Crafty/Crafty+ by Storz & Bickel

[invertedisdead]

I don't know why people are making a big deal over the temp adjust comments. They could have put in a colored light that changes by holding the power button just like every other vape. It certainly wouldn't have made the vaporizer any worse! That doesn't mean I automatically am no longer interested in a Crafty. Voicing your opinion is what helps these vaporizer companies make better products. Look at how much the Lotus or the Indica or the Cloud grew from feedback from people on here...

 

[Nick Brand]

Feature Request-

In the app allow the user 2 ranges of time before auto-shutoff:
a. while connected to charger- no need to rush saving the battery while charging?
b. while on battery- at the other end, it'd be cool if you could set it to auto-off
immediately after finishing the hit, or thereabouts. And being able to have a little
longer than a minute, that would be great.

being able to squeeze in a little more time while changing bowls would
be appreciated, even if it's just 15 secs.

cheers

 

[lwien]

Look at how much the Lotus or the Indica or the Cloud grew from feedback from people on here...

True, but I would't assume that S&B would be that open to suggestions. They're a different breed of animal.

 

[andygut]

They ship via Next Day Air Saver which means the package gets delivered with regular UPS packages. Next Day Air = AM delivery.

delivered before 3pm. know a ups driver

 

[headdoctor]

My plan is to see how well I feel it does with hits off the same bowl. For example if I packed the pax, I'd finish it every time, because IMO the conduction made it taste HORRIBLE once vaped at all. Do it all or nothing with that thing. Hopefully this works better as a couple hits here a couple hits there. Obviously this is not ideal for battery life, but I'm not sure I care during a work day.

darkrom, I've enjoyed your posts on the Crafty and I'm really interested in how your experimenting is going. I got rid of my Pax for exactly the reason you describe. I tend to be a fairly light user, and it sounds like the Crafty hits pretty big. I can easily imagine taking one or two hits and wanting to leave the rest for another time. Does it seem to be working this way--in terms of taste? I think that I read somewhere here that it doesn't continue to "burn" or cook after the unit is turned off. (I mean continue to emit vapor; I know it's convection, at least mostly.) Many thanks!

 

[darkrom]

darkrom, I've enjoyed your posts on the Crafty and I'm really interested in how your experimenting is going. I got rid of my Pax for exactly the reason you describe. I tend to be a fairly light user, and it sounds like the Crafty hits pretty big. I can easily imagine taking one or two hits and wanting to leave the rest for another time. Does it seem to be working this way--in terms of taste? I think that I read somewhere here that it doesn't continue to "burn" or cook after the unit is turned off. (I mean continue to emit vapor; I know it's convection, at least mostly.) Many thanks!

Its not ideal and IMO no bowl should be half vaped in an ideal world, but yes it works. Vaped the same bowl 3x today, third was kinda meh...

I think its likely going to make more sense to use the liquid pad as some kind of spacer. I haven't tried that though. It will work if you want, but the flavor gets worse each bowl as expected.

You can break the buds up by hand, so next time I'll see what happens if I just load one small nug and no spacer. I'm sure the airflow will be off, but it might work anyway, just no clouds.

 

[Roth]

Just enjoyed my first bowl with the Crafty.

HOLY SHIT, THIS THING IS AMAZING!

I've only vaped one bowl, so obviously can't comment on battery life or things like that. What I can say though is that I LOVED that first bowl.

Heat up was quick, didn't time it, but I'd guess maybe 2 mins? Loaded a full bowl of some freshly shredded Oregon Pineapple and took my first draw.

Instant, flavorful vapor. Absolutely no learning curve, you literally just draw and you get tasty vapor.

The draw resistance is very minimal too, less then my EVO through my recycler.

I took maybe 6-8 draws at the stock temp before finishing the bowl on the booster temp. All throughout the clouds were as large as I wanted them to be. Even at the end, there was no popcorn taste at all.

The vapor production looked comparable to what I've seen users of the Mighty post.

The cooling top really does am amazing job too. The vapor never felt too hot.

I dumped the AVB to look at it, and it was an even, medium brown. Very comparable to what my EVO produces. I did not stir the bowl once.

The Crafty connected to my phone without issue.



