If you’re a recent convert from vaping to smoking, there are some facts about vaping that are important to know because they’re crucial to the quality of your experience. You might want to know how vapes work or what the different types of vapes are, for instance, because those things affect you directly. Knowing obscure vaping facts and trivia like where vaping originally came from, on the other hand, might not have a direct impact on the quality of your experience – but that doesn’t mean it can’t still be interesting.
On the other hand, maybe you aren’t new to the scene. You could be an experienced vaper who has already spent plenty of time reading about vaping and are looking for an article that unearths some unusual details. Either way, we think this article is going to hit the spot because we’ve done our best to dig up some obscure vaping facts that you don’t already know. Let’s jump right in.
1: The First Vape Was Invented in 1963
If you’ve done any reading about the history of vaping, you might be aware of the fact that vaping technology as we know it today was first invented in China by a pharmacist named Hon Lik and patented in 2003. Hon’s invention, however, wasn’t the first vaping device – it was just the first one to be successfully made into a commercial product. Vaping’s origin, in fact, is much older than that.
The first attempt to create a vaping device was the Smokeless Non-Tobacco Cigarette, which was patented by inventor Herbert A. Gilbert in 1963. Gilbert’s invention essentially did everything that you would expect a modern vape to do – it used a battery to heat a flavored liquid, turning it to vapor for inhaling. Gilbert even envisioned the product having several different flavors available. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to secure the financial support necessary to turn the invention into a commercial product.
2: The First Vapes Didn’t Use Heating Coils
An early Chinese e-cigarette. Wikimedia Commons.
In all modern vapes, the vapor is created by a heating coil that essentially turns the e-liquid to vapor by boiling it. Modern developments like mesh coil technology allow a vape to produce a vapor with a very fine and consistent droplet size that resembles cigarette smoke and is very satisfying. Hon Lik’s first vape, however, didn’t use a heating coil. Instead, it had a piezoelectric element that used ultrasonic vibrations to turn the e-liquid into tiny droplets.
Vape manufacturers eventually decided that heating coil technology would work more reliably, and that’s where we are today. Over the years, there have been a few attempts to resurrect the idea of ultrasonic vapes, but none of those attempts were successful. We say, though, that you can’t necessarily declare the idea dead. After all, an ultrasonic coil would completely eliminate coil gunk and dry hits – two of the most common vaping annoyances.
3: The Word “Vape” Was Coined in the 1980s
The word “vape” has actually been around much longer than you might think. It originated with the Favor cigarette, a product that was marketed in the 1980s by Dr. Norman Jacobson and microprocessor pioneer Phil Ray. The Favor cigarette was a simple plastic tube with a soft filter containing liquid nicotine. The user would inhale through the tube and absorb the nicotine through their lungs. The idea was that, since the cigarette didn’t produce smoke or other emissions, it would be acceptable for use in non-smoking environments. The terms “vape” and “vaping” were invented by Ray’s wife to describe the act of using the Favor cigarette. The cigarette was discontinued after a brief test marketing period in the late ‘80s.
4: Vape Mods Were Invented by the Vaping Community
An early vape mod. Lauri Rantala, Flickr.
The earliest vapes looked more or less the same as tobacco cigarettes or very small cigars. A device would even have a light at the tip simulating the glowing ember of a cigarette. That’s why early vapes were typically called electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes, although both of those terms have since fallen by the wayside. The general idea was that if smokers saw the cigarette-shaped devices on store shelves, they’d know that the devices were related in some way to smoking and would want to learn more.
Small vