The Waterpik Cordless Select is a good cordless water flosser, with less settings than some cordless competitors. We liked the grippy handle and the easy to use ergonomic buttons.
Reasons to buy
+
Waterproof (can be used in the shower)
+
Cordless
+
Four hours to recharge
+
USB charging option
Reasons to avoid
-
Small reservoir
-
Only four tips
-
Only two pressure settings
Why you can trust Live Science
Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best ones for you. Find out more about how we test.
The Waterpik Cordless Select is a good all round water flosser, but falls short of other brands and Waterpik flossers we’ve tested due to the lack of variety with pressure settings and a small reservoir. It does, however, offer charging options that other Waterpik products don’t, which makes it useful for travel or if you have a small bathroom. However, it’s more expensive than some of Waterpik’s corded counterparts, which are more powerful, and with less features it’s hard to see why.
Waterpik Cordless Select: Essential info
Waterproof
Cordless
Four hours to recharge from empty
USB or shaver charging options option
45 seconds of reservoir capacity
Three different tips (4 total)
Two pressure settings (Low/High)
Quiet design
Ergonomic buttons
Magnetic charging port
Charge indicator light
Being cordless and waterproof, the Select gives you the option to take it in the shower with you, which can limit mess since water flossers tend to spray a bit, earning it a place in our guide to the best water flossers. It is easy to wipe the exterior down and dry it, but you might struggle to clean the reservoir as it has two small holes; one for filling and one for the uptake tube. However, you can completely detach it from the body of the flosser and place it upside down to drain out, which may prevent it getting too damp between uses.
Read on to see how our testers rated the Waterpik Cordless Select for functionality, design and performance.
The Waterpik Cordless Select is a great basic water flosser, with a compact design that packs away easily for travel and a grippy handle to prevent wet hands slipping. It is a more basic version of other cordless water flossers we’ve tested, with only two settings and three different flosser heads, but it gets the job done. If you’re looking for a simple but effective water flosser, this might be the right choice for you.
It comes in one color (white) and has a sleek front with a single power button and battery light to indicate when you need to recharge. The charger itself is magnetic, which makes it nice and easy to attach, and you can charge via USB or plug into a shaver socket. It charges in four hours, meaning you can leave it charging overnight and come back to use it again in the morning with no problems.
The water reservoir holds enough water for 45 seconds of flossing, which is half the capacity of the corded Waterpik water flossers (these tend to have capacity for 90 seconds). On the higher setting this may mean you need to refill half way through, depending on how quickly you floss.
(Image credit: Lou Mudge)
Waterpik Cordless Select review: Functionality
There are only two pressure settings available on the Cordless Select, so if you don’t like the low pressure or high pressure options, there isn’t any middle ground. The pressure on the high setting is 75 PSI (which is 25 PSI weaker than the corded water flossers, which go up to 100 PSI). The lower pressure setting runs at 45 PSI, which is quite a bit higher than the lowest pressure settings on the corded Waterpik water flossers, which start at 10 PSI.
Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now
Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
Ultimately, if you aren’t worried about having a wide range of pressures and a variety of settings, this flosser will be a good choice for you. It can also be a more portable accompaniment to a corded water flosser that you can take with you on trips if needs be. However, if you want the full range of settings, you might want to invest in a corded flosser for maximum cleaning benefits.
(Image credit: Lou Mudge)
The reservoir is easy to fill, with a leak proof flap that you can pull back to fill the flosser from above. This is easier than some other brands we’ve tried, which were a bit more fiddly to fill. Once you’re done you can completely separate the water tank from the power unit, but we couldn’t work out how to open it to clean, meaning we could only leave it upside down for the water to drain out after use.
This Waterpik Cordless Select came with four tips (two jet tips, one plaque seeker and an orthodontic tip) but you can add any other Waterpik branded flossing tips if you like as they will interchangeably fit into the handle. The tips are easy to change and click in and out of the handle easily, with a button to release them.
(Image credit: Lou Mudge)
Waterpik Cordless Select review: Performance
The Waterpik Cordless Select was one of the simplest models we tried, with a single button that you press once to switch onto a low setting, a second time to go to a high setting, and a third time to switch off.
The jet tip was the most useful for getting into hard to reach places when used on the higher setting, but it did deplete the battery quite quickly. The plaque seeker and orthodontic tips both have little bristles to aid in cleaning and directing the jet, which can be useful for front teeth or if you have overcrowding and struggle to get in between your teeth. The pressure settings were both comfortable to use and did not irritate our gums, but we did think that a higher pressure setting might be useful for a more intense clean.
(Image credit: Lou Mudge)
Waterpik Cordless Select review: What’s good about it?
The Waterpik Cordless select is compact and easy to transport. We liked the magnetic charger, which makes it easy to plug in, and the single button which is easy to figure out if you lose your instructions. It has a nice grippy handle with bumps, so you’re less at risk of dropping it if you have wet hands. This is an area we found some competitors fell short on.
Waterpik Cordless Select review: What’s not so good about it?
This is quite a pricey option with less features compared to other cordless water flossers we tested. Rather than two classic jet tips, it would make more sense to give users another option, like the pik pocket tip or tongue scraper that come with the Ultra Plus. It is also hard to dry out the reservoir, even if you fully remove it from the base. The best we could do was turn it upside down to drain out of the hole in the top, which still left the tank a little moist.
(Image credit: Lou Mudge)
Waterpik Cordless Select review: User reviews
Customers seemed to like the portability of the Waterpik Cordless Select, and rated it 4.3 out of five stars on Amazon. Users also said that it takes about four uses to deplete the battery, but that it recharges quickly.
One reviewer said: “I decided to give this a go because my teeth are quite tightly packed in and I struggle to get floss between them. I was surprised by how effective this is…it’s quite a bulky item, because of the water tank, but still manageable. Even with the size of the water tank I still need to fill it up a few times to do my whole mouth inside and out. I think if they'd made the water tank any bigger it would have been overly unwieldy, so I think they found the workable middle ground.”
Should you buy the Waterpik Cordless Select?
If you’re looking for a good water flosser that does what it says on the tin, this would be a good choice, however it is quite pricey and doesn’t offer as many pressure settings as other water flossers we’ve tested. It is simple to use, with only one button to worry about, and extra Waterpik tips can be purchased and used interchangeably.
If this product isn’t for you
If you are looking for a powerful multitasker from Waterpik, theWaterpik Ultra Plus is a corded water flosser with ten pressure settings that retails a little cheaper than the Cordless Select.
Or, if you are really keen on a cordless water flosser, we liked theOclean W10 Water Flosser for the five great pressure settings and color options.
Lou Mudge is a health writer based in Bath, United Kingdom for Future PLC. She holds an undergraduate degree in creative writing from Bath Spa University, and her work has appeared in Live Science, Tom's Guide, Fit & Well, Coach, T3, and Tech Radar, among others. She regularly writes about health and fitness-related topics such as air quality, gut health, diet and nutrition and the impacts these things have on our lives.
She has worked for the University of Bath on a chemistry research project and produced a short book in collaboration with the department of education at Bath Spa University.
