4 Vapes I Don't Use Anymore

The Hippie Pipe is a really cool idea and I was excited to try it out, but if I could use a single word to describe this one it would be ‘underwhelming’. Looking at the Hippie Pipe you’ll probably be reminded of a DynaVap because it’s cylindrical, made of metal, and you heat it with a torch, but aside from that there are very few similarities between the two devices. It seems like it could be a really cool alternative to a DynaVap, but the usability issues make it a nonstarter for me.

The Hippie Pipe is made from wood, metal, and carbon fibre. I think it has a nice look and it certainly is a unique design if nothing else. My favourite feature is the spring operated loading chamber, when you press on the mouthpiece it extends the loading chamber out of the device for your flower. I think this is a really cool idea and it makes loading and unloading easy. Inside the chamber, on one side is something that looks very similar to a DynaVap titanium CCD, and on the exterior of the other side is a rounded metal section which you focus your butane torch flame on.

Where I think the Hippie Pipe really goes wrong is the temperature indicator. Rather than having a snap disc that makes an audible click like with the DynaVap or the Vestratto Anvil, the Hippie Pipe instead tried to use a visual indicator to let you know when the oven is at temperature. In theory this is a good idea, if you have hearing issues then a visual indicator would be super useful, but the system just doesn’t function very well.

Another issue was that the instruction manual was really bad. It gave virtually no indication of how to actually heat it up, and the dark brown paper it was printed on made the black text very hard to read. They may have improved it by now, but when I reviewed the Hippie Pipe they didn’t have any good videos on their website, so out of the box I was left trying to figure it out myself, rather than using it as the manufacturer intended.

How the Hippie Pipe is meant to be used is by pointing your torch lighter at the round end of the chamber, when the oven gets to 356°F there is a strip that will rotate to reveal regular metal instead of the usual black metal, then you go ahead and inhale. If that was how it actually worked I think they would have a winner on their hands, but I had a few major issues during use.

The temperature indicator window is indented, so it is a den of shadows and reflections if you’re trying to use it in anything other than a perfectly lit environment. Making the indicator strip of metal the same colour as the rest of the device is pretty much the worst colour choice they could have gone with. If it went from black to bright orange, or regular metal to brass colour for example, it would have much more delineation between the two states. It’s hard to see when the strip moves to indicate temperature, and the strip also moves very slowly instead of a quick movement. This means that if you don’t notice the second it starts to move, you are going to end up roasting your chamber to the point of combustion. I did get some better results when I tried to use it more like a DynaVap by rotating it with the flame in a different position, but at that point I was not using the device as it was intended and getting into the territory of a homemade MacGyver type of solution.

The Haze Square was an amazing concept, and I really wanted to enjoy this vaporizer. When I read about it on paper it had some features that weren’t found on any other devices and it was a very ambitious design in general. But this was the last device that Haze put out before they went out of business, so clearly it didn’t quite live up to expectations. I loved everything about the Haze Square, except for how it actually functioned, which of course is the only thing that matters at the end of the day. Haze even sent me two units, so I was able to confirm it wasn’t just a problem with my first unit.

The Haze Square has a reasonably small profile and a blocky design. I believe the majority of the body is made from metal, and it feels solid, with a good satisfying weight. It also has a removable mouthpiece to keep the profile smaller, and the mouthpiece is stored in the side of the device which is really handy.

I covered the Square in the summer of 2018, and it had some great features and technology, especially for the time. It was one of the first, if not the very first device that I ever saw with USB-C, and it also gave you pure convection vapour which wasn’t as common as it is now. It was an easy vaporizer to use, with a main lighted button to control the power, and buttons to control the temperature. So far it sounds good, but the next feature is absolutely amazing. I still haven’t seen this pulled off properly, but if a vaporizer does I will be first in line to pick one up. The Haze Square features four separate internal bowls that can be rotated into position in front of the heater. This is a brilliant concept, you can preload four bowls in advance, have different strains in each bowl, and even put concentrate in some of them. On the bottom half of the device is a heater coil which provides the heating for the bowl that is rotated over it.

Sadly this was one of those devices where the juice just wasn’t worth the squeeze. I found that I got incredibly inconsistent results, sometimes I would use it at maximum temperature for five hits on a bowl and only get wispy vapour, ending up with very green material. Other times I would hit it at low temperature and the bowl would instantly combust in a pinhole area where the temperature was focused. It also has a ton of parts and components, which isn’t going to appeal to everyone. After you remove the top half of the vape you have to carefully split that part in half again to expose the bowls. I found when I was loading it up and fitting things back together it tended to get a bit messy and it required too much fiddling to make it a device I would use regularly.

I would love to see somebody take the concepts of the Haze Square and do it right, a full convection device in this size, that lets me preload and use four separate bowls without needing to add or remove anything from the device is something I would buy in a heartbeat and I’m sure a lot of you guys would too. The concept was a definite winner, it was clearly just way more difficult to execute than Haze imagined.

