Well, it's been a good few months with this device, and I feel like I should give some extended thoughts now that I have what I feel is a relatively holistic understanding of this thing. Ultimately, I've gotta say I'm really satisfied with my purchase, as I think this vape definitely fills a sorely needed niche within my arsenal, although I'm sure VAS will strike again eventually.
So first, let me outline explicitly who this vape won't be for. Don't expect this to satisfy any group larger than a duo, nor users expecting good macrodosing performance. I use the unit near exclusively either by myself or with my wife, and it handles both situations very well, in particular excelling with solo sessions. I've tried a couple trio sessions and to be frank, the bowl capacity just isn't quite large enough for meaningful hits for anything but the least toleranced of smokers, regardless of whether you use the dosing caps or a "naked load". If you're the type to use more than .2g in a session, don't expect this vape to satisfy, especially with the dosing capsules.
Now, let me talk a bit about some of the real advantages I've found with this design compared to many others. Puffitup or some other site did a tremendously revealing teardown of the Fury 2 years ago, and part of this showed the presence of a thermistor directly outside the bowl area, indicating this vaporizer at least attempts to monitor the temperature of the bowl rather than solely relying on monitoring the temperature of the heating element below for its temperature control system. This may seem like a minor difference, but the major ramification is that this device is far more responsive to the temperature losses introduced by taking a draw than many others, which makes this device much more viable for low temping experiences.
The fundamental problem with many devices and low-temping is the inevitable temperature sag that occurs when the user takes a draw, which can take a while to be "seen" by the temperature sensor of the heating element. When you add some direct monitoring to the bowl, you're able to detect these sags way earlier and thus account for them with increases in the heater's output, leading to more consistent temps throughout the hit. Nearly any other device I'd try to get low temperatures out of, I'd manage to get maybe 2-3 somewhat decent cloud hits before the session descended into disappointment as the heater sagged well below my intended temp. Dumping the load would reveal far more almost green bits than I desired, yet trying to increase the temps would lead to other parts of the bowl being further browned than I wanted.
And this, my friends, is where this device excels at temp control compared to any other that doesn't attempt to monitor the bowl temperature directly. I remember initially scoffing at the manual telling me to try a session at 365 to see the exceptional flavor, as my experience with just about every other device saw them refusing to produce much vapor at anything below 390 without serious modification. But over time, I first found my temp sticking around 380, then throughout the 370s, and finally settling pretty cozily at the nice 369 degree mark for the majority of my sessions. I get very low visible vapor in low light conditions, but exhaling directly under a light reveals a lot more going on than I'd initially expect, and as I tend to seek the more cerebral effects rather than sedative anyway, these lower temperatures are way more ideal for my use.
I also fell into the same tendency as pretty much everyone else to near exclusively use the dosing capsules in the end. You do need to take a lot of care not to overpack them, as filling them beyond a certain point will end up just stuffing up the airflow without adding much to the vapor. I've opted more often to just kinda tap the side of the capsules as I fill them to try to get the material to settle inside, then make sure there's a little extra herb sticking over the lip as I put the top on since the top adds a small amount of space to the top, although if I want to put a little extra in a capsule I've had good results with a very slight tamp. A dosing cap filled this way will produce nice light vapor for an entire 5 minute solo session at 369F and cut off only about a minute earlier in duo due to less time between puffs. I think part of what made me not like them at first was using them at higher temps, where the small doses would stop producing hits within only a couple minutes, but low temping definitely improved my experience with them pretty significantly.
Now, a couple of bad points. I do have to admit the non-removable battery has ultimately been a con, as I often forget to throw the unit on the charger once I see the battery hit that last bar. I also feel like the heater acts even less aggressively when the battery's low like this based on how fast the temp climbs, but this is obviously anecdotal. Given that the battery is the internal equivalent of a 21700, I'd hope that eventually HR releases a device with a removable 18650 or similar form factor battery, but only time will tell. IMO a removable single battery system is far more convenient since you can always leave one battery on the charger, and my naive perspective leads me to believe implementing a "coin door" battery system wouldn't add too much expense to the device, but HR may have already explored and dismissed this for a multitude of reasons I'm not seeing.
Also, cleaning the device, in particular the airflow, is an absolute necessity in the long term. I'd used the 3D stem almost exclusively since receiving the unit without a proper cleaning (I wanted to clean it with everclear to keep the resin for edibles, then kept forgetting/not feeling like spending the money to go get the everclear). Recently, if I go more than 3-4 bowls without cleaning the silicon gasket/screen, the resin that's built up within the 3d stem will actually build up significantly enough to clog the metal screen in the gasket and sticky up the seal. I can scrape this resin away pretty easily and just use the unit without a screen when I use the caps, but it's important to know that the performance of this device is gonna be diminished a lot if you fail to clean it regularly. A slight design flaw with the "side by side" type design is that it can be hard to reach some parts of the bowl with the cleaning brush due to the battery/screen section of the device being "in the way".
Admittedly, at this point, many vapes either have some method of temp sensing in the bowl, or have such effective heaters that they really don't need to do direct bowl temp monitoring for decent low-temping results. However, at lower price points, the devices that actually properly cater to low temp users like myself have tended to be few and far between. Overall, Healthy Rips really has a super solid solo-user device here that will satisfy anyone looking for moderate doses in the 360-400 deg range. The battery life is more than sufficient for a day's worth of use (especially if you aren't obsessed with milking every last bit of vapor out of every bowl for minutes at 430 deg), the draw is pretty nicely open for direct to lung type puffs, the dosing cap system is well implemented for loading convenience, and the bowl sealing system is pretty ingenious (and with no magnets to fall out!)
I'm excited to see how this market continues to grow in future, and while I'm sure I'll find other devices that meet my goals a bit more dead-on than the Edge, this device is one that I'll always remember fondly as a first look into the true potential of temperature-controlled vaping. While I'll always want those milky edge-of-combustion hits every now and again, the ability to properly low-temp evenly with many devices is criminally overlooked IMO, and I'm glad I can get that experience pretty easily through the Edge.
And to give my final answer to the question that I first asked in this thread the Rogue thread all those months ago: The Edge was definitely the better device for my use case. I think if you're almost exclusively sharing a portable between 2 people and sometimes even more, or if you're more of a macrodoser, the Rogue is likely a better choice, but the Edge really satisfies in solo sessions for me personally. I think I only ever tried my dumb idea of adding glass balls to the dosing caps like once before realizing the dose they provided was already pretty much perfect, and I don't think I've ever really wanted to load more than even the "naked" bowl could provide, save for the few times I used the unit in a group of 3+.
