Venty by Storz & Bickel

[seki]

We hear that 10,000 units from the initial launch were bricked. They were replaced with another 10,000 units. Then there's however many thousands of units they've sold on top of that.

I'm still very curious as to how many devices were ultimately bricked or even just affected by these issues out of the gate. Was there ever an official source for this?

If it is 10,000 it's not insignificant, but we do have a little bit of information that may help put that number into context. Back in 2021, they were producing approximately 1,500 devices per day:

With the launch of its first portable vaporizers – Mighty and Crafty – in 2014, the company soon doubled sales and staff. A couple of years later, S&B built its current German factory where it now produces about 1,500 devices per day, Bickel told MJBizDaily.

The 1,500 unit figure is likely dated now as the article also mentions that they were finalizing plans to increase capacity at their factory by 40%. This is also detailed in a promotional video from around the same time as the article. If the time stamps don't work, this expansion is described by Markus Storz at 32:29:

I think it's likely that their factory expansion has completed now so napkin math tells me that an increase of 40% in capacity roughly equals an additional 600 units on top of the 1,500 they were producing daily. Given 20 working days this comes to approximately 42,000 units per month. If manufacturing capacity is split equally across their 5 product lines, then we're looking at about 420 Ventys a day, or 8,400 a month at a minimum. That comes to about 58,800 units in the 7 months since sales started last October in addition to whatever was manufactured in preparation for the product launch. Given that it's their new product it's entirely possible and imo quite likely that they've allocated additional resources to their manufacture so I'd guess that the numbers are higher.

As usual though, outside of the quoted info everything else is just conjecture based on what I've read.

 

[letter never sent]

I've noticed some burnt material stuck to my bowl after the last couple sessions with the Venty. Not doing anything different or noticing anything different other than this. Happened with two different strains too. Seems like one part of the oven is getting hotter or something because the rest of the AVB looked fine, but when I go dump the bowl, I'm left with this mess stuck to the walls. It was difficult to remove, needed to scrape with a tool and also use some iso to clean up. I hit up S&B, but they told me I need to send a sharper photo, so now I need to reproduce this again tonight.

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Aryeah]

I have not experienced this, but it looks like the peak plastic melting underneath and flowing under the metal lip. Whereas it gets hot melts and then cools after, it's coming through the space when you inhale and sticking to the heater unit. It could be quality control, where they missed extra peak that wasn't cut smoothly to fit the heater inside.

 

[florduh]

Is the Venty the first product launch after S&B was bought out by a private equity firm a few years back?

 

[invertedisdead]

Is the Venty the first product launch after S&B was bought out by a private equity firm a few years back?

I believe it was the Volcano Hybrid.

 

[n0tu2]

I doubt it's PEEK melting..? misconceptions with PEEK and regular plastics.. People think 'it's made of plastic' it's cheap.. they are thinking of their remote control and other electronic device plastics.. That type plastic melts with a BiC lighter flame and reeks when burned - lol. If PEEK was cheap to use everyone would be using it.. This is a high end plastic polymer that's heat resistant and won't even start to melt unless it hits 662-723F.. If it was that hot he would have combusted way before. Off gassing is also very low with PEEK and even after long very high heat exposures it releases very few hydrocarbons and pure water molecules. The heater is all metal and coil only surrounded by a PEEK shell.. the body is hard as a rock and not a flimsy feeling plastic.. those who own will contest.

Those melty buttons I doubt too.. doubt they melted.. I think they are made of some cheap China plastic that broke around the triangle seams from excessive use.. most people don't use the plus/minus buttons after setting temp and boosts once so my guess is S&B did cheap on those thinking regular plastic may be fine for the buttons... but yeah, probably wasn't a good idea.. bad batch/supplier/choice. Not defending them as they made some poor choices on the buttons.

I've noticed some burnt material stuck to my bowl after the last couple sessions with the Venty.

Did you put anything in there out of the ordinary before this started happening? Hash or concentrates? It looks like carbon or hash turd remnants.. Is your bud from a dispo/legal? could be some adulterated stuff being left behind after it's vaped. Remember the grit weed scare? Clowns putting salts or glass beads to make it sparkle/better bag appeal.. but that wouldn't explain why it only occurs in that one spot.. even if you combusted I don't think it would stick to the bowl like that? I must of put 100 bowls through mine so far and it looks brand new / no stains like that at all.. I've just been brushing the avb out.. most of it falls out by itself when tapped out.. Just doing ISO swabs every once and a while (15-20 bowls) and a quick burn off.. Are you doing all max 410F power hits?

