What features would you want in a comparison tool?

[parisholley]

Over the last few weeks we've been working a vaporizer compare tool and soft launched this week (excluding URL as it contains affiliate links and may be considered promotional). Currently, we built in the following features:

• Price comparison up to 30+ vape stores (price and availability refreshed every few hours)
• Shipping + tax calculations based on your current location
• Aggregation of reviews from across the web per product
• Side-by-side spec comparison of products

This week we hope to add more informational items to guide the user on what to look for (more wizard style as it is very data heavy at the moment).

Adding all this info is pretty exhausting :x Many bits of information we had to gather from a ton of sources, even digging through pages of threads on here.

Some features we hope to add this week:

• overall score based on various criteria (critic reviews, specs, availability, etc)
• summarized good/bad lists based on specs

Currently, we capture the following specs on vapes:

• Designed For (Dry/Extract/Liquid)
  • If it supports attachments, which they are designed for (ie: additional atomizers)
• Dry Herb/Butane Capacity
• Heating Type (convection/conduction/hybrid)
• Heating Source (batter/butane/ac)
• Battery
  • Replaceable?
  • Range
  • Re-charge Time
• Heating Element Material
• Heat Up Time
• Temperature Range
• Temperature Settings (Analog, Digital, Preset, Fixed)
• Activation (Session, Pull, Hold)
• Delivery Method (Direct, Whip, Balloon)
• Manufactured In
• Release Date
• Warranty Information
• Dimensions / Weight
• 510 / eGo support
• Whether an additional mouth piece is required (ie: any whip/balloon, portable vapes with glass attachments/pipes, etc)
• Mobile Application Support

Specs to add:

• Fan Powered (not sure how needed this would be given that it is usually implied by balloon vapes)
• Air Path (all glass, etc)
• Cooling System? - Not sure how to best define this, active/passive, extended airway vs heat exchanger, etc
• Atomizer Material (Quartz, Ceramic, etc): mostly for pen vapes

 

[jojo monkey]

Nice!

I assume wattage is in the mix? Maybe if it is an open or closed loop? I mean a vape can be digital and still use a dumb dimmer.

 

[CarolKing]

Vapor flavor is a big one for me.

Tiny little parts to deal with. I don't like little pieces that can get lost, like the oven door on the original Indica vaporizer it detaches it's easily lost. Then has to be replaced.

The size of the oven. Some people like a large oven for your cannabis. I don't, I prefer an oven that's on the smaller side.

Adding in the cost of any user replaceable batteries. I wouldn't want to pay more than $18. Or the cost of the nails that you buy for the EVO. Extra equipment that you need to replace every so often.

Ratio of faulty units - that would be difficult to come by that info.

Any weird type of added equipment inside such as bulbs that would need to be replaced. There's a new vaporizer, I can't remember the name, it has small bulbs to deal with.

Is it easy to clean.

How smelly does the vaporizer get when using. Would the smell give you away? They all smell, some more than others. My Ascent reeks.

 

[parisholley]

Nice!

I assume wattage is in the mix? Maybe if it is an open or closed loop? I mean a vape can be digital and still use a dumb dimmer.

At the moment we don't track wattage. Is the general purpose to determine what the rated temperature would be? I would imagine based on the watt + heating material, it would be hard to compare wattages with any consistency?

 

[Delta3DStudios]

User supplied reviews of specific vaporizers.

People don't trust content on websites themselves anymore, they need legitimate unfiltered feedback from actual users

 

[parisholley]

Vapor flavor is a big one for me.

Tiny little parts to deal with. I don't like little pieces that can get lost, like the oven door on the original Indica vaporizer it detaches it's easily lost. Then has to be replaced.

The size of the oven. Some people like a large oven for your cannabis. I don't, I prefer an oven that's on the smaller side.

Adding in the cost of any user replaceable batteries. I wouldn't want to pay more than $18. Or the cost of the nails that you buy for the EVO. Extra equipment that you need to replace every so often.

Ratio of faulty units - that would be difficult to come by that info.

Any weird type of added equipment inside such as bulbs that would need to be replaced. There's a new vaporizer, I can't remember the name, it has small bulbs to deal with.

Is it easy to clean.

How smelly does the vaporizer get when using. Would the smell give you away? They all smell, some more than others. My Ascent reeks.

Replacement parts/cost is a good point. For vape pens it is atomizers, desktops can have balloons, etc.

Currently we capture the "dry herb capacity", which would effectively be the oven size?

