The latest technologies enable today’s oil and wax vaporizers to provide better flavor, more consistent performance and a more elevating experience than ever – and although concentrate vaporizers are still relatively new products, they’re evolving rapidly.
In the past, cannabis vaping technology was largely based on e-liquid vaping and evolved along the same lines. Oil and wax concentrates are extremely different, however, from the thin e-liquids used in nicotine vaping. Because they’re so different, they demand their own technologies – and that’s exactly what the vaporizer makers of the world have begun to provide.
Herbal vaping is its own thing today, and manufacturers are competing relentlessly with one another to develop features that set their products apart. New vaporizers like Puffco vape devices look almost nothing like the vapes of the past, and they offer some unique technologies that promise to transform your vaping experience.
These are the trending new vape technologies that your next oil or wax vaporizer needs to have.
3-D Heating Technology
In the past, the heating element for a dab rig was usually either a titanium nail or a metal coil wrapped around a quartz rod. Although both technologies certainly provided ample heating, a dab rig that only heats the material from the bottom has a number of drawbacks.
The biggest issue is inconsistent heating, which leads to residue. When a dab rig is full of residue, your only options are to reclaim the residue and vape it again – which isn’t a great experience from a flavor standpoint – or to throw the residue away, which is wasteful.
Another problem with bottom-heating dab rigs is that they take a while to ramp up because you need to make sure that your wax is completely softened before you can inhale deeply. Otherwise, you’ll experience a harsh dry hit.
Dab chambers that heat your wax from all sides – otherwise known as 3-D heating chambers – are true game changers for dabbing, and you’re certain to find them in a number of luxury dab rigs over the next year. A 3-D chamber has heating elements that surround the material, heating it from all sides simultaneously. This allows for quicker heat-up times, better flavor quality, vastly improved vapor production and greatly reduced residue and waste.
Built-in Bubbler or Water Pipe Adapter
Have you ever used a dab pen with a built-in bubbler? If you haven’t, you don’t know what you’re missing because nothing beats the smoothness of water filtration – especially when you’re dealing with dab rigs, which can often operate at extremely high temperatures. Passing the vapor through water before you inhale it makes it much easier to take a really big rip and can alleviate the throat irritation that often occurs with a high-temperature vaping device.
When a dab pen has a built-in bubbler, it’s usually a larger device with glass components. In other words, it’s meant for home use and isn’t particularly small or pocketable. If that’s not what you’re looking for in a vaporizer, consider buying a device that includes a water pipe adapter instead. That way, you can bring your device everywhere with you while still enjoying the water pipe experience at home. You didn’t really want your bong to go to waste now that you’ve switched to vaping, did you?
Heated Dab Tool
A heated dab tool is definitely one of the coolest vaping tools that you can own this year. At the time of writing, heated dab tools aren’t included with any vaporizers yet, but they’re certain to become pack-in items with luxury vapes before long. A heated dab tool is a battery-powered device with a heated ceramic blade that you can enable by pressing a button. The hot blade makes it easy to cut through hard wax-based concentrates, enabling you to load your dab pen without making a mess. Releasing the wax is just as easy; just press the button again, and the wax drops off. In addition to making your dab pen incredibly easy to load, a heated dab tool also pre-softens your wax, which helps to prevent harshness and burnt hits.
Bluetooth Connectivity
Over the past few years, vaporizer design has trended toward simplicity and minimalism. That means today’s vaporizers often have single-button or gesture-based control schemes and provide feedback only through lights or vibrations. Controlling this type of vaporizer requires the use of a secondary device such as a smartphone, and that’s done via Bluetooth connectivity. After you connect your vaporizer to your phone, you can launch a free app and control your vaporizer’s settings. Through Bluetooth, your vaporizer can also communicate its status and let you know what’s going on when the device encounters a problem.
Although many of today’s luxury vaporizers have Bluetooth connectivity, it’s important to understand that you won’t find a native app for your vaporizer if you’re an iPhone user because Apple banned all vaping-related apps from the App Store in 2020. Vaporizer apps are still available for Android devices. Alternatively, many vaporizer makers also provide web-based apps that you can use to control your device through the web browser on your phone or computer.
Fully Removable Components
Vaporizers haven’t just gotten more powerful and easier to use over the past few years – they’ve also become much easier to clean. In the past, a dab rig usually had a permanent heating element or nail made from ceramic, titanium or steel. Some elements were self-heating, and others required the application of a butane torch. In both cases, though, the nail was connected to the dab rig permanently. You’d have to clean the nail with a cotton swab or alcohol wipe – which wasn’t very effective and would leave a lot of residue behind.
These days, modular vaporizer design has become increasingly popular. Manufacturers have moved toward detachable components because a modular design makes it possible for you to upgrade your device and replace broken parts. Another reason why having a vaporizer with removable components is so useful is because it’s much easier to clean your vaporizer’s non-electronic components by simply soaking them in rubbing alcohol. That allows you to keep your vaporizer’s parts in top condition for longer, which makes a luxury vape much more affordable in the long run.
