Willow®

I went back and forth for months before having my baby trying to research which would be the best pump option for me and finally landed on the wireless Willow pump. While it had been great what I did not anticipate was how much I would use it Before my baby’s arrival. I used them while bouncing on a birthing ball or walking and cooking trying to help induce labor which I did not foresee needing to do at all. The wireless option was so perfect for that. They are easy to put in a bra (tho not discrete) and continue with life which I was very much trying to do to prep for whenever the baby did come. They have been really great since having her as well as I’m not tethered to any one place. But I didn’t see any reviews talking about pumping prior to delivery so I thought I would add my review for that perspective.

This review is for the Willow Go. I like the features the app provides but the app is extremely buggy and ruins the user experience. The battery level never displays as full even when fully charged (pump is brand new), and will sometimes change on relaunching the app. The pump timer feature is great but 90% of the time it will only stop one of the pumps at the end of the timer, and then the time counts back upward from the set time. Suction strength setting is also great but it defaults back to manual almost every time I open the app. I have to toggle back to it in the settings to get it to follow the program. Finally, the app takes forever to connect to the pumps and half the time it will only connect to one of them. The only fix is to force close and relaunch the app. The app would be awesome if these issues were fixed. I am using the most up to date version of all software and firmware, and on a new iPhone. The fact that these features work as they seem they should only occasional makes me think they are just bugs that can conceivably be fixed if Willow really wanted a good user experience. Given how longstanding the complaints over the app seem to be, I’m unsure how interested they really are in this, which is lame, but I eagerly await any improvement.

It’s expensive and the products are continuously faulty. I haven’t had the products for long and I believe since I use the dishwasher it causes the smallest magnet on the back of the containers to perhaps melt the plastic around it which I believe is what causes the pump to malfunction or sometimes not work at all. There are times when the pump gets stuck and has to be reset multiple times for it to work. This started about a month in. For the price I expect the mishaps to be every once in a while but not as often as they happen. When the pumps fill up to their max line limit and I try the flip to finish it has spilled out and I’ve lost well over an ounce of my precious liquid gold. This has happened on multiple occasions. I’m an engineer so based on my professional background the products are being sold as if they’re top shelf and they really aren’t. Were paying for the fancy marketing and boxes which look nice don’t get me wrong but the product itself should be the real winner here. They’ve also split up the replacement parts to where you can’t just buy a whole separate container but instead purchase piece by piece which makes no sense to me. If you want an extra set of containers expect to spend an extra hundred bucks. And you’ll need to because the parts start needing to be replaced within a month or so. It’s also very hard plastic so not very environmentally friendly to be having to replace them in such a short period of time. Then there is the carrying case, thermos, etc., all of which are also pricey. There are design tweaks that need to be made to bring this product to higher quality to meet their standards. Overall the product is ok in my opinion.