I was lent a Volcano Hybrid to try out and here are my impressions.
TL;DR – I love the added conduction…it works…and I love the whip. I think the Hybrid would have been a great replacement for the Digit
at the same price as the Digit. But sadly, that’s not the case.
1. Unboxing – fuggedaboutit. If I have to look at another unboxing vid I will scream. It comes boxed very nicely by S&B. What else do you want to know
2. What you Get – The Volcano, power cord, four bags, a whip, the chamber, some replacement screens, o-rings, and air filters.
3. Construction and Material Quality – this is still an S&B Volcano….it’s built like a brick outhouse. It feels like the very same construction as all other Volcanos. That is, professional and well done. Like all Volcanos, if you shake it you can hear the air pump bang around a bit…this is on purpose, I believe. Apparently its shock mounted and given some room to flex about rather than break. There are few areas of note regarding construction and material quality:
- Power Cord - the Hybrid comes with a removable power cord. This is welcomed as it makes putting the dang thing away a bit easier and neater. However, the OG, permanently attached power cords were very heavy duty with what feels like a lot of copper in there. Good and heavy provokes confidence IMO, but it also kinked over time (well mine did) and it is fairly unruly to store away. The new cord is much more like a heavy duty lamp cord. So far, no issues but just something to note.
- Whip Material - not sure WTF this is made of. If its silicone then it feels different to the hand that all other silicone tubing I have handled. On the other hand, it does not pick up dust and lint like almost all other silicone tubing I have handled. No smell but I’m not very sensitive to that stuff.
- Chamber rings – Ok, they are plastic. And, it is a ring held off from the central chamber portion by plastic spokes. It feels very light weight, however, it didn’t feel at all flimsy to me and it did the intended job of keeping heat away from your fingers. With the Hybrid’s added conduction component, the core of the oven gets really dang hot. No way that the old design would work…that stuff would be scorching. So, while not feeling heavy duty, does it need to be heavy duty? And, it certainly did its job of making handling of the oven safe and cool.
- Touch senor buttons – I’m generally ok with these as they are higher reliability components than mechanical switches and can be easily shaped into different configurations and to contour the device. But they do have a down side. I found the switches on the Hybrid to be VERY sensitive. It was real easy to brush the Air button and turn on the pump inadvertently. Also, mechanical switches can be often replaced by the home DIY person. No so with touch sensor switches. Finally, there is little to no tactile feedback which is an objection I have to my touch screen infected dashboard of my car! LOL
4. Function and Performance
- Conduction really works – I have had a Digit for about four years now, I think, and I do love it. However, even though I know that “green” is chlorophyll, it always bothered me to see the standard full convection Volcano Poo greenish AVB. I could easily see the difference in AVB with the added conduction of the Hybrid in the AVB color. AVB color was an even coffee brown and, right or wrong, this makes me feel more confident in having gotten full extraction. Also, the conduction portion was apparent to me at the end of a session. I have long noted that with many/most traditional conduction vapes, that at the end of the session you can get a goodly string of sort of wispy but “hard to just leave in there” kind of draws. I would see this as very apparent with an old Flowermate that I used to have. After pretty much killing the load, I would still get thin draw of visible vapor…a series of them….and I got a few of them at the end of the Hybrid session. Just what I would expect from hybrid convection/conduction.
- Efficiency and Load Size – well, I guess that this part depends on your definition of efficiency. To me, a vape is very efficient if it extracts out and delivers a very high percentage of available cannabinoids, terps, flavonoids, and all the rest. Another way to look at efficiency…probably more commonly used by people…is did I get the effects I want from a fairly small load size. VapCap, MV1, or Grasshopper are examples. Well, the hybrid is a Volcano after all and micro-dosing is nowhere in its lexicon, IMO. Yes, they have a chamber reducer and capsules, but I personally have never felt that they worked very well with the Volcano and believe it works best in the native oven. You can top a smaller load in a Volcano with a liquid pad, but it’s still definitely not a micro-doser to my mind. This Volcano is like others, IMO. It runs best with probably a minimum of .25 g and runs very well with .4 g. But I do view this Hybrid as efficient and view it as more efficient than other versions as I believe it more fully extracts my flower due to the added conduction.