Faulty units we think of just having a note on certain products that have negative feedback on the web. For example, if someone has bad customer service or a lot going in for warranty, we can show links to forum threads, etc to review. We've identified a few already, but definitely want to warn people ahead of time.

Easy to clean/smell I feel may be hard to capture objectively. I suppose we could allow the public to leave feedback on certain points like that since it can't be derived from specs.

 

[parisholley]

User supplied reviews of specific vaporizers.

People don't trust content on websites themselves anymore, they need legitimate unfiltered feedback from actual users

Agree, as we made the rounds of aggregating critic reviews we noticed they tended to skew towards being very favorable most of the time. While we can definitely implement some weighting on top of that, real user reviews are needed.

We have thought of maybe even aggregating user submitted reviews from multiple websites (many vape stores seem to capture them), but I am worried about those being skewed as well (if people are being encouraged to leave positive feedback for discounts, etc). I would hope they at the very least limit reviews to people who purchased, but who knows.

While we will likely allow users to leave reviews on our site, it doesn't really stop trolls or people from just giving "bad reviews". At least with a forum like FC, most users have a history and if something comes up and it isn't all rants.

 

[CarolKing]

@Ratchett is right. Usually if someone is being helpful and trying to steer folks in a certain direction about various vaporizers, it usually means they are getting something out of it. Getting free stuff or paid to advertise. We want unbiased opinions regarding various vaporizers and a lot of different opinions. I read through 20-30 pages if I'm interested in a particular unit.

When a new unit is coming out I like to read about beta users before I get too excited.

 

[Hippie Dickie]

At the moment we don't track wattage. Is the general purpose to determine what the rated temperature would be? ...

the key feature of wattage is how effectively the vape can handle a hit without having a temperature drop. it takes about 50+ watts to allow a big hit and maintain the temperature. when my vape only had 15 watts (5volts @ 3amps) it would drop 50F during a hit ... now my vape is 72 watts (6volts @ 12amps) and actually increases temperature during a hit.

unfortunately, a lot of vapes are made with secret sauce and a lot of details are hidden from view.

 

[parisholley]

the key feature of wattage is how effectively the vape can handle a hit without having a temperature drop. it takes about 50+ watts to allow a big hit and maintain the temperature. when my vape only had 15 watts (5volts @ 3amps) it would drop 50F during a hit ... now my vape is 72 watts (6volts @ 12amps) and actually increases temperature during a hit.

unfortunately, a lot of vapes are made with secret sauce and a lot of details are hidden from view.

ah, good point. how common is it for companies to disclose that? I know voltage seems to be fairly common, but wattage less so.

 

[AJS]

now my vape is 72 watts (6volts @ 12amps) and actually increases temperature during a hit.

Now THAT is scary! I would love to rip a vape that increased in temp no matter how hard I hit. Ohhhhhh boy!

I'm excited to see what this website comes to!

 

[CarolKing]

With FC we have some very good mods that keep folks in check. If it wasn't for them this place would look much different. A big thank you to @vtac for creating this community. It's evolved over the years. A forum like this takes time before it get really great.

 

[Tommy10]

I'd be happy with the assumption that the buyer knows what he/she wants and to just compare online store prices + shipping + taxes and a way to convert to AUD pounds euro and such. Something like Expedia for vapes.

 

[parisholley]

I'd be happy with the assumption that the buyer knows what he/she wants and to just compare online store prices + shipping + taxes and a way to convert to AUD pounds euro and such. Something like Expedia for vapes.

That is where we started, we do auto currency conversion, account for taxes based on the stores jurisdictions, and try to include shipping info if the store does flat rates. Just looking for ways to add more value though

 

[jojo monkey]

At the moment we don't track wattage. Is the general purpose to determine what the rated temperature would be? I would imagine based on the watt + heating material, it would be hard to compare wattages with any consistency?

Is the general purpose to determine what the rated temperature would be?

Maybe it is the max of the battery for a portable and the max wattage for a desktop. I mean an evo is 250W while a nano is like 15w. I think that is something to be seen. What it means is up to the viewer.

I do like the idea of replacement parts costs. Even if you had the cost of a replacement MP or bowl it would be quite telling.

 

[MinnBobber]

When available from manufacturer:
- heater wattage
- battery mAH rating to know exact capacity

Shipping availability/restrictions like ship to US, Europe, Australia, etc

Something about loading system if you could develop language like wire basket and silicone cap module, or glass elbow with wire screen insert, direct in bowl and optional small aluminum cans, etc