I just got the Crafty, but I can tell it's going to be a game changer for me. It truly is a small, portable, flower vape that doesn't make me miss my EVO. I have a preheated EVO sitting next to me, and I don't even feel the need to load it right now. Not saying the Crafty will replace my EVO, but my search for a portable flower vape is over. It is expensive, but it provides exactly what I've been wanting for a LONG time. For myself, there is no question that this purchase was worth it.

From my initial use, I will definitely recommend the Crafty to friends and family. In fact, I now know what my mom is getting for Christmas

 

[t-dub]

Just enjoyed my first bowl with the Crafty.

HOLY SHIT, THIS THING IS AMAZING!

I've only vaped one bowl, so obviously can't comment on battery life or things like that. What I can say though is that I LOVED that first bowl.

Heat up was quick, didn't time it, but I'd guess maybe 2 mins? Loaded a full bowl of some freshly shredded Oregon Pineapple and took my first draw.

Instant flavorful vapor. Absolutely no learning curve, you literally just draw and you get tasty vapor.

The draw resistance is very minimal too, less then my EVO through my recycler.

I took maybe 6-8 draws at the stock temp before finishing the bowl on the booster temp. All throughout the clouds were as large as I wanted them to be. Even at the end, there was no popcorn taste at all.

The vapor production looked comparable to what I've seen users of the Mighty post.

The cooling top really does am amazing job too. The vapor never felt too hot.

I dumped the AVB to look at it, and it was an even medium brown. Very comparable to what my EVO produces. I did not stir the bowl once.

The Crafty connected to my phone without issue.



I just got the Crafty, but I can tell it's going to be a game changer for me. It truly is a small portable flower vape that doesn't make me miss my EVO. I have a preheated EVO sitting next to me, and I don't even feel the need to load it right now. Not saying the Crafty will replace my EVO, but my search for a portable flower vape is over. It is expensive, but it provides exactly what I've been wanting for a LONG time.

From my initial use, I will definitely recommend the Crafty to friends and family. In fact, I now know what my mom is getting for Christmas

THIS ^ is music to my eyes! Thanks for that review @Roth, that's exactly what I'm hoping for . . .

 

[Yoosh]

I find unground buds = more flavor in most vapes. At the expense of less vapor and less even roasting.

It's certainly true of my firefly and gnome

 

[Nick Brand]

Just a quick update on my research in regards to running an Android emulator on a PC w/ Bluetooth 4.0 and connecting to the Crafty app ... the gist of it is that I'm all set to go for when my Crafty arrives and it looks extremely promising that this will all work ...

So here's the summary of my setup:
- Oracle VirtualBox
- Android-x86 4.4-r1
- Built-in Bluetooth 4.0 adapter (Dell XPS12 w/ built-in/internal Intel Centrino Bluetooth 4.0 adapter)
- Downloaded and installed Crafty app from Storz-Bickel site

Results are as follows so far:
- Bluetooth works and can see other Bluetooth devices from within the Android Emulator
- Crafty app loads and works fine from all appearances so far (the real test is whether the Bluetooth will find the Crafty or not ... promising that it finds my iPhone etc. though!)
- Need to change default orientation of your Virtual Machine to portrait or crafty app ends up oriented sideways

If it works when my Crafty arrives I'll post a full tutorial on setting it up (it's really not that bad!)

I finally got the VirtualBox Androided and running, and the crafty app downloaded and installed.
Under Android's settings both wifi and bluetooth are turned off, but I was able to download the app from S&B via the host computer's internet connection "into" the emulator anyway. Bluetooth doesn't do that though. It wants to switch to off when I try to switch it on.
The Crafty app doesn't see a bluetooth connection.

Soo close...

Edit: Ordered a Bluetooth 4.0 USB dongle to see if that helps. OSX doesn't seem to want to let go of its own internal BT.

Edit 2: This tutorial got me squared away running Android, in VirtualBox, on a mac...

 

[philosopher]

Yeah, that's what I ended up with - I don't think it's a problem with android-x86 or VirtualBox, but simply a problem with the built-in macbook bluetooth. I have read reports on the web that an external USB dongle will work on OS X, but I am just going to borrow a friend's Droid phone in the interim rather than spend additional money on an adapter unless I find that I really use the app on a regular basis - a pretty unlikely scenario.

