Ghost made a number of mistakes, in my estimation
As some of you may know,
@VCBud and I are friends. He sent me a very early model....before release...to try out and was a bit gobsmacked at some of my comments and indicated that other criticism I had were indeed raised by him to Ghost who choose not to implement any changes.
First....I love Virgil and enjoyed my bit of a relationship with Patrick who ran the company. I have nothing bad to say about the people at Ghost and they are far from the first people to develop a tech product to their vision but which eventually failed in execution.
I was a very early employee of Corvis (long haul optical during the bubble...look it up) which is a poster boy for this kind of thing.
My first objection were the crucibles and what a PIA it was to to load them correctly. This includes the lids which were a PIA to keep clean enough. Also, the crucibles say really frakin hot for a good while and they are small. So, taking one out to stir or taking one out to immediately load another had its challenges.
Next was my objection to the "one button to bind them all" user interface. I don't like them on the MV1 or any other vape. I can live with it on a $70 VLeaF GO, but not on a top quality vape. I include in this the display of batt level before display of temp...that one met with almost universal outcry and they couldn't seem to do anything about it.
The CU. It actually works well but again its over engineered IMO and improper assembly was the source of constant demand on CS...which costs $$.
Full convection portables are a bit fiddly by nature and the MV1 was no exception. BUT, I do get dang good extraction and every time I'm alarmed by see a bit of green on the top, when I dump the AVB out its not even noticeable. Can't find the green, really. I try to do this with new vapes as just looking into the oven is often misleading.
The door latch...sigh. Coupled with their VERY accommodating CS policy and shipments of replacements, this was costly, I believe.
Then there is the CS they provided.....yes, we loved it because...well, it benefited us but cost us nothing. But it does cost someone and in this case Ghost. I have long viewed their advance replacement policy as unsustainable for Ghost.
Poor battery regulation. This one really annoyed me and its the phenom that as the battery depletes the heater performance goes down significantly. And, who knows why exactly, but re-seating your battery mitigated this to some extent. I mean, they enclosed 18650's for a reason...there is a board in there to regulate power, yeah? But, it didn't do a very good job and I tended to not use the same battery for more than two loads before recharging.
Apps...I'm fine with apps as long as ALL functions on the app are also available via the direct device user interface (i.e. buttons). Then Apple really put the squeeze on them.
Ah....I think its been mentioned already that some of their marketing and marketing related spending priorities were out of line....I mean, how many vapes did sponsoring a Slightly Stoopid tour sell exactly?
I thought they took a good first stab and that if they solicited more user feedback, and took it seriously, they may have had a much better vape or certainly a better V2. But alas, that's not to be.
The simple fact is that dry herb vaping is a small niche market and that the vast majority of folks are combusting flower or vaping means carts or dabs to them. Hard to raise money for a small market item like dry herb vaping.
I have two MV1's and four batteries. When they die, I will give them a Viking funeral and toast Virgil...the best CS rep EVER!! :-)