The Four Devices We Do Not Compete With and Why

Three technologies, three targets

A low-level laser such as LYMA's delivers light at a power density too low to heat tissue meaningfully, aiming instead at cellular photobiomodulation.

A 1450 nm laser such as NIRA's is absorbed by water, so the energy deposits as heat in the dermis and creates a controlled sub-injury that triggers a repair response.

Radiofrequency such as TriPollar's, NEWA's and Silk'n's passes current through tissue, meets resistance, and produces heat that stops short of the temperature at which collagen contracts, prompting fibroblasts to build new collagen over weeks.

All three change the quality and thickness of the skin envelope. EMS changes the tone of the muscle the skin is draped over. Neither substitutes for the other.

LYMA, the expensive one with a real reason to exist

GBP 1,999 for the starter kit, with an 808 nm near infrared beam and 620 nm red, 500 mW across an 8 square centimetre lens, which works out at about 62.5 mW/cm2.

Three minutes per area daily for the first twelve weeks, then three times a week, with an oxygen mist and glide supplied as a thirty-day supply.

It is the only device in this group that does not work by heating tissue, which makes it the sensible choice for someone with reactive or flushing-prone skin who does not tolerate heat-based treatment.

LYMA does not publish a refill price on its own site and does not state a country of manufacture, which at that price is a gap worth noting.

Its elasticity and pigmentation figures are relative changes on specific measures rather than anything a mirror will show as a doubling.

NIRA, the narrowest and cleanest

$449 for the Precision, two minutes a day, no gel, no serum, no consumables at all, and made in the USA per the brand.

Its clearance, K163137, covers periorbital wrinkles, which is exactly what the device is for.

For etched fine lines around the eyes, where there is very little muscle bulk to work with and the problem is genuinely dermal, this is a better tool than any muscle-stimulation device including ours.

One caution: the larger Pro model is marketed for neck, chest and hands while the clearance on file covers the eye area, and the company acknowledges it plans to seek further clearance.

Neither page publishes laser class or output power in milliwatts, and the contraindication information is thin.

TriPollar, the one that does stimulate muscle

The STOP Vx line at around $699 combines multipolar radiofrequency with DMA, which Pollogen describes in its own words as delivering electrical current that activates the motor endplate of the muscle.

That is muscle stimulation by any reasonable definition, and it makes TriPollar the only device in this group doing anything comparable to what we do.

Pollogen does not publish the DMA current parameters for the home device, nor the RF frequency, wattage or temperature cap, so there is no figure to compare against our 9 mA at 500 ohms.

The activator gel is required at roughly $53 a bottle per six to eight week cycle, which is the highest running cost in this group.

It also carries by far the longest contraindication list, including pacemakers, metal implants, permanent fillers, diabetes and cancer history.

NEWA, the best documented device in this article

From $339, and it holds a De Novo rather than a 510(k), meaning the FDA reviewed it as a new device type rather than against a predicate.

That grant publishes what the brand does not have to: 1 MHz, 10 W, and a thermal sensor that stops delivery at 42 degrees Celsius.

The protocol is demanding, four minutes across six facial areas five times a week for four weeks, which is roughly two hours a week at the start, and adherence is where these devices usually fail.

It is indicated for Fitzpatrick skin types one to four, so if your skin is deeper than that, it is not cleared for you.

Gel runs $29 a bottle.

How to tell which problem you have

Pinch the skin on your cheek gently. If it feels thin, crepey and slow to settle, the complaint is dermal, and RF or a laser addresses it more directly than we do.

Look at your jawline and the line from cheekbone to chin. If the shape has changed rather than the surface, that is contour, and contour sits on muscle.

Most people over forty have some of both, which is why these devices stack rather than compete, and why we have no interest in telling you RF does not work.

What we will not agree with is a device claiming to do both jobs without publishing what it delivers for either.

Where we do compete

PureLift runs from Face at $499 to GLOW at $999, all publishing output at a stated load, all cleared, all made in Japan in an ISO 13485 facility since 1987.

Kavanagh and colleagues measured an 18.6 percent increase in cheek muscle thickness over twelve weeks of motor-level stimulation (10.1111/jocd.12007), which is the mechanism we are built around.

If the muscle layer is your problem, that is our argument, and it is the only argument we are making.

This comparison sits inside our full map of the category, where we set out all 33 devices we track, what each one carries and what each brand publishes: Nine Technologies on One Dial, What the Rest of the Market Actually Carries.

Prices, specifications and clearance records verified on 21 September 2026 against each brand's own published material and the FDA 510(k) and De Novo databases.