Re:E cigarette
by abalashov on Friday July 17, 2009 @06:50AM
(#709633)
It's not a bad idea, and certainly is the first alternative nicotine product that replicates a lot of the cognitive feedback and sensations that are so intricate to the positively reinforced behaviours of smokers. I've tried a few of these and have been reasonably satisfied with the experience, and during the time that I had them I pretty much was ready to never smoke a real cigarette again. It's not that the experience is comparable to real smoking, and if you expect that it is, you won't like the e-cigs; that's the wrong question to be asking. The real question is whether it's something you can make yourself switch to, not whether it's identical--it's not.
While the damn things worked, that is. The problem is that the cheap, Chinese-made technology breaks down after a few weeks, necessitating a complete replacement (and, of course, waiting for it). The vendors appear to know this: they are happy to send you a replacement unit free of charge and with no questions asked, but they won't answer any questions either. I told them I appreciated their generous warranty policy, but what I really wanted to know was, is there something I'm doing wrong with the thing that's causing the atomiser to overheat and/or stop working? To that, the response was amazingly silent. Apparently, that's just the level of product quality. I've had other problems as well -- e.g., after about a month, the batteries won't hold more than about 5 minutes of charge.
Let's just say the MTBF on these is very, very short.
If they'd actually get that part right, I could see this really taking off, Big Tobacco's efforts to kill it notwithstanding. I know Health New Zealand published a study a while back (you can find it as a footnote off the Wikipedia page about e-cigarettes) declaring that it is free of virtually all of the health hazards of real smoking, and appeared to endorse it publicly (NZ has a high per-capita smoking population).
While the damn things worked, that is. The problem is that the cheap, Chinese-made technology breaks down after a few weeks, necessitating a complete replacement (and, of course, waiting for it). The vendors appear to know this: they are happy to send you a replacement unit free of charge and with no questions asked, but they won't answer any questions either. I told them I appreciated their generous warranty policy, but what I really wanted to know was, is there something I'm doing wrong with the thing that's causing the atomiser to overheat and/or stop working? To that, the response was amazingly silent. Apparently, that's just the level of product quality. I've had other problems as well -- e.g., after about a month, the batteries won't hold more than about 5 minutes of charge.
Let's just say the MTBF on these is very, very short.
If they'd actually get that part right, I could see this really taking off, Big Tobacco's efforts to kill it notwithstanding. I know Health New Zealand published a study a while back (you can find it as a footnote off the Wikipedia page about e-cigarettes) declaring that it is free of virtually all of the health hazards of real smoking, and appeared to endorse it publicly (NZ has a high per-capita smoking population).