On a positive note, my package is out for delivery. I will let you all know my first impressions today!

 

[invertedisdead]

True, but I would't assume that S&B would be that open to suggestions. They're a different breed of animal.

Yeah I feel you, they are the Apple of vaporizers. These companies still use their customers comments, they just don't talk about it. Whereas Indica is all, "you asked for it we gave it!"
S&B being German, the home of fine engineering; which really all comes from extensive research and development. They could have been working on this thing for the last 10 years for all I know.


Back to the Crafty, has anybody hit it horizontally or upside down? Wondering if you can make the stock mouthpiece adapt right into a water tube, preferably without a bunch of tubing. More so a GonG.

 

[philosopher]

Inverted, I will let you know in a few hours, but I have a feeling it's similar to the Plenty in that it can be hit in any direction. I'd be more worried about the stress put on the (admittedly inexpensive) mouthpiece than the ability to take a hit.

 

[Nick Brand]

Yeah, that's what I ended up with - I don't think it's a problem with android-x86 or VirtualBox, but simply a problem with the built-in macbook bluetooth. I have read reports on the web that an external USB dongle will work on OS X, but I am just going to borrow a friend's Droid phone in the interim rather than spend additional money on an adapter unless I find that I really use the app on a regular basis - a pretty unlikely scenario.

Cheers for the info, philosopher. As well as good morning.
Well, since I've gotten this far I figured I'd spend the $10 for the dongle. All the software's been free so far (I now "have" an Android), and I'm oddly hooked on VMing, having never gone anywhere near it before.

After getting the temps to where I want (177C and 188C) and moving all bells, whistles, light intensities, etc. into commando mode (default full brightness can be less than stealthy) I'd only see needing the app to see how tweaks I did effected temp variation. As well as surprise a few people with the current state of cannabis consumption technology.

On a positive note, my package is out for delivery. I will let you all know my first impressions today!

<wave of hand> You're gonna love it.
My Mighty arrives today. Gonna be interesting to see how much better that larger cooling unit does its job. The Crafty mouthpiece never gets hot, but after 4-5 consecutive hits it'll warm up a bit. The vapor itself remains cool... very Steve McQueen.
First thing I'll do when it gets here is swap in that fine screen...

cheers

 

[philosopher]

<wave of hand> You're gonna love it.

The man doesn't lie. So far, I'm blown away by the quantity and quality of vapor. This thing hits comparably to the Plenty, which I suppose just barely beats the Crafty in terms of output. However, the Crafty does a much better job of killing a bowl. One of my complaints about the Plenty was that the bowl was so large that it took forever to kill it - sometimes over an hour. You could pause the session and come back to it, but the flavor would be gone. The Crafty bowl, on the other hand, is small enough that you don't need to use the liquid pad every time for personal bowls.

Having now used this and the Plenty, I can say with some confidence that their plastics and metals are as good as glass as far as taste goes. You really can't taste the plastic one bit.

I was ambivalent about the liquid pad for the Plenty: while I felt it was an ingenious solution to getting the best of both worlds, both in terms of herb/oil and big bowl/small bowl, it got dirty pretty quickly and was a pain to dry once cleaned. It also had a tendency to deform over time. I think for the Crafty, I am going to reserve the liquid pad for concentrates, though I don't see why it wouldn't work just as well as it did in the Plenty.

Preliminary testing also confirms my initial suspicions: this vape is a mini, portable version of the Plenty. S&B definitely took note of the issue of exposed hot metal parts on the Plenty and created the filling tool (which is phenomenal, having gone through the comparatively tedious process of stacking a Plenty bowl), but aside from that and substituting the cooling chamber for the cooling coil, it follows the same basic design principles as the Plenty, and to a lesser extent, the Volcano.

I will update later once I borrow my friend's droid, but out of the box the temperature settings are great. I also understand the concerns over how bright the LED light is, but I honestly thought it would be worse. They have put a kind of matte finish on the LED enclosure so while it's bright, you never feel like you just looked into the sun, as can be the case with other super strong LEDs. I am probably going to tone it down a lot though, because blue is second only to white in terms of power consumption. I am still stumped as to why they went with blue and white (on the Mighty) LEDs, when the Volcano and Plenty use red and orange LEDs respectively.

