. It’s also unclear whether it even knows your phone number, as there’s nowhere in the settings to enter or look at it. Did it just take it from the phone? On the App Store it claims to collect no personal information off the device without user entry, so this really concerned me. Anyone considering using the Zalo app might want to check if their email provider supports ‘plus addressing’ before signing up, to make sure they’re using an email address that is unique just for this.
I’ve already brought up the Satisyfer App, which has a much smoother and seamless journey from downloading to using, fiddlyness of connecting devices aside. You also can just start using a Satisfyer device without creating an account— the first screen you see is the toy control screen—whereas here, there was a lot of signing up and clicking through. While not all features are available on the Satisfyer App without an account (the same is true here), you can at least see all of them.
Some of the core modes and features are perfectly adequate on the Zalo app. I actually quite like the little animations for different vibration modes. If I’m being very picky, the video mode’s UI is mostly taken up by toy controls, leaving a very small video player to watch your…. content. But you can use any video which happens to be on your phone, rather than being limited to proprietary ‘device partnered’ porn. The music mode is perfectly fine, can connect to an Apple Music library (on iOS— I have no idea if you can connect it to Spotify on Android, or if the music feature is limited to the three people on earth who have YouTube Music), and comes with a few delightful copyright free tunes.
However, a lot of the features just seem like the app designers looked at what features were available on a phone, and built a mode around them, with little or no consideration about if people would actually use it. The worst offender is the ‘shake’ mode, which I cannot see anyone ever use seriously. It’s a fun novelty for 30 seconds, but wears off quite quickly.
Overall, it’s not a good app. My concerns about security and the overall bad UI aside, there’s no value added by using the app rather than a remote other than maybe being a bit more discreet.
The Zalo Aya vs The Satisfyer Sexy Secret
The toy most similar to the Aya that I’ve reviewed recently (and by recently, I mean in the past year and a half) is the Satisfyer Sexy Secret. They’re broadly very similar, with curved shapes, magnets to keep them in place on underwear, and the option for app control. They are, however, very different price points, with the Aya costing $99 to the Sexy Secret’s $42.
I do think the Aya is a better product overall. My dislike of the g-spot element aside, the vibrations are much rumbler and deeper than the Sexy Secret’s. I personally don’t particularly care about actually orgasming when I use this style of vibrator, as I’m either using it for teasing play with a partner or to keep myself going while writing erotica. But if I was more orgasm-focused, the Zalo Aya is the only one of the two which could bring me to orgasm.
The magnet on the Aya is also stronger than the one on the Sexy Secret, something I established through the very scientific means of seeing how many sheets of paper each vibrator’s magnet could hold it through. I’m not sure how actionable that is, but I did the experiment so you’re welcome.
As well as preferring the Aya’s vibrations, I do also prefer its shape. The Sexy Secret only really has one curve, with the part of the toy meant for clitoral stimulation being a series of raised circles. The Aya on the other hand has two curve shape, with one pressing against the clit. I find this shape works a lot better for me, especially as somebody who is very external vibration focused.
Overall
I’m always saying that toys have no gender and that’s true. However, underwear vibrators in the same style as the Zalo Aya very much are made with gender conforming cis women in mind. They obviously can work for people who fit outside that (I’m writing this review, after all) but with caveats. If you have to pack for comfort or if you’re the kind of butch who only wears boxers, you’re going to have to compromise on underwear choices to make it work.
If you’re willing to make that compromise (or if it fits with your underwear preferences), the Zalo Aya definitely is better than the Satisfyer Sexy Secret. It has rumblier vibrations, a more powerful magnet, and comes with a local remote option (which I am way more personally comfortable with than app control). However, the g-spot attachment seems weak and gimmicky to me. And while the vibrations are strong enough for me to actually orgasm with the Aya if I try hard, the broad stimulation doesn’t work as well for me as the pinpoint stimulation of the Bess.
I also don’t think the app controls add anything at all to the Aya at best, and have security concerns about it at worst. There’s no real value added for it, and it just doesn’t seem well planned out.
Because of my vibration preferences and the reasonably narrow way in which I enjoy using the Aya (writing erotica or while solo tying rope), I personally would not say the Aya is worth the $99 price tag. I do find it fun to use, but it doesn’t have the versatility it would for somebody with a preference for broader external stimulation, likes g-spot vibration but doesn’t need it to be intense or particularly targeted, and who wears tighter and more conventionally feminine underwear that makes public play more possible.
The ZALO Aya was sent to me by HoneySx, in exchange for a fair and impartial review. No affiliate links were used in this review. As a head’s up, they use some gendered language and categories that I don’t vibe with.
