CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It’s a little black or white back, equipped with a small blue light, and pops up in a lot of places. From a music video by R&B artist Tyrese, to a paparazzi shot of Lindsey Lohan, to the average Joe in your local bar.
The electronic cigarette, BluCigs has made quite a name for itself in the past two or so years.
With cigarette taxes up and smoking in bars, restaurants, and parks now banned, a subculture has grown up around “e-cigarette” nicotine-delivery devices.
HOW THEY WORK
1. A steel cartridge (found where the filter would be on a regular cigarette) is filled with propylene glycol (commonly used in fog machines), water, flavoring, and varying amounts of nicotine. (It ranges from none at all to around the same amount found in a typical cigarette.) Spent cartridges can be replaced or refilled with a dropper.
2. An atomizer vaporizes the nicotine solution when the “smoker” inhales or presses a button on the side of the device.
3. The battery—the back end of the e-cigarette—is recharged with a USB port.
4. On some models, an LED light activates with each “puff,” for verisimilitude.
THE COST
$4,562: Pack-a-day habit for a year of regular cigarettes.
$636: A year of comparable nicotine intake with e-cigarettes.
THE LINGO
Vaping: The act of inhaling from an e-cigarette.
Analogs: E-cigarette smokers’ label for old fashioned Marlboros and Camels. Used with a palpable air of condescension.
GETTING THE FIX
10ish minutes to finish one e-cigarette dose.
3ish minutes to finish a standard cigarette.
LOCATIONS WHERE ONE CAN LEGALLY SMOKE E-CIGARETTES
• Bars
• Restaurants
• Mayor Bloomberg’s office
DO THEY TAKE YOU TO FLAVOR COUNTRY?
Somewhat. E-cigarettes don’t capture the flavor of tobacco exactly—probably a good thing, given that elements of burning tobacco cause cancer—but they do re-create the burn and “throat hit” of regular cigarette smoke. (They can also be had in more novel flavors, including cigar, coffee, apple pie, eggnog, “Liquorice,” and waffle.)
POPULARITY
Posts on the E-Cigarette Forum Website:
2008: 30,000
2011: 4,2000,000
BUT ARE THEY BAD FOR YOU?
E-cigarettes haven’t been the subject of long-term studies and are not yet regulated by the FDA. But a Journal of Public Health Policy examination of their ingredients concluded that they were likely “much safer than tobacco cigarettes,” and comparable to “conventional nicotine replacement products” like patches.
So it looks like people are ready to slap the word “social” onto just about anything. Case in point: Blu Cigs Smart Pack. It’s a new offering from electronic cigarette maker Blu Cigs that comes with a homing device to find nearby e-cig smokers and Blu Cigs retail locations. Despite the fact that it sounds pretty ridiculous, I find this to be a rather clever move.
Here’s why:
Smoking is a social activity by nature. Total strangers will share their lighters, their cigarettes, and their stories all over the course of a ten minute cigarette break. Even when you start to hate the actual act of smoking, it’s difficult to give up because you get extra breaks during work where you can mingle with co-workers or strangers, and inevitably make friendships. When you’re toking on an e-cig, you’re more or less not welcome.
Thus, the Blu Cigs Smart Pack. Its homing beacon will tell you when there’s another Blu Cigs smoker within a 50-ft radius, or if there’s a nearby retail location. Along with the “social integration,” Blu Cigs also added a few other fun enhancements to the product.
There are a few battery enhancements to make changing batteries easier and extend battery life, along with an “Instant Inventory” feature. This lets you predetermine settings which automatically order you new cigs when your supply is low. Blu Cigs also included the “Convenient Cartomizer,” which gives the user control over nicotine strength and flavor.
http://www.blucigs.com -How blu Batteries Work: John explains how to extend and maintain the battery life of your blu electronic cigarette. Check back for more blucigs videos!
Learn tips and tricks. This is the first of a series of helpful videos.
Thank you Blu Cigarettes, smoking is now convenient again! Even the non-smokers will appreciate this one…Blu Cigarettes. Trying to quit or just cut back for health reasons? Friends and family giving you a hard time about your smoking? Or just annoyed that you can’t smoke anywhere anymore? Blu Cigs is your solution!
Smokeless cigarettes have been around for years but Blu Cigarettes are the best on the market because they are the only ones that give you all the enjoyment of a real cigarette. Blu Cigs look like a cigarette, feel like a cigarette and best of all taste like a cigarette! Other smokeless devices don’t have the “look and feel” of a cigarette and often taste like like your smoking a cleaning product from under your kitchen sink.