These are some scattered initial thoughts. If anyone has any questions, that would probably allow me to give more useful information instead of this stream of consciousness rabble.

Inverted: Just confirmed, you can use this in any orientation. If you're going to use it upside down, you might want to use the finer screen on top, but even if you don't, all that will happen is that the cooling chamber will need to be cleaned more often.


This is definitely the best portable vape that I have ever tried. I can definitely see how it is not for everyone, but it fits my purposes to a T. The main thing that sets it apart (and I think for all S&B products) is that the vape quality is just spectacular. You truly have to experience it yourself to get a sense for how good it is.

And Nick, I had no idea bluetooth USB dongles were that cheap. I might end up getting one down the road depending on how long it takes for the app to be released. I just know so many people with droid phones.

 

[OMEiAM]

The man doesn't lie. So far, I'm blown away by the quantity and quality of vapor. This thing hits comparably to the Plenty, which I suppose just barely beats the Crafty in terms of output. However, the Crafty does a much better job of killing a bowl. One of my complaints about the Plenty was that the bowl was so large that it took forever to kill it - sometimes over an hour. You could pause the session and come back to it, but the flavor would be gone. The Crafty bowl, on the other hand, is small enough that you don't need to use the liquid pad every time for personal bowls.

Having now used this and the Plenty, I can say with some confidence that their plastics and metals are as good as glass as far as taste goes. You really can't taste the plastic one bit.

I was ambivalent about the liquid pad for the Plenty: while I felt it was an ingenious solution to getting the best of both worlds, both in terms of herb/oil and big bowl/small bowl, it got dirty pretty quickly and was a pain to dry once cleaned. It also had a tendency to deform over time. I think for the Crafty, I am going to reserve the liquid pad for concentrates, though I don't see why it wouldn't work just as well as it did in the Plenty.

Preliminary testing also confirms my initial suspicions: this vape is a mini, portable version of the Plenty. S&B definitely took note of the issue of exposed hot metal parts on the Plenty and created the filling tool (which is phenomenal, having gone through the comparatively tedious process of stacking a Plenty bowl), but aside from that and substituting the cooling chamber for the cooling coil, it follows the same basic design principles as the Plenty, and to a lesser extent, the Volcano.

I will update later once I borrow my friend's droid, but out of the box the temperature settings are great. I also understand the concerns over how bright the LED light is, but I honestly thought it would be worse. They have put a kind of matte finish on the LED enclosure so while it's bright, you never feel like you just looked into the sun, as can be the case with other super strong LEDs. I am probably going to tone it down a lot though, because blue is second only to white in terms of power consumption. I am still stumped as to why they went with blue and white (on the Mighty) LEDs, when the Volcano and Plenty use red and orange LEDs respectively.

These are some scattered initial thoughts. If anyone has any questions, that would probably allow me to give more useful information instead of this stream of consciousness rabble.

Inverted: Just confirmed, you can use this in any orientation. If you're going to use it upside down, you might want to use the finer screen on top, but even if you don't, all that will happen is that the cooling chamber will need to be cleaned more often.


This is definitely the best portable vape that I have ever tried. I can definitely see how it is not for everyone, but it fits my purposes to a T. The main thing that sets it apart (and I think for all S&B products) is that the vape quality is just spectacular. You truly have to experience it yourself to get a sense for how good it is.

And Nick, I had no idea bluetooth USB dongles were that cheap. I might end up getting one down the road depending on how long it takes for the app to be released. I just know so many people with droid phones.

Great initial review! How much herb do you put in the bowl? Also, how long are your sessions/how many hits do you get before the load is spent?

 

[Jealousy]

Anyone having trouble connecting the Crafty to the app? App seems to find the the vape but the SN save- button is still greyd out after entering the sn.

Edit: Using Galaxy S4 for the app.

 

[JCat]

Just to help out ... this is all I had to do in Windows to connect my Internal Bluetooth (I looked up the ID to determine which it was in Device Manager) ... once connected here Bluetooth turned on no problem in the Android VM.

