Zephyr Ion

[Bruce@Zephyr]

Hello, I am Bruce with Zephyr Vaporizers. I am the Marketing Director and the Sales Coordinator. Prior to working with Zephyr Vaporizers I owned a company called Randy's Rolling Papers. I sold that company a year ago November in order to focus on Zephyr and the Zephyr Ion as I was converted to the true value of vaporization over combustion. That big leap from strictly combustion and paper to pure vapor did not start with the Zephyr Ion, I was first introduced to a style of vape that was essentially a upside down fishbowl on top of a soldering iron with a brass bowl affixed to it. That vape turned me off of vaporizers for a while. The next unit I tried looked like a thermos, and was a bit complicated for my dumb ass. The unit after that, the one that opened my eyes to vaporization was the Hot Box vaporizer, sure enough, American made and it did all of the things I was being told a vaporizer would do, I still like the whip style. I wasn't much of a fan of forced air style vaporizers because I thought that they wasted biomass and were quite pricey. A friend who owned one showed me that you don't always have to fill the bowl with biomass,... you could use a little bit and after the learning curve, I think forced air can be every bit as efficient as direct draw.
Why do you care about any of this? I just thought I would give you a bit of history of who I am how I came to be here.

Now on to this business of a contest and some of the things that were said in the above posts.....

First off, "ZephyrSupport" does indeed work with Zephyr Vaporizers and while we appreciate his enthusiasm for the product line he is in no way authorized to create contests or speak in these forums as "the voice of Zephyr"

On to the actual contest.

This comes across as way too arrogant,competitive and pushy. "Zephyr is up to take on any challenge and all new comers!" whoaaa now!! I have been trying, and continue to focus on Zephyr as a company that believes there is room for everyone and that personal choice plays a large factor in our "Mission". We are not here to kick the competitions ass, or prove that they all SUCK compared to our godliness as a vape company. There is room for everyone and the open market will dictate that we are a good company that cares about our customers, patients and welcome the variety of delivery methods available to help people in need.

from a "intent" perspective, we can not hold this contest. What the f**k will people be putting into their Ion?
Cardholders aside: Are we asking people to break the law? Are we asking people to break the law with our product, to video tape it and to put it online where anyone can have access? Are we suggesting that our product is not only good to be used for something illegal but is the best thing to use for that illegal reason?

We are asking NONE of these things of you. Please do not create videos to send to us.

I am sorry to say this contest is NOT on, it will not happen!
I will create a separate contest for the people on this site and will be giving away 2 Zephyr Ions.
I am open to ideas on what type of contest you would like to have. (I have always been partial to Haiku)

I would be happy to answer any questions you throw my way, either here on FC or to my direct email bruce@zephyrvaporizers.com

 

[Konrad_Zuse]

Hello, I am Bruce with Zephyr Vaporizers. I am the Marketing Director and the Sales Coordinator. Prior to working with Zephyr Vaporizers I owned a company called Randy's Rolling Papers. I sold that company a year ago November in order to focus on Zephyr and the Zephyr Ion as I was converted to the true value of vaporization over combustion. That big leap from strictly combustion and paper to pure vapor did not start with the Zephyr Ion, I was first introduced to a style of vape that was essentially a upside down fishbowl on top of a soldering iron with a brass bowl affixed to it. That vape turned me off of vaporizers for a while. The next unit I tried looked like a thermos, and was a bit complicated for my dumb ass. The unit after that, the one that opened my eyes to vaporization was the Hot Box vaporizer, sure enough, American made and it did all of the things I was being told a vaporizer would do, I still like the whip style. I wasn't much of a fan of forced air style vaporizers because I thought that they wasted biomass and were quite pricey. A friend who owned one showed me that you don't always have to fill the bowl with biomass,... you could use a little bit and after the learning curve, I think forced air can be every bit as efficient as direct draw.
Why do you care about any of this? I just thought I would give you a bit of history of who I am how I came to be here.

Now on to this business of a contest and some of the things that were said in the above posts.....

First off, "ZephyrSupport" does indeed work with Zephyr Vaporizers and while we appreciate his enthusiasm for the product line he is in no way authorized to create contests or speak in these forums as "the voice of Zephyr"

On to the actual contest.

