Celebrating 2022: A great year for vape connoisseurs!

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A great year for vape connoisseurs!

Notable upgrades and innovative new designs were the theme of this year in all categories: flower, concentrate, battery, butane, portable and desk top. Truly, something for everyone.

Developers ARE listening, learning, investing resources and delivering products that the vape community has been waiting for.

If you bought one of these new releases, let us know if it’s lived up to your expectations over time, and whether you’d purchase it again?

Cheers to the dedicated developers, retailers, the Moderators who maintain this forum, and all the members that are the life blood of this amazing community.

Here’s to 2023 and all that it brings.
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looking back on the year

• More fun with dry herb after discovering the hydrostone/boost pack for storage
• Finally enjoying water pieces with actual water in it after discovering drop down adapters
• Entered the metal type butane world (after a failed attempt with dv years ago): started with Dani, upgraded to Anvil, have expanded with TA and am keeping an eye on other developments. Anvil has been my most reached for vape of the year
• Been enjoying desktop a lot. I never liked the setup but since I started using water Inwas already sitting at my desk. Much fun with Herbo ti and CouchLog
• TM2 is a lovely release
• After a few years of rushed medicating and not following shit, it is nice to see how shit has developed. It is really cool that we as a community - by the hands of artisans making these amazing devices - have such a wave of crazy beautiful functional pieces in all sorts of styles, it is quite rare to occur that a market is dropping museum pieces like it's herb in an injector bowl, same goes for artisanal glassblowers and woodworkers, I love how our community contributes to the survival of these crafts
• Fucking hash in vapes

I’m not saying I’ll never use my FlowerPots again and I still think they’re a great product line, but the Phase3 Z8 instantly replaced them as my favorite desktop.

Also, while the Toads are largely based on the Nomad platform which is a few years old, they are new this year and mine is overall my favorite portable by a good margin.

I still like my FW7, but so far I haven’t felt the need to finish cleaning it and start using it again. Temp control/battery monitoring is easier than unregulated and the haptic feedback is also useful on the FW, but when I get it right the Toad is hard to beat in flavor or performance*, and it’s a work of art!

* Unless you’re expecting it to compete with a larger heater/load, but it can put out more vapor than I can handle if I push it so that’s more than enough for me!

I think for me 2022 was the year of turbulent/wide open airflow... TP80, SC3+, TM... and it ends for connoisseurs with Z8 which is also turbulent...(still dreaming about that one...) also a lot of vapes got released... good year for sure.... more to come....

Uh, um, I'm trying to remember here, and I spent the last year stoned so it's a bit hazy...
The beginning of the year had me wandering off after pipes. The Neo had opened a door I'd never been thru, and I started buying GRAV pipes to use with my Neo's. When I got my Hot Rod, I found it worked with many of the pipes, and this all led to more GRAV glass to use with water, then more injector bowls, which led me away from pipes...
It was a good year in the garden, which is really how I look at my year. A good crop, no issues with growing, trimming, drying or storing. 2023 should be fine for supply because of a wonderful 2022 season. I've gotten some new vapes, glass and silicone pieces I enjoy, and am looking forward to a break from getting anything else for a bit, and just enjoying what I have.

2022 was the year of the Anvil for me. What a device!

2021 was year of the baller for me, with some killer options in the B0 & B2 and some duds for me like an early Qaroma and the Hot Rod that didn't live up to the hype.

But 2022 has seen some great new options for injector bowls to match with the ballers. Cloud Connesieur and Sticky Brick gave us some nice wood choices. And I love the VGOODIEZ glass injector bowls with built-in pass-through adapters and that they have multiple sizes both in 14mm and 18mm male joints and bowls in 2 sizes to accommodate the different depths that different injectors need (Herborizer needs deep and B0 best for shallow, for example).

Otherwise 2 big 2022 trends for me:

Butane innovation:
-Anvil - the only portable I consider a true heavy hitter
-Thermal Accumulator - ahh that old puff a jay/blunt sensation
-Simrell Warhead - still surprised there isn't more hype over this one
-O'Connell Micro v4 in Koa wood - just arrived!

There just isn't any real replacement for the heating power and flexibility of the hits you can take with a torch. Not quite the exact and precise repeatability of an electronic vape. But that level of control and flexibility is worth it. And there are things that can help with repeatability. Still surprised that there isn't more hype over the Warhead.

Halogen:
-Halo - right up there with Herborizer for flavor
-Angus - supplants the Mighty as go-to session vape for me, with better flavor (esp using FW7 dimpled cooling stem), swappable battery, equal ease of use & cleaning and only $200. And less fall off in flavor compared to other types of heaters.
-Herbalizer - local sale came up and is my first bag and fan-powered whip vape. A very chill experience which still packs halogen flavor. And fabulously quick heat up time.