 

[philosopher]

Great initial review! How much herb do you put in the bowl? Also, how long are your sessions/how many hits do you get before the load is spent?

I couldn't tell with any confidence how much it was, because I was eager to try the filling tool and filled it up all the way. I only shoveled a tiny amount of the filling tool's capacity into the bowl. It's a small bowl though - I'd say less than .2g.

I'm getting similar results as everyone else - about 6 or so hits, then boost for another 2 or so, and from there it kind of tapers down to zero. A full bowl to the dome is a LOT of vapor though. I'm not 100% sure how it's so efficient at getting lots of vapor production, but I bet it has to do with S&B's vape design.

The whole thing took me about 10 minutes, but I was also taking hits faster than I would have normally out of enthusiasm. I'd say 15-20 minutes would be a more reasonable estimate for me.

 

[Nick Brand]

the Crikey

This means you can use the Mighty's larger-chambered, more turbulent, heat-siphoning cooling unit with your Crafty. Small hands take note. You can buy these separately...
http://www.storz-bickel.com/shop_us/en/shop/portable-mighty-vaporizer/mighty-cooling-unit.html

The extra cooling power could help in a heavy sess. The larger chamber also offers more (sticky) surface area to catch particles, esp. using the normal screen. Here's my fine screen build-up after six days of fairly relentless and savage use. The first day was with the regular screen, before realizing a fine one was included in the extras bag... guten mooorgen.

It's soaking in warm detergent solution now. btw, here's S&B's comment on alcohol when cleaning these...
"Do not immerse any plastic components for longer than an hour in alcohol or ethanol.
Extended contact with alcohol or ethanol can lead to discoloration or embrittlement of plastic parts."
from the manual.


Great detailed report, philosopher.
I agree especially with your points and comparisons regarding the Plenty.
Check out Amazon for the dongles.

Thanks for the help, JCat. I used the copy filter feature to get the USB controller info over.
Virtualbox doesn't like it when I tick the "enable USB 2.0" subbox for some reason.
I still get a "can't access because it's being used by someone else" when I try to access BT from within the VM.
The dongle comes Thus.


happy vaping, and figuring this shit out!

 

[MinnBobber]

the Crikey

This means you can use the Mighty's larger-chambered, more turbulent, heat-siphoning cooling unit with your Crafty. Small hands take note. You can buy these separately...
http://www.storz-bickel.com/shop_us/en/shop/portable-mighty-vaporizer/mighty-cooling-unit.html

Awesome!! There's hybrid cannabis and now hybrid vaporizers.
Sweet

 

[OMEiAM]

Just got my Crafty! It's charging now, but first impressions are that it is lighter than I thought it would be. It definitely has a good grip in the hand. I haven't had any problems so far with the app connecting it with my Android smartphone (OnePlus One), but I have the issue where my booster temperature has to be a minimum of 32F. Choosing my settings (increasing basic and boost temperature, lowering LED brightness) worked fine.

Edit: I just wanted to point out that 1 Plenty liquid pad equals about 4-5 Crafty liquid pads. It's that much smaller! The main problem with the Plenty was that it went through a lot of herb so this looks promising. It also uses a 2A charger which is the same as my phone.

 

[QualityVapes]

Preliminary testing also confirms my initial suspicions: this vape is a mini, portable version of the Plenty.

Nice! That was exactly what I thought they were going for. I really liked how they just attempted to make new and improved portable Plenty's. Thanks for your review man. It was really informative.

 

[OMEiAM]

To those who are interested: It only fits about .20g (actually, it's a little bit less!) of ground herb vs. the 1g that the Plenty fit. So those who want an efficient vaporizer should have no problem because with the liquid pad you can definitely use between .07-.1g of herb.

This vape (and the Mighty, of course) definitely takes portable vaporizers to a whole new level. It pumps out a lot of vapor, even starting from the first hit!

I just hope the app gets updated soon because according to the app, my booster temperature of +32F doesn't equal 32F. It's actually lower than what it says. My basic temperature was 378F and my booster had to be set to +64F to get 410F.

 

[darkrom]

I wonder why some users don't have the issue.

What is your crafty FW version? Perhaps it is FW specific since we are all using the latest APK from the play store...

Mine is FW: V02.04