When I first heard about the DaVinci MIQRO I was really excited, MIQRO isn’t just a clever name, this thing is absolutely tiny. At the time it was definitely the smallest battery powered dry herb vape I had ever seen, and it’s still one of the smallest in my collection. It is a bit wider than a PAX 3, but considerably shorter and really light. It’s very easy to fit in any pocket, you can even get it into a lot of pant pockets, which is rare. The build quality feels really good, sometimes devices that are really small also feel cheap, but the construction and materials on this one are great.

DaVinci retained a lot of features of the IQ in the smaller MIQRO, it still has the zirconium air path and the pearl in the bowl which can be rotated on a screw to accommodate different load sizes. They ditched the flavour chamber, but they still managed to keep the built-in stir tool, which is something I’ve always loved about DaVinci devices. With the flat mouthpiece attached it has a low and sleek profile, and it flips up to reveal either the bowl, the air path (which is removable for easy cleaning), or the small 18350 battery. The MIQRO also features smart path heater modes which slowly increase the temperature over time, as well as precision mode which allows you to select a specific temperature. It charges via micro USB, and because the battery doesn’t have a huge capacity it will charge reasonably fast.

So far it sounds awesome and like it could be a perfect ultra portable vape, but the MIQRO is simply lacking in the performance department. Because everything is so small and miniaturised, including the battery, you don’t get enough battery life to make this a viable all day on-the-go sort of device. You’ll only get around 30 minutes of run time, depending on how long your sessions are, what temperature you are using it at, and how often it has to heat up from cold. So unless you only want to have a session or two you are going to need to bring a charging cable or an extra battery, which is included in the neat container that comes with the Explorer Edition of the MIQRO. Because of the small size, the shell of the device gets quite warm while you are using it. Maybe I have resilient hands, I don’t typically find many vaporizers get too hot for my hands, but this one is definitely on the very warm side during a longer session.

My primary complaint though is the vapour production. Even if you use a full load, packed properly, and set it to the highest temperature, it just doesn’t produce a satisfying amount of vapour. If you like a nice and light type of experience, the MIQRO might be totally adequate for you, but I never found I got a nice thick hit that makes you feel like the session is complete that you typically get from DaVinci devices. I think the main culprit behind the problems is the smaller 18350 battery, it’s just too small for dry herb vaping and I think they should have stuck with an 18650.

Overall, I just find it too underpowered and lacking in battery life for my needs. If I want a vaporizer that’s ultra portable and easy to use, I would probably go with a Fury 2 or a Pax 3, because both will give you a nice satisfying session with solid battery life.

The Vaped Fob is an excellent concept, this one is designed to be a stealth vaporizer and they have prioritised that above anything else in the design. I’m not sure if you guys remember or ever saw it, but they used to make a vaporizer that was shaped like an asthma inhaler called the PuffIt, and the Fob is designed with the same hidden in plain sight type of principle. It’s not necessarily meant to be stealthy in terms of being easy to conceal, it’s meant to be stealthy by looking like an object you are already familiar with, so you won’t recognize it as being a vaporizer.

I am torn about whether I should describe this one as being big or small, compared to most vaporizers it is very small and portable, it’s a little bigger than a DaVinci MIQRO. But compared to most car fobs, it is by far the biggest car fob I have ever seen, by quite a margin. Compared to the car fob for my current vehicle it’s comically large and when you see the two side-by-side the idea of stealth starts to fall apart.

On the bottom it has a good sized oven which is closed by a magnetic chamber. It stays on there pretty tightly, but I would definitely worry about it coming loose in my pocket since it is meant to travel with keys. Next to the oven it has a key clip that doesn’t feel particularly robust, and a proprietary charging port. Using micro USB would have been a much better choice, but considering the size constraints they had this was their only option.

You do get reasonably good battery life for the size and it’s easy to control. You press the power button (which is disguised as the trunk release button) five times to turn it on, and then press the lock, which also has a plus or minus button to cycle between the six preset temperatures. It gets to temperature in around 25 seconds, though it does need a bit of time for the material to warm up before it will produce any vapour. Unfortunately my main issue with the Vaped Fob is the vapour quality. It produces a reasonable amount of vapour, but it’s quite harsh. The mouthpiece folds into the device so it’s not very long, only around an inch or so. Modern devices typically have complex airpaths that swirl vapour around, cooling it in the process, but with this one you are inhaling directly from the oven along a straight path and it is too harsh for my liking.

I did bring the Vaped Fob into a hockey game and it went through security on my keys with no problem at all, so for the time it was an excellent option, but now that cartridges and things like a Pax Era are so prevalent, I would choose that over this thing for stealth purposes any day.