I appreciate all the hints about using the Firefly I've gotten from posts on this forum, and so I want to give back my early thoughts. One tip I especially liked was the suggestion that you clean the unit each time with tissue paper or paper towel, without iso. I found that really worked, and like any fine tool, you need to clean it after use. I now have come to believe that every user must find the method that works for him or her. What I found is detailed below.
My Firefly took exactly three week from when it was ordered to when it showed up in my mail box, shipped from Nevada by the company (gold). Here are more first impressions.
It connected to my iOS device almost immediately, much easier than connecting Bluetooth keyboards. But somehow when I recharged it the connection was lost and I had to reconnect. I suspect this was "operator error."
My test stash was the gleanings from a medical grow from a couple of years ago, that had been left out in the winter rain and cold. I slowly dried it by a space heater in my bedroom, and then carefully trimmed it myself. It is one half to one third as strong as the material I buy at the store half a mile away - I live in an enlightened West Coast state. Because of the low quality of this material I thought it would be a good test. I find that four sessions were necessary to achieved the desired effect the first time I tried the Firefly.
I loaded the bowl and tried inhaling. Not much seemed to happen, and I found if my fingers moved off of one of the buttons, easy to do, the light would go out or seem to flicker. I got no visible vapor. So I took the lid off to stir. I did so and had a moment of panic, since I could not find the lid. I very carefully set it down. I started looking all over for it. Finally I found it underneath my chair where it had fallen in the dark. Perhaps the substance was in fact working. Along with no visible vapor, what I had inhaled was so cool I did not think I was inhaling anything. But the tracks on the glass chamber once I removed the lid showed that I was in fact inhaling something.
After I removed the lid a second time and replaced it, I noticed that the lid was not seating perfectly, even though I thought it was. I found that by examining the front of the device, you can notice that the gap that runs around is the same distance in the front as it is in other places. Mine wasn't, and I found it was easy to make that mistake if you did not look closely at the front of the device. This may explain some or the problems reported.
I also noticed that the lid should be replaced with the porthole on the opposite end from the mouthpiece. I once put it on wrong and was faced with a real puzzle for a moment until I figured out what I had done. Perhaps the substance was working! Another problem I had was that if my hand covered the air vents in front, when I tried to better see the glow, the draw would be quite restricted. Duh!
Many pages back someone asked if the vapor or the medication is the most important. My little experiment showed to me that one can get truly medicated without vapor.
Eventually, I did get some vapor, but not impressive. I still needed to find out the proper technique for this. I find that without vapor I don't know when the chamber is no longer worth drawing from, so perhaps I gave up on each session before it was necessary.
After a few more bowls of various material, I found a method that works for me. I ground the material, I found that hand tearing did not work well for me. After loading the bowl I tamped it down lightly. I held both buttons and when the light was steady I drew. I had tried slow draws as suggested on this forum but those didn't work for me. I also found it hard to estimate time. What I would do is count as I inhaled, doing it for 20 to 30, and then releasing the buttons and inhaling for 5 more. That is 7-12 seconds. It is hard to describe the speed of a draw, but I drew fast enough so there was a sound, perhaps the whistling talked about in other posts. Perhaps this is the speed of drinking a milkshake through a straw. Users need to experiment with this speed.
I found I got visible vapor on each draw, including the first. Using the inferior material I described above, I would get seven draws, and then open the unit and noticing there was still some green, stirring and bumping the heat to high and then continue for another six draws. With better material, I got up to 23 draws. At that point the vapor was so thin I just gave up.
Once I had finished I checked the battery and there was just one blink, so I put it on the charger. I tried putting a rubber band around the unit and charger and them setting it on its side so I could see when it was charged, but it never was. When I put the unit and charger back to the horizontal position, the blue light went steady almost immediately. So charging seems position sensitive.
In conclusion, I am very happy with the Firefly. I had a friend over who had tried to original Firefly, and we both had enough to still be conversant with just one bowl total.
