Wow... thanks for the well thought out feedback! I've had a dozen real jobs before starting RBT and I always had one thing that always bothered me... Marketing never talked to the customer and then told engineering to make it half the size and half the cost. I believe that FC has been my biggest competitive advantage as it allows an engineer to talk directly with the customer. This allows for vetted product requirements and allows for trade-offs between cost, size and reliability (complexity) in real time. Beta testing in corporate America means sending out beta units and not having time to implement them before release and then not doing them post release because we were on to "The next big thing" So, I really appreciate having all you experts integrated in the design process so please join in as the more input the better the results.
In 2019 so far there have been two events that will be forever burned into my soul. The first, meeting some of you, my retailers and the reviewers that publicly speak out for a healthier and efficient means of consuming medicinal herbs.
Last week I had another day from jah! First, met with "The Man" from Greenlane. I have to admit, what I expected was a bunch of stuffed shirts in a board room... What I saw was a young team of unique individuals in a progressive effecient workplace. The time in the boardroom was 2 hours of collaboration to help RBT become a better company with a better product and about a 1/2 hour of business talk. I left there, with my head swimming knowing that the next product was now top priority.
I left there and drove directly to "The Professors" hourse... an age old friend and Z-team member and college professor of electical things. When I met Stickstones at champs for the first time, it was like seeing an old friend after years. Sicks was owner of the first Zion and massive contributor to RBT so we go way way back. The Professor is my man DieHard and is the second Z-Team member I had the chance to meet and this time sit with for hours and hours engrossed in the conversation of desired outcomes and what Next Gen will be. I was on a T-break up till then and fueled by my first "magic dab" the ideas came pouring out. After years of after we designed Zion we both had so many ideas on what to do next. In a left handed mind meld I furiously took notes from the conversation with this expert user... Here is what the desired outcomes are shaping up into with all of your help with an eye on Greenlane.
1. A device that operates safely and minimizes any harmful health effects.
2. A quality device that has minimal failures and is rugged and easy to maintain.
X. A price point that is 20% less than similar devices on the market today.
3. A device that has a form factor ideally smaller than a cigarette pack.
4. A device that is easy to load, simple to use, and produces vapor in less than 30 seconds.
5. A device that has adequate capacity to fully medicate and can be charged for use again in 1 hour.
Number one is pure materials in the flow path and all materials well within their operating temperature with no smell or need for a "burn off". This has been en-grained in RBT since day one.
The Key to number 2 to is a "fully integrated device" like the other commercial leaders like PAX, DV, Ariser, S&B,FF, GH etc. Having everything in one box allows for optimum architecture minimizing size and complexity and thereby cost as well as gives the customer a simpler solution. Highlights of the design would include:
1. A rugged exterior and reliable "moving parts" which would be minimized
2. An integrated battery with USB-C charging
3. An integrated mouthpiece with an easy to clean / variable? vapor cooling
The idea would be to pass a 3' drop test onto a hard surface.
X. This is dependent on simplifying the design using Lean-StartUp principles to maximize the important features while minimizing the those of lesser value aka an App for your vape. Fully integrating the unit with some economies of scale will also help. The thought is that the exterior would be of high end materials and minimize the use of plastic. I have always appreciated the FF for this and PAX also does a good job of looking pretty. Hopefully some Dan Morrison influence will emerge. To address simple to use there are a few options. There is the classic e-cig control that has a wattage selection, Mode selection etc. or there is the classic three / four heat level control with an LED indicator. In order for it to be a mainstream commercial product most do not want to tinker and just want to turn it on and have it work. For this reason, the current path is one button and one LED. 5 clicks on - LED feedback, click for heat setting - LED feedback - then less than 30 seconds to vapor. 5 clicks off with a safety timeout after 120 seconds of no activity. However, if TCR mode was used it would "breath sense" which I think would be pretty cool and would not add much complexity to the design as it is based off a simple calculation from measuring the resistance of the heater. The LED would flash to indicate low battery.
3. When looking across the fully integrated vaporizers today the current "Milaana" envelope is in the realm of most convection vaporizers with the conduction units capable of smaller given there low power use minimizing the envelop significantly. Convection has been known to give better flavor and there has been a tend toward that end in the industry and other than battery life, which is a trade-off, the cost of doing convection if done right is not much more than conduction. The trick will be to push the unit size up as much as palatable to maximize battery life and charge it as quickly as possible to address #5.
4. Easy to load is open, insert ground herb, close, use. The insert ground herb could be a pod system and the number of pods would logically match the battery life. Meaning if the battery can last 3-6 loads than you would have 3-6 pods.
5. This is a critical one and the use of desired outcomes in important here. The customer has an expectation for the life of the device and the cost to service the device in that usable time frame. For the most part, in the world of instant gratification that we live in, three years seems to be a fair life expectancy for a device that used continually. I am a heavy user and I am pretty hard on products. I can expect to go through 3-4 mod boxes a year and am a walking drop test. With this usage, if a product last three years that seems to be exceptional. For the average user a few nights a week and some weekend sessions is the norm. Under these duty cycles most batteries will last longer than the physical exterior. How often do you get a new cell phone? Have you ever had a reason to replace your cell phone battery? The trick I believe is to keep up with the users usage with a single integrated battery or at least make it manageable. Most use when they have access to a USB as they are everywhere and the thought would be that in between sessions that unit will be plugged in. The design challenge then is to determine how much herb can be vaporized with one battery charge when you out on a hike or at a show. This seems to be 5 is marginally acceptable with 6-8 being a good target.
After many hours with DH and a four hour drive back to the other side of Florida, this is the starting point for the SEED by RBT. (shortened from SEEDling the brain child of the professor)
