In the world of musculoskeletal therapy, technology is providing consumers with some wildly new forms of self-treatment that have never been available. Case in point: the RecoverFun Aircup — a nifty little motorized Myofascial cupping device packed with different treatment modes, red light therapy and ample amounts of suction power. 

But are these little cups worth the hype, or are they perhaps a poor use of your hard-earned money? This article will break everything down in detail for you.

The RecoverFun Aircup Pro cups are a well-built product with ample power for cupping therapy. While they are a bit on the expensive side, they could be useful for your therapeutic needs if they are within your financial budget. If they aren’t, other options may suffice.

If you want the full breakdown of this product, then keep on reading. My goal is to help you feel well-informed and confident when it comes to deciding whether or not this is an ideal product for your needs.

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• The final verdict
• What’s included with purchase
• Build quality
• The noise factor
• Versatility
• Alternatives
• Red light therapy
• The main drawback

Related article: How Often to Perform Cupping Therapy (if You Want the Best Results)

Disclosure statement: RecoverFun reached out to me, asking if I’d like to review these little cups, to which I agreed. They sent me a pair of Aircups (the Aircup Pro) in exchange for my review. No money has been exchanged in this process, and everything in this review is my own opinion. RecoverFun did not get to see this article before its release, and I am not being compensated for this article in any way. I do not have an affiliation with RecoverFun.

The final verdict

To make things as convenient as possible for you, I’m starting with the final verdict and will then provide additional details on how I arrived at this personal conclusion.

The RecoverFun Aircups are incredibly powerful, built well, and fun to use, but they’re not essential to have. Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re a waste of money, and it certainly doesn’t mean they’re not effective. Rather, It just means that if money is tight or you don’t plan to use them all that often, I’d likely hold off from purchasing them. If you have the spare money for them, they can likely be a helpful adjunct in certain aspects of musculoskeletal therapy.

I say this only because I want everyone to be smart with their money, and I don’t want you to feel like you can’t get better without these little guys — they can certainly be helpful. However, there are plenty of other ways to treat your body, be it with less expensive cups or other modalities and techniques altogether.

Currently, at the time of writing this article, a pair of these cups go for $229 USD.

Who I’d recommend these cups for

At the end of the day, I’d recommend these cups for anyone who wants some high-powered cups with some nifty features but who won’t blow their personal financial budget in the process. Again, to be clear, they are built quite well, they look great and certainly have a time and place for their use.

In other words: If you can afford a Porsche, get a Porsche! And if you can only afford an old Honda Civic, it will still take you from point A to B just the same, just perhaps without the extra bells and whistles, which can make the ride a bit more luxurious.

What’s included with purchase

Let’s take a look at what you get when you purchase the Aircup Pro.

The carrying case

When it comes to the Aircup Pro, these cups come in a well-built carrying case that looks nice and adequately serves its purpose. Whenever you’re dropping some hard-earned money on a portable product, I believe you should receive a carrying case to help protect your purchase. And RecoverFun has done a great job with doing so. 

The case these cups come in is well-built, looks nice, and should do a great job of protecting what’s inside for years to come.

Interchangeable cups

Each Aircup comes with three different-sized cups in order to best serve the body part you’re treating, which is quite nice. Just screw them on and off based on which size you want to use. They also come with extra filters that you can swap out when needed as time goes on. The filters ensure that no debris or dust particles are pulled into and through the motorized suction pump.

Build quality

When it comes to the overall build quality of these cups, there’s really nothing to complain about; the cups are built well and are quite robust. In fact, I accidentally dropped one of them after the suction seal on my skin broke, and it took a massive fall and tumbled onto the hardwood floor, but thankfully it still works just fine.

This leads me to my next point: the cups come with lanyards that you will want to use; the instant the vacuum seal is broken, these cups will immediately fall off. 

As a result, you want them to be attached around your arm so that they won’t hit the ground. I commend RecoverFun for thinking this through. However, my gripe with the lanyards is that while they’re certainly necessary to use, I’d like there to be some sort of cinch-up strap that allows you to secure it around your wrist.

The lanyards that attach to the cups can easily fall off your wrists since there’s no way to tighten them up and secure them to your arm or wrist, so that’s one little change I’d like to see, and should be rather easy for the RecoverFun team to implement if they want to consider any of my insight.

The noise factor

Regarding the noise of these motorized cups, I was initially concerned that they would be too noisy for my liking; I had seen very similar cups in action on various social media posts. The cups from the other brand I saw were extremely noisy. But thankfully, the RecoverFun motors don’t seem to be nearly as loud. So, the noise is well within an acceptable limit for my preferences.

Keep in mind: there are a few other very similar-looking cups on the market — so similar looking that it’s to the point that I’d be hard-pressed to determine a brand difference without taking a closer look at them. So, keep in mind that you might find similar-looking cups online, but ones made by different brands. In this regard, it seems to be a similar situation comparable to the world of massage guns, where a million different brands seem to all look the same and do the same thing.

