KZ's long overdue FlowerMate VT1.0 post-mortem review
Disclaimer: I've been doing product reviews and beta-testing for Smiss since the first FlowerMate 5 days (the "Vapormax V" as it was called). I own a lot of their products and several of them found their way into my daily rotation at various points. My Smiss contact told me she liked this particular product and asked me if I wanted to review it. While I didn't pay for my unit, I have no vested interest in this company nor have I been compensated in any other way. I don't have any blog or website to generate revenue and I'm not making my living out of vape reviews.
I was rather curious to see Smiss' take on pen-style vapes, especially because the VT1.0 was a re-design of the G3. And for those who remember (it's buried somewhere in this forum) the G3 reviews by our members were quite a disaster! So much that Smiss quickly withdrew the product...
When I received the VT1.0, I was also testing the X-Max V2 Pro and the Herbstick Eco at the same time. I hoped I could do a nice comparison of the three, but this never materialized. In fact, right after the un-boxing there was a show stopper: I tried to figure the air flow in and out of the device and ended naturally blowing into the mouth-piece... and what a disappointment when I felt air escaping from the USB port... right at the bottom of the device!
Yes there are small holes under the oven, but they don't do much. Air is able to travel through the USB port, around the battery, into the electronics section and finally into the bowl. For me this was not acceptable: this was far from being their first product, they received a lot of feedback and should have known better really. We want isolated air-paths, why is this so complicated to grasp?!
I got back to my contact and told her about the issue and that I would refrain from publishing any review, because it would be clearly too negative. Time has passed and the product is no longer in production, so I'm writing this post-mortem mini review just "for the record".
Since it was obviously not a good idea to blow into the device when performing the empty burn-ins (due to the aforementioned non-isolation problem, would have been bad for the chips and battery) I could only leave it open at full temp close to a fan.
The trademark polyimide tape smell (or more precisely, the glue on it) was strong once again, but I had no patience this time... and I knew I wouldn't use the vape anyways... So it stayed on the shelf for a long while, months actually... Until it was donated to a combusting friend, to introduce him to vaping.
He did the burn-ins on his own, used the device with various things, including hash directly in the bowl!!! So when I met him again later to get his feedback and finally test the device myself, the bowl was all gunked up and this surely affected my taste appreciation (I gave him one of my FM5 "concentrate pods" as I'm not using them anyways, it's less messy than directly in the ceramic bowl)
The good
- Battery life is good, they used a 2500mAh cell (LG HE2 or Samsung 25R depending on batch)
- Heat up time is relatively fast
- Temperature seems fully adjustable, at least the potentiometer is smooth (but the manual says it has only 10 settings)
- The mouthpiece screws on, it's compatible with the other FlowerMate short-base mouthpieces (so you can use the glass one for instance)
- The shell material provides adequate thermal insulation (and yes the fins are there for a purpose, the area around the bowl would be really too hot to touch otherwise)
- Against all odds it produces good clouds, felt almost more powerful than the FM5-Pro
- It's apparently able to vape (at least partially) some concentrates
- Relatively stealthy during use
- USB charging
The meh
- The taste wasn't so good during my limited use, don't know if it was because of the dirty bowl or just the device itself
- Temperature on the dial is only written in °F, not fun for those using °C
- Selected temperature seems lower than what you get: even if max temperature is only listed as 400°F you end up with a very dark ABV that looks closer to 420°F+ and vapor color and amount tend to confirm that assumption
- You have to turn the dial all the way off then back to where it was every-time it times out, so you lose your temperature point (provided the dial is really that precise in the first place)
- Session time-out is too short
- The external rubber-like coating material becomes kinda sticky over time
The bad
- Air-path is not isolated, air enters partly by the bottom USB port
- You can't do empty burn-ins by blowing into the device due to the above, but the vape definitely requires quite a lot to get rid of the factory smell so it's problematic
- Battery is not replaceable
Conclusion
If you are ok with the non-isolated air path (it's after all only cold air over electronics and many members on this forum said they don't care), then this vape is actually not too bad in the end. It was obviously not a big success as they discontinued it and tried to replace it with two other pen-style or assimilated products afterwards (Air and Aura which I didn't test)
The price was sweet, for a classic conduction ceramic oven type vape it was rather powerful. Out of the three vapes pictured above it felt the most powerful and has the best mouthpiece. It also has more temperature settings and the shell is more rugged (no risk of scratching the coating contrary to the two others)
The look is a bit on the strange side, but it doesn't draw too much attention. My friend is still using it and enjoying it, and that's what matters!
