Gentle Friends,
I just had a very interesting phone conversation for Joe himself, Geek to Geek. As others have mentioned, he's sharp. Knows his product very well, lots of attention to details (like fit and finish of metal parts) in addition to a deceptively complex product. This is not your typical reworked e-cig tech from a big factory half a world away. He, and his team, are in it up to their armpits. They do a lot of other non vape high tech work as well. And they're still fine tuning it, the reason for the software update in fact.
He asked me to call to discuss the problems I had upgrading the software. It might be host related (I'm running Windows XP) or some goof up on my part. It took 3 tries (complete with removing the App) to finally get it to work, but work it does.
He explained the two goals in the update, trust me you want this. First, he was able to safely both raise the upper cutoff and lower the bottom, so now the same old '0 to 100%' scale covers 25 or 30% wider range. Yes, you'll get 25 or 30% more 'hits per charge' than before since it now uses a larger percentage of the available range. If this was a car it's like using 15 gallons of the 16 gallon tank rather than 10 or 11 (because you're filling the tank 'to the top' and draining it down further before 'tanking up' again). Getting 400 miles between fill ups not 300?
The other change is also a good plan IMO. It seems that guys were running their battery until it locked out (fully discharge) where the protection circuit kicks in. Then they'd plug it in and keep going, without putting enough charge back in to keep from hitting the protection again and again and again. Hammering the poor battery into an early grave. Human nature and all, but a battery killer. A mode battery makers cringe at and recommend avoiding. Every 'deep discharge cycle' damages this kind of battery, 'use while charging' without a reasonable base charge costs battery life even though each event only gives a few minutes use. Now that is changed. You can't use the battery while charging. Instead charge it partially if you must and use it for a few hits, then put it back on charge and charge it up. These two together should give us more use (hits) per charge and longer battery life before replacement.
And there's more good improvements being worked out (and like the last two, tested in Europe).
As an interesting side note, the new version shows up as "135", not 2.0 or some similar. This isn't like a checks where you start with 101, they started with 1. We're the beneficiaries of over 100 steps in software development here boys and girls. With more coming. I don't know for sure, of course, but I think this is the most sophisticated vape going today. A scary amount of 'source code'. I sure don't know of one more so. Sort of the exact opposite of Thermovape at an electrical/electronic level but with the same solid attention to materials and construction. 'The Man' knows his stuff.
So my advice is do the upgrade......unless you want less sessions per charge and shorter battery lifespan than the rest of us of course.
OF