Blu Cigarettes uses only “Johnson Creek Original Smoke Juice”, a nicotine-infused liquid produced by Wisconsin’s Johnson Creek company, a USA company, so you know your getting the best in quality. In addition to the Original Classic Tobacco Blu Cigarette they also come in a variety of flavors including Magnificent Menthol, Java Jolt, Vivid Vanilla, Cherry Crush, Spiced Apple Cider, and Smoky Tennessee Cured.
As a smoker I am always trying to cut back or quit, but also my friends and family hate that I smoke. Using Blu Cigarettes I replace most of my “regular” cigarettes during the days which not only decreases my health risks but also gives my family and friends less to complain about.
I travel a lot so Blu Cigs are also convenient for all those places you can’t smoke or don’t want to, like the airport or hotel rooms. Traveling between ultra hot and severely cold climates Blu Cigarettes make smoking much more comfortable and healthier as I don’t have search for the smoking zone outside in sweltering heat or subzero temperatures.
In addition to traveling I socialize a lot and that might include a casual drink or two. And let’s face it, once you have a drink in your hand you probably have a smoke in the other. The next day comes and your entire body is telling you that you have smoked too much, it’s what I call the “smoke-over”. With Blu Cigarettes no more smoke over!
Not only are Blu Cigs convenient when and where I can use them, Blu Cigarettes packaging is also convenient in I never have to worry about recharging the battery because it does it right inside the package. They are also a huge money saver in that I am not spending $150 per month on cigarettes anymore.
Like I said smokeless cigarettes have been around for years and if you have tried them you know they were just not the same as a regular cigarette, but now we have a real option, Blu Cigs. Blu Cigarettes, the most authentic, convenient, money saving way to smoke.
Review of the E-Cig, Blu Cigs. My first impressions after smoking for a day.
Companies have started adding the ability to communicate wirelessly to an increasing range of devices, like tablet computers, cars and refrigerators.
Packs of Blu e-cigarettes will vibrate and flash a blue light when they are within 50 feet of another pack.
Related
Blu, the maker of electronic cigarettes that release a nicotine-laden vapor instead of smoke, has developed packs of e-cigarettes with sensors that will let users know when other e-smokers are nearby.
Think of it as social smoking for the social networking era.
“You’ll meet more people than ever, just because of the wow factor,” said Jason Healy, the founder of Blu, who did not appear to be making friends as he exhaled the odorless vapor of an e-cigarette at a coffee shop in Midtown Manhattan recently. “It’s like with any new technology.”
E-cigarettes have several obvious advantages to their traditional counterparts. They allow users to avoid bans on smoking in public places because they release only water vapor. Mr. Healy and other e-cigarette manufacturers also claim that they have practically no negative health effects — an assertion that draws skepticism in many quarters. But the devices are also, in their own way, gadgets.
The new “smart packs,” which will go on sale next month for $80 for five e-cigarettes, are equipped with devices that emit and search for the radio signals of other packs. When they get within 50 feet of one another, the packs vibrate and flash a blue light.
The reusable packs, which serve as a charger for the cigarettes, can be set to exchange information about their owners, like contact information on social networking sites, that can be downloaded onto personal computers.
The packs also conveniently vibrate when a smoker nears a retail outlet that sells Blu cigarettes.
Later versions will be tethered to a smartphone through an app, allowing more options for real-time communication, Mr. Healy said. The company also plans to develop a system through which the packs will monitor how much people are smoking and report back to them — or to their doctors.
Marketers think people want more devices to link to each other. More than 105 million adult Americans have at least two types of connected devices, and 37 million have five or more, according to Forrester Research.
Packs of Blu e-cigarettes will vibrate and flash a blue light when they are within 50 feet of another pack.
Nintendo’s new hand-held gaming systems, the 3DS, communicate with one another when brought into close proximity. A smartphone app called Color allows users to take photographs that are then automatically shared with anyone nearby who has also downloaded the app. It recently raised $41 million from venture capitalists.
But Charles S. Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research who has studied connected devices, said that ideas like Blu’s connected cigarettes or Color show that digital connections can get ahead of the reasons for doing so.
“The way that groups of affinity are conferred just by physical proximity makes a bit of sense,” he said. “If someone walks by with a Nintendo, great, I share a common interest. The fact that I walk by a smoker? Seems like a weak link.”
Mr. Healy says he thinks the connected packs would be most useful in nightclubs, where people are interested in striking up conversations and want to smoke without being forced outside.
Adam Alfandary, 24, a Brooklyn resident who works for a technology start-up, was skeptical. He said that the social aspects of smoking were a part of the reason he continued to light up, but he scoffed at the idea of a cigarette that would do the social part for him. “I think that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said.
“And I’m saying that in full acknowledgment that smoking is one of the dumbest things I can do.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/technology/11smoke.html?_r=2&ref=business