This is an odd one ..

 

[letter never sent]

@n0tu2 I’ve been using this device for 6 months with no issue and this just randomly started happening. No change in method or material. I only use top shelf flower from a local SoCal dispensary. I start my sessions at 383 and boost to 410 to finish. Didn’t notice anything was off during the session, only when dumping the load and revealing the material stuck to the wall of the bowl. Very strange indeed.

 

[n0tu2]

@n0tu2 I’ve been using this device for 6 months with no issue and this just randomly started happening. No change in method or material. I only use top shelf flower from a local SoCal dispensary. I start my sessions at 383 and boost to 410 to finish. Didn’t notice anything was off during the session, only when dumping the load and revealing the material stuck to the wall of the bowl. Very strange indeed.

No idea then.. Curious what S&B is gonna say.. Could it be a bad batch/mislabel of your flower? Infused with diamonds by accident maybe? Test a completely different brand and stop using it if it happens with a different brand. very very odd.. Good luck man..

 

[letter never sent]

No idea then.. Curious what S&B is gonna say.. Could it be a bad batch/mislabel of your flower? Infused with diamonds by accident maybe? Test a completely different brand and stop using it if it happens with a different brand. very very odd.. Good luck man..

Thing is, I’ve been using the flower in question for the past week without issue. And this happened with two different strains I currently have on hand.

They didn’t think my photo above was good enough so I’ll do another bowl tonight and see if I can take some better ones.

 

[n0tu2]

Thing is, I’ve been using the flower in question for the past week without issue. And this happened with two different strains I currently have on hand.

They didn’t think my photo above was good enough so I’ll do another bowl tonight and see if I can take some better ones.

Sounds like a stall technique by them.. If you complain enough they will probably just RMA it and we will never know what it was. If you haven't used a tool on it to scrape out stuff before this started then no idea what could cause that. A metal dab tool or similar could leave micro abrasions on that coating for sure.. same with the magic eraser stuff, and hot spots may form there.. but other then that it's a mystery..

Watch after tonights bowl it won't happen.. or ever again, lol.

 

[letter never sent]

It happened exactly the same again. See the link for better photos. I just sent these to S&B. Certainly looks and feels like combusted flower stuck to the oven wall.

Album — Postimages

postimg.cc

 

[n0tu2]

It happened exactly the same again. See the link for better photos. I just sent these to S&B. Certainly looks and feels like combusted flower stuck to the oven wall.

Album — Postimages

postimg.cc

Oh man Definately looks like a hot spot.. Your getting a brand new one soon. Surprised this didn't throw a real E04 error? Probably will soon if you keep using it.. Demand a shipping label 🏷

 

[letter never sent]

Oh man Definately looks like a hot spot.. Your getting a brand new one soon. Surprised this didn't throw a real E04 error? Probably will soon if you keep using it.. Demand a shipping label 🏷

I had E04 one time, the day I unboxed this unit back in late November. It was a replacement for the bricked unit I bought launch week. It went away after a few minutes and never came back. They told me it was fine.

 

[n0tu2]

I had E04 one time, the day I unboxed this unit back in late November. It was a replacement for the bricked unit I bought launch week. It went away after a few minutes and never came back. They told me it was fine.

I'm probably next then.. mine had about 8 E04s maybe more (at least 1 per charge randomly usually when battery was 2 or 3 bars). It's a 2nd release unit from right after the original brickings when they started selling them again. The E04s stopped after the firmware update..

Will be the 1st to report if it fails tho.. so far so good tho.. knock on peek

 

[Stonedbadger]

Looks like the issues have been taken care off, has their been any discounts for the Venty??

 

[letter never sent]

It happened exactly the same again. See the link for better photos. I just sent these to S&B. Certainly looks and feels like combusted flower stuck to the oven wall.

Album — Postimages

postimg.cc

Amazingly, S&B’s initial response to these photos is to blame me and the material I’m using.

 

[passenger]

Amazingly, S&B’s initial response to these photos is to blame me and the material I’m using.

What did they say?

 

[letter never sent]

What did they say?

“We think this is not a problem caused by the vaporizer but rather by the herbs you vaporized.

Does this phenomenon occurred again in further sessions?”

I replied to explain I was using the same material for a week without issue, it has happened with two different strains, and this is all top shelf flower from a local legal dispensary. Will see what they say. I don’t even want to use the device again because there is clearly something wrong with it.

 

[justcametomind]

“We think this is not a problem caused by the vaporizer but rather by the herbs you vaporized.

Does this phenomenon occurred again in further sessions?”

I replied to explain I was using the same material for a week without issue, it has happened with two different strains, and this is all top shelf flower from a local legal dispensary. Will see what they say. I don’t even want to use the device again because there is clearly something wrong with it.

you could make a video without inhaling where you put some weed/abv at full temp on that hotter side of the oven, wait a couple minutes until it is visible that weed gets stuck to that side.

I'm still very curious as to how many devices were ultimately bricked or even just affected by these issues out of the gate. Was there ever an official source for this?

If it is 10,000 it's not insignificant, but we do have a little bit of information that may help put that number into context. Back in 2021, they were producing approximately 1,500 devices per day:

The 1,500 unit figure is likely dated now as the article also mentions that they were finalizing plans to increase capacity at their factory by 40%. This is also detailed in a promotional video from around the same time as the article. If the time stamps don't work, this expansion is described by Markus Storz at 32:29:

I think it's likely that their factory expansion has completed now so napkin math tells me that an increase of 40% in capacity roughly equals an additional 600 units on top of the 1,500 they were producing daily. Given 20 working days this comes to approximately 42,000 units per month. If manufacturing capacity is split equally across their 5 product lines, then we're looking at about 420 Ventys a day, or 8,400 a month at a minimum. That comes to about 58,800 units in the 7 months since sales started last October in addition to whatever was manufactured in preparation for the product launch. Given that it's their new product it's entirely possible and imo quite likely that they've allocated additional resources to their manufacture so I'd guess that the numbers are higher.

As usual though, outside of the quoted info everything else is just conjecture based on what I've read.

In this page Troy says 50.000 Venty units were produced until now.

[News] 2 out of 50000+ Venty Vaporizers have Melted

The Venty Vaporizer has been on the market for 6 months and continues to surprise everyone!

420vapezone.com

quotes from the article above:

Red Flag? Cause for Alarm?​

These are two *dangerous* faults. It looks scary and no one wants to inhale melty plastic fumes.
Two out of 50,000 is only .004%.
If we assume there are 20 out of 50k, that’s still only .04% as a critical failure rate.
Maybe they’ve only sold 20,000 Venty. If there are 20 melty Venty out there, that’s a .1% failure rate. While that’s still *very low* – it’s probably high enough for Storz & Bickel to take action on.

I’m Still Using & Recommending the Venty​

These melting problems are nowhere near widespread enough to be alarmed.
Most electronic vaporizers have higher failure rates than Storz & Bickel and despite what you read in the comments, they still have top-notch quality control and warranty.
The Venty is the most powerful portable dry herb vaporizer available. As long as no more vapes are melting, I will continue to use my Venty daily. See my Venty Review to understand why it’s the best.

 

[Bologna]

Almost half a grand for this ugly addled monstrosity over 7 months in from an OG manufacturer....?

As my dead Mother (RIP) would say when asked about something disagreeable: "I think, no."

IMO

 

[passenger]

We don't know the real numbers though. Not everyone runs to reddit or FC when something goes south.

 

[letter never sent]

“We think this is not a problem caused by the vaporizer but rather by the herbs you vaporized.

Does this phenomenon occurred again in further sessions?”

I replied to explain I was using the same material for a week without issue, it has happened with two different strains, and this is all top shelf flower from a local legal dispensary. Will see what they say. I don’t even want to use the device again because there is clearly something wrong with it.

I just vaped another bowl (same material) and it DIDN'T happen this time. No idea what's going on here.

 

[Dr. G]

Greetings everyone, I need some help please. I wanted to know if that update for Venty...the most recent one a requirement update? Do we all need it even if our machines are working fine? Can I not do the update if my machine is fine? I am just scared the update will mess up my unit for some reason. This is my third one...so, I don't want to fix what is not broken. I could use your expertise anyone please?

 

[Goita]

I was in the same position, had my venty since December. I have done the update and still no issues.

 

[snowdrop7756]

Greetings everyone, I need some help please. I wanted to know if that update for Venty...the most recent one a requirement update? Do we all need it even if our machines are working fine? Can I not do the update if my machine is fine? I am just scared the update will mess up my unit for some reason. This is my third one...so, I don't want to fix what is not broken. I could use your expertise anyone please?

I would personally update it regardless and keep it up to date. There is complex logic in how the sensors and everything work. Apparently ones leaving the factory since November have also had iterations, 1.3, 1.4, etc. A device like this especially purchased so close to launch you really want to keep up to date.