This comes across as way too arrogant,competitive and pushy. "Zephyr is up to take on any challenge and all new comers!" whoaaa now!! I have been trying, and continue to focus on Zephyr as a company that believes there is room for everyone and that personal choice plays a large factor in our "Mission". We are not here to kick the competitions ass, or prove that they all SUCK compared to our godliness as a vape company. There is room for everyone and the open market will dictate that we are a good company that cares about our customers, patients and welcome the variety of delivery methods available to help people in need.

from a "intent" perspective, we can not hold this contest. What the f**k will people be putting into their Ion?
Cardholders aside: Are we asking people to break the law? Are we asking people to break the law with our product, to video tape it and to put it online where anyone can have access? Are we suggesting that our product is not only good to be used for something illegal but is the best thing to use for that illegal reason?

We are asking NONE of these things of you. Please do not create videos to send to us.

I am sorry to say this contest is NOT on, it will not happen!
I will create a separate contest for the people on this site and will be giving away 2 Zephyr Ions.
I am open to ideas on what type of contest you would like to have. (I have always been partial to Haiku)

I would be happy to answer any questions you throw my way, either here on FC or to my direct email bruce@zephyrvaporizers.com

Welcome to the site Bruce, glad to have you. We appreciate you coming here and explaining everything, I personally have no idea what was going on, but it looks like things seem to be clearing up. Also about the contest, if it is true, then I suggest something EVERYONE on the forums can participate it. For example, the contest stated above was using your own vaporizer, and one we have had originally. First I don't think it's a good idea, seeing as how many people actually own this unit? It's not fair to everyone. I think the contest needs something that we all can participate it, something that someone like me, who has only 1 unit, versus someone on here who has 5 or 6. Right now nothing comes to mind, but I will hopefully think of something in the future .

 

[Bruce@Zephyr]

Welcome to the site Bruce, glad to have you. We appreciate you coming here and explaining everything, I personally have no idea what was going on, but it looks like things seem to be clearing up. Also about the contest, if it is true, then I suggest something EVERYONE on the forums can participate it. For example, the contest stated above was using your own vaporizer, and one we have had originally. First I don't think it's a good idea, seeing as how many people actually own this unit? It's not fair to everyone. I think the contest needs something that we all can participate it, something that someone like me, who has only 1 unit, versus someone on here who has 5 or 6. Right now nothing comes to mind, but I will hopefully think of something in the future .

Konrad,
I agree, I am trying to get more Zephyr Ions into peoples hands, not only reward people who have already purchased one. I have yet to even think of a good idea for a contest but I think it should be something easy, something most anyone can do and fun.
Bruce

 

[lwien]

Thanks for clearing this up Bruce. Sometimes ya just gotta reign in these loose cannons, especially when they are an overly enthusiastic loose cannon who hasn't gone through marketing 101 yet and one of the first rules he broke is, do not slam another product line while promoting your own, especially when you are trying to establish the credibility of a new product. Ya just introduce it, explain why it was created, what it does, the key selling points, and let the market dictate the viability. Ya just can't shove that down peoples throats by slamming products that many of us here own, let alone the fact that that contest must have scared the hell out of you............

Here are a few ideas for a contest:
a) Come up with a contest.
b) Funniest sentence with the word Zephyr in it.
c) If you had no idea that the Zephyr Ion was a vaporizer, and had no idea what vaporizers were, what would you THINK it is when you first saw it. Funniest answer wins.

 

[Bruce@Zephyr]

Thanks for clearing this up Bruce. Sometimes ya just gotta reign in these loose cannons, especially when they are an overly enthusiastic loose cannon who hasn't gone through marketing 101 yet and one of the first rules he broke is, do not slam another product line while promoting your own, especially when you are trying to establish the credibility of a new product. Ya just introduce it, explain why it was created, what it does, the key selling points, and let the market dictate the viability. Ya just can't shove that down peoples throats by slamming products that many of us here own, let alone the fact that that contest must have scared the hell out of you............

Here are a few ideas for a contest:
a) Come up with a contest.
b) Funniest sentence with the word Zephyr in it.
c) If you had no idea that the Zephyr Ion was a vaporizer, and had no idea what vaporizers were, what would you THINK it is when you first saw it. Funniest answer wins.