Cup versatility

In terms of versatility, the cups come with five different pre-programmed suction modes, all of which seem quite adequate, though I have been using mostly mode 1 and mode 4. I haven’t used mode 5 much, which is designed as a dynamic cupping mode, which RecoverFun says emulates more of a Guasha mode. Variety certainly is nice and somewhat expected for the price point of these cups. So kudos to RecoverFun for having some different modes to select from.

Alternatives

As stated earlier, these cups — while a lot of fun to use — might not be within your budget, which is totally fine. Even though I have been having fun using these little guys, I still opt to use my silicone cups quite frequently, both on myself and my patients. Not only can you pick up a package of a bunch of silicone cups for just a few dollars, but silicone cups offer some great unique features of their own.

For starters, with silicone cups, it’s no big deal if you drop them. As well, the silicone cups are great for external, dynamic glides or for internal gliding techniques. While you can do this with the Aircup (on mode 5), I find that I still opt for the silicone cups for various body parts with this type of treatment.

Related article: Six Benefits of Using an Acupressure Mat for Your Aches and Pains

The silicone cups are no slouch when it comes to their suction power, but they’re certainly nowhere near the level of these Aircups. So, this is where you just have to know what you’re willing to trade-off between each type of cup.

Ultimately, if you don’t have any cups at this point in time, my recommendation would be to start off with a set of silicone cups. They don’t cost much and are incredibly versatile and durable. That is, of course, unless money isn’t much of an issue for you, in which case, feel free to pick up the Aircup pro.

If money is tight and you can’t quite get what you’re hoping for out of traditional silicone cups (especially when it comes to suction power), then it might be worth considering the Aircup. But again, if money is rather tight, keep in mind that there are likely other means of treating your tissues without dropping as much money as you’ll pay for a pair of these cups.

Red light therapy

When it comes to the red light emitted by the Aircup, RecoverFun claims that it helps with tissue recovery. This certainly isn’t a feature that I put a lot of stock into when it comes to these particular cups. So, if you’re highly considering these cups primarily due to the red light feature, it might be worth reconsidering.

Now, don’t get me wrong here: red light therapy is well studied and quite therapeutic when used with the proper parameters and for the right conditions. We just have to have appropriate expectations of what it does for use with cupping from a device such as the Aircup.

I say that since I would imagine that the vast majority of users would be interested in using the red light therapy for some component of their musculoskeletal health, such as improving oxygenation within the tissues, helping with upregulation of metabolic activity, etc.

If so, you need to keep in mind that LED light typically isn’t powerful enough to penetrate through the dermis, at least with enough energy to elicit therapeutic effects to tissues beneath. This is simply because the wavelengths of light from an LED device such as this one are not in phase or coherent, which essentially means that it likely can’t penetrate deep into the tissue.

Pro tip: This is why clinicians such as myself opt to use high power class IV laser therapy when treating our patients, as laser light is in phase, coherent and columnated. As a result, it can penetrate much deeper into tissue. Think of LED light as a garden hose and a class IV laser as a firefighters hose.

Additionally, since you likely won’t have the cups on for extended periods of time, the therapeutic dosage of red light probably won’t be adequate to have any perceptible benefits (but perhaps I’m wrong). If you were simply draping an LED light blanket over your skin, you could keep it there for over a half-hour if you wanted to. But you won’t have the cups on one area of your skin for nearly that long.

But just to be clear: I’m not saying that the red light on these cups is a total waste; it’s certainly a nice added feature to have, but it just likely won’t deliver much of an added benefit. But hey, if you think I’m wrong, that’s totally cool; we might not all see eye to eye on these sorts of things.

The main drawback

The only real con or negative that I have encountered with these cups (and it’s kind of an odd one — perhaps not truly a negative) is its excessive suction power on its lowest setting.

The Aircup has five different power levels, but I (and others whom I’ve used them on) seem to find that even level 1 tends to be a bit too aggressive for our liking. However, it does depend, at least to a certain extent, on which area of the body you’re treating.

This might not be the case with YOU, however, and it’s worth pointing out that it’s good to know that these cups will stick to pretty much any body part even on their lowest setting; if they have a weak suction effect, they’re more likely to fall off, tumble to the ground and break, especially if you’re not using the provided lanyard. So again, it’s probably better to be overpowered on the lowest setting rather than underpowered.

Nonetheless, I haven’t used these things beyond level 2, and I don’t imagine that I personally will. Although, it’s nice to know that there is some extra power there if needed. But unfortunately, for myself and some of the individuals whom I treat, we find that level 1 is still a bit too aggressive at times. But that’s where the silicone cups can come in and save the day if I still want to cup the area.

For what it’s worth: I’d rather have these cups be a bit too powerful on their lowest setting than not powerful enough; if they’re not powerful enough, they’ll fall off and, even with the lanyard on, would likely take some punishment banging into things as a result.

Final thoughts

So there you have it. Those are the quick thoughts on my experience with the Recover Fun AirCups. Not a bad little device, but not necessary, either. I’m a big fan of cupping therapy for multiple circumstances. If the AirCups are within your budget, they’ll likely be a great adjunct to your therapy or general wellbeing. And if they’re not, don’t sweat it; there are other great alternatives out there for helping you along on your journey of health and fitness!