- Taste – I only used the whip….I mean, I have a Digit and the bag system has been out for over 10 years. But the whip was new and I absolutely thought the taste from the whip on the first few hits was way better than bag vapor. I like bags…I’m into medicating and I want it done and done quickly. Thick bags support my use case very well. But, bag vapor tends to taste muddled to me. With the whip, the notes of the strain came out…again in those first few draws (max) as I feel that taste goes away very quickly no matter what vape I use. To me, taste was improved with the whip but its new and clean so that must be taken into account.
- The Whip – I liked it. Manual says to run the air pump for 5 seconds to “prime” the load. I found this to be too long and a bit of a waste of vapor. I ran the fan for just a second or two until I saw vapor coming out of the whip then turned off the air and began drawing. I also used the whip with no blown air priming and it was fine. Taste and not much vapor on the first draw, then plenty of visible vapor on subsequent draws. I also like the fact that the whip is mounted so it rotates. Makes handling it very easy, IMO.
5.
The App – ahhh, well….personally I only like apps if ALL the functions of the app are also available directly through controls on the device itself. But, in the case of the Hybrid, there are some settings (e.g. setting auto-shut off or turning off the aural notification of running the pump when it reaches temp) that are not available on the device itself. Personally, I believe that some combination of button pushes on the device itself could have also been used as an alternative to the app for these setting type functions.
- Loading the app and connecting – the app loaded easily but getting it to connect to BT was a bit baffling. First, you have to load in the serial number of the device into the app. Until this is done, you won’t even see the Hybrid in your phone’s BT list of devices. Now, this is what my serial number label looks like. Please note the fourth character from the right. Does that look like a zero…a zed…to you? Well, it did to me also and we are both wrong! Haha That is, while the label definitely looks like a zero, the app was looking for the letter “O” and the app is confusing in that if you do not get the serial number exactly correct, it doesn’t even give you an “enter” or “continue button. If not in correctly, you can only hit “Cancel”. When entered correctly, it automatically submits the serial number and connects. Small but frustrating, at the time, issue
- Firmware Upgrade – not sure what it improved, but the app did immediately ask me if I wanted to upgrade the firmware, which I did. There was a pretty good display of update progress and it seemed to work out ok.
- Functions – yeah, you can turn on the fan and change temp via the app but why? It’s so easy to do on the device. The app does provide info (firmware rev level, hours of use, that kind of thing….whoopee!) Personally, after a few changes in the Settings area, I just didn’t find the need to use the app again. TBH, same with my MV1’s.
For me, bottom line is that this unit would have been great as a replacement for the Digit AT THE SAME PRICE. Vapor.com and Puffitup are now asking $599 for a Digit and all you get extra is a cheap ass grinder. I'm pretty sure that 4 years ago my Digit was $550 or so from Vapor Nation (with Vape Critic code maybe?) and they threw in free overnight shipping and a big ballistic nylon case made for the 'Cano. IMO, this would be a fair deal/pricefor the Hybrid.
If you don’t have a Volcano and want one, I suggest the Hybrid but feel certain that the price will come down a bit with time. Cream City Vapes offers a pretty good (20% maybe?) discount on the Hybrid and reports on transactions with them that I have seen are all positive while getting the price down to something a bit more reasonable.
If you have a Volcano, as I do, it’s hard to see the need to upgrade to the Hybrid unless you got a good price for your used Volcano or whips are REALLY important to you.
P.S. - Oh, also...I didn't use the "work flow" function of the app insofar as based on my own investigation of available data leads me to firmly think that selective extraction by temp control is not really feasible and it seems to me that work flow is only applicable to the bag anyway. You may well view this differently but to me it just looks like a gimmick.
I’m sure I have forgotten something but these are my initial views.