One of the winners here, I received mine today. I won with the churchwarden kit but I didn't use that yet. My thoughts on the Nautilus.
I like the concept, and the whole pipe look gets extra points from me. And I like session vapes so it was a nice experience.
But first, the mouthpiece I got with the vape is not like the one pictured in instructions (or back of box). According to instructions, the screen part of mouthpiece comes apart in 3 pieces. Mine does not. This change is not good, I would want to clean behind the screen. Also in the instructions, there should be extra screens included which I did not get. Not a problem though since my mouthpiece does not come apart to change screen anyway
I did one session with it. Nice even roast, thanks to the ceramic conduction oven. It was a good session and it is an effective vape with nice clouds when exhaling. Battery is already almost empty but I did three burnoffs before vaping. I charged it full before use.
But the whole experience was affected by the taste... Gassy, plasticy smell and taste. At first I thought it was the stem since it's plastic and I thought I could look for a stem in a different material. The churchwarden kit comes with an adapter for pipe stems, those for tobacco and the adapter itself has a metal pathway. But now looking at the main body the plastic housing is of a softish rubbery plastic and sniffing it I can smell the same taste and smell I felt when vaping. Reminds me of plastics from the 90s or something. And I got a headache after using the vape, must be the plastic fumes..
Last thing, the session timer resets every time i click to change temp. Strange bug. Doesn't really matter to me. Session timer was set to 5min but something I didn't see in the instructions, you can change session time. Clicking power button three times and i could change in 30s intervals, from 3-9min.
Some last thoughts. It was a nice experience, I like the pipe form and feels good in hands. It has potential. But the plastic ruined it for me. I don't mind plastics when used right (this gave me a headache..) A better, more refined version could be more popular. Maybe Nautilus 3rd Gen, or 2.5? Isolated airpath, both before and after. Less plasticy taste, maybe with different material around the air intakes.