Iwien,
That is great! I think the come up with a contest contest is an idea that should work well. Technically you just won that one, but I think I should run the contest for a bit longer.
Come up with a contest to win a Zephyr Ion and win a Zephyr Ion,... then we will run with the winning contest entry and the winner of that contest will also win a ION,... everyone who enters will win something. Don't get too excited,.. most of you will win a sticker. *

Sound Good?**

I am new to posting on forums in general and if I am out of line by offering this here or if there is a space on the forums I should offer this contest any advice would be appreciated. Being new to this forum concept I don't want to break any unwritten rules or step on folks toes.
Bruce

*typical rules apply: Must be over 18, enter as ofter as you like, one prize per contestant regardless of number of entries

**Hint** the judges are partial to humor and alluding to a "biomass" without naming that "biomass"

 

[Progress]

Bruce,

I like how you conduct yourself and what you seem to represent (you can check the rules and I am sure the mods will kindly let you know if you are breaking any).

And, since they seem to be phasing out the words FUCK COMBUSTION on the website, it is about time we have someone with an avatar of themselves in a shirt-n-tie (I even enjoyed the little story about going from papers to vapors).

My on the contest is that you should do whatever you want to do (and whatever potential customers will enjoy most). You just need to have a disclaimer about not wanting any illegal activity etc.

My ideas are "How vaporizing has changed your (or someone you know's) life", "What you like about the Ion (and why you wish you had one)" or "Pimp that Ion (how could you creatively use your Ion to benefit your vaping experience)"...

 

[lwien]

Technically you just won that one, but I think I should run the contest for a bit longer.

I understand, but..........

 

[Bruce@Zephyr]

Progress, funny thing about that tie, if you could get a close up you would see it has little zephyr ion silhouette logos all over. cool thing we picked up before the MPP Gala in DC last week.

 

[vtac]

Bruce, welcome to FC. The professionalism is appreciated, thanks for that.

A contest is fine but it should be separate from the product discussion thread. If you want to start fresh with a new official thread for your product that's fine and probably not a bad idea. Any contest thread should go in the lounge. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email.

Look forward to learning more about the Zephyr.

 

[Bruce@Zephyr]

Bruce, welcome to FC. The professionalism is appreciated, thanks for that.

A contest is fine but it should be separate from the product discussion thread. If you want to start fresh with a new official thread for your product that's fine and probably not a bad idea. Any contest thread should go in the lounge. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email.

Look forward to learning more about the Zephyr.

Thank you.

I must say that the actual facts presented by "ZephyrSupport" were indeed accurate.

A couple questions that were not answered or may need elaboration:

Air Path:
The air channel is ceramic
the heating element is encased in ceramic
the other materials used are Teflon
304 surgical stainless steel (Baskets and screens)
All of the materials in the entire air path are non reactive at the temperatures involved.

Bag/Whip:
When we first created the Ion we thought the whip was a novelty that only we would be using ourselves. The first units to ship did not include a whip although any customer who asks can get their first one free, sort of a upgrade I guess. The newer units will include a custom glass whip that will work fine with or without the air pump.

China:
I understand there is a lot of folks who don't like Chinese made vapes and the connotation they have. This is not a vape in that vein. We own the factory in China where our product is manufactured, it is not outsourced third party to the lowest bidder. Quality control is very important to us. (You don't get repeat customers if you kill them off with lead poisoning, just a bad business model all around)

Vapor Leakage:
The leakage is an issue that we feel we can constantly improve upon. While 0% leakage would be ideal, there are a lot of factors to consider.
On the Ion mouthpiece itself we have incorporated a grommet that is slightly teardrop shaped where the bag meets the mouthpiece. If the zip tie is not seated proper on the grommet it will leak from there.
On the inside if the o-ring is not seated properly in the top part of the lid, there will be leakage.
If the bag itself is covering the intake hole there will be leakage.
These are all easy fixes but we are constantly working to improve everything so even that will not be an issue.

Defects:
This is something that has not been addressed but I think it is fair in the spirit of honesty. The Zephyr Ion is very new and we have had a 3% defect rate. We are not happy with this but we stand behind and honor our 2 year warranty. There is not a big complicated process to get your unit fixed should something go wrong. The typical things that go wrong have to do with circuit board issues and have been addressed.

Price:
Suggested retail price for the ION is $360 and we do not sell them directly from our site as it wouldn't be fair to the distributors.

I think that is about it. If I have missed anything please let me know.
Bruce