Truth is hopper is a new company that is experiencing all of the hurdles a new company will face.
I personally am not into the reliability of the product currently but have followed the project because I believe this is a must have vaporizer in concept. It's only going to get better it seems. If someone else could match what hopper has other than reliability I'd be impressed but as is, I'd rather just wait for the reliable units since I have a vaporizer.
Every vaporizer has trade offs and there is no perfect company or product. Hopper labs will of course have criticism and rightly so. Doesn't mean they aren't working to the best of the human ability possible to deliver a great product
Here Here. It is also the case that much more established companies have reliability issues on both new and well established units, see the Crafty thread, See the Davinci IQ thread (my own IQ will be on its way for its second RMA, although the vapor gods saw fit to resurrect my Firefly2 at the cost of my IQ ...FINE turns out I did miss the other bug!)
What I particularly appreciate about Grasshopper as a company is that unlike many vape companies that are investor backed, investor controlled, making products on the absolute cheap and the majority of the price being the marketing campaign, the Grasshopper is a small company that is growing, slowly and organically off of revenue. Not to mention I've seen the units built and they are assembled by real people right in my town, so granted I have a unique perspective. The point being there business model, one that is free from external, non-product and solely revenue based decisions of bankers or investors is a business model that should be supported. It just so happens I happen to also love the product, but I think its important to remember that many vape companies are investment funds that happen to make vaporizers.
Grasshopper is an engineering company that happens to make vapes. And that is literally what they say about themselves.
The thing is, reliability is not really an option for medical cannabis patients. If this was pro audio or something where there was nothing to lose, I'd absolutely agree with you; but the truth is an unreliable vaporizer is unacceptable for today's patients. In my experience most medical patients ( who need it the most) can rarely even afford enough medical cannabis for their condition, let alone a collection of expensive vaporizers. Us vapor hobbyists often lose sight of that on here as we tend to be in a different position and perspective than most.
I think you make a very important point about the cost of cannabis as therapy. In my day job, I am the Director of Government Affairs for Terrapin Care Station (read chief lobbyist, not to be confused with chiefing lobbyist, that was my job title pre-grasshopper but now I mostly vape
).
I am constantly making this point whether its on passing the bill this year to finally add PTSD to Colorado's patient registry or fighting against the miscellaneous assaults on patients rights we still see here in Colorado every session, the number one point I make to lawmakers is that cannabis therapy is an out of pocket costs for patients. Health insurance doesn't cover it whether its the dispensary bill or the cost of growing ones own medicine.
Not only that, what non-medical consumers even may not realize is that cannabis is good medicine but its not strong medicine, by which I mean the quantities need for managing acute pain or to be curative (tumor reducing as one of untold examples) requires VERY LARGE amounts.
The cost of cannabis therapy, particularly for those using it for chronic or acute conditions is the biggest reason that as legalization moves forward, we have to keep tight reigns on over regulation to ensure commercial product isn't too expensive or cost-prohibitive as compared to pharmaceutical alternatives and the home cultivation is allowed, its cannabis, not plutonium.
We did pass a bill this year that finally allows people to seal misdemeanor criminal records for cannabis offenses that are now legal. We're way behind California on the social justice aspects but it turns out the Grasshopper is great for bill signings
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You make some good points, but I still think the Grasshopper is a good choice for medical patients. In fact, I primarily see it as a medical device.
Patients I know really enjoy the grasshopper particularly for the speed at which its ready to go
... except with RMAs! Oh well. Still a great device and am still hoping for the best. My Ti Hopper that I got back from RMA on the 11th is still performing flawlessly; really hope it stays that way for a while. Putting 10-20 bowls through it a day I would say on average. It's all I've used since I got it back; occasionally dry when required but usually through my DHGate Mobius Matrix Sidecar 14mm.