There's something lovely about halogen heating that I am really digging. My guess here is that this may be related to these designs less aggressively heating the flower, which then impacts the extraction achieved.

And shout out to the Puffco Proxy for a lovely on-the-go and quick-and-easy dab option with some killer aftermarket glass available for it. A really nice versatile, modular ecosystem is forming around this one. From $400+ heady glass to inexpensive bubbler options from Sneaky Pete (just-released beaker at $40) and MJ Arsenal ($75 with reportedly great chug).

Wonder what 2023 will hold?

I think 22 also saw the quality of factory produced battery portables rise, and that without an increase in cost and often even beating the competition in terms of pricing. I welcome this because it makes a decent vape experience available to people scared off by the initial investment the top tier vapes ask.

Abele Rizieri Ferrari said:

I think 22 also saw the quality of factory produced battery portables rise, and that without an increase in cost and often even beating the competition in terms of pricing. I welcome this because it makes a decent vape experience available to people scared off by the initial investment the top tier vapes ask.

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What Vapes did you have in mind here? I'd certainly put V3 Pro, Roffu and Angus in this category. And really great seeing more Vapes with swappable batteries.

Abele Rizieri Ferrari said:

I think 22 also saw the quality of factory produced battery portables rise, and that without an increase in cost and often even beating the competition in terms of pricing. I welcome this because it makes a decent vape experience available to people scared off by the initial investment the top tier vapes ask.

Click to expand...

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I think your observations are very accurate and several came to mind just while reading your post. 2022 spawned a number of worthy, affordable choices for both beginners and vets alike.

The strong message the FC community projected in unison this year regarding portable battery vapes was: we expect air paths isolated from all electronics, that only healthy, tested materials in the air paths be used (preferably little or no plastic or silicone) and we expect developers to be willing to answer tough questions about their products builds.

All in all I believe this message was heard loud and clear and developers will adapt and resolve any out standing issues. There are several new releases that I didn't jump in on because of questionable materials, but really looking forward to the V2 of these models hopefully appearing in 2023. Could be another good year on the horizon!
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Texus said:

What Vapes did you have in mind here? I'd certainly put V3 Pro, Roffu and Angus in this category. And really great seeing more Vapes with swappable batteries.

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Also ALP. Angus and ALP did/do have some work to do, believe the launch of the two aforementioned devices went less hickuppy (ALP got some complaints but I believe main issue was no dosing caps? Which yeah okay)

2022 was the year I bought the Vestratto Anvil. There's a a before and after.

Same for me. Most used vape was for sure the Anvil. I also rediscovered how much I love my 15 year old volcano.

I added a bunch of vapes, most of them amazing, some of them classic, but one remarkable thing about '22 was the renaissance of glass vapes. Among the glass vapes that deserve mention are Glass Charlie's Tasty Tube; RWW's Terpedo, V-stick, and Quartz Cap; VHB's Slide; Good Vibes' 18mm Killer, and others that escape me atm (apologies). Long a staple and among the first vapes popularly available, glass vapes seem to have lost popularity with the advent of very powerful desktops and now portables. The new breed not only keep up but in some cases surpass in power and certainly in flavor. Overall they provide a lovely ritual and flavorful clouds subject only to your skills and the quality of your herbs. It's been a nice surprise!

The Tinymight 2

I also like the work being done by Divine Tribe, Puffco and others to expand on the side heated buckets and developing better erigs.

2022 was a year of appreciation for me.
Celebrating the difference in vapes instead of chasing the perfect one.

I've stopped obsessing over certain variables when it comes to vaping, and started just sitting back and relaxing and letting the journey take me instead of forcing a pre-curated journey.

There will always be another vape that is better at a certain thing. No vape will encompass everything.
I have found everything I need in my vapes lately and I'm very satisfied

2022 for me was the year I realised something that runs contrary to the opinion of most members on here - that I don’t need so much vape stuff in my life. It’s unnecessary complexity for a habit I’ve always seen as pretty simplistic, as an escape from the complications and hassles of life that come as a chronic overthinker

I think getting my Anvil was the catalyst. Like if I can take a fresh load to spent in one heat cycle and get medicated quickly and consistently, do I really need any other devices? It didn’t take long to answer that question, the anvil has a way of answering that is very persuasive.

Now I have a TA, which seems to serve my needs even better again. Rather than straddle the line between anvil and TA and invent use cases for the anvil to stick around, it’s on eBay.

Maybe the TA will be my lifelong partner, maybe something better will come around. All I know is this more simple yet focused approach has increased my personal enjoyment of vaping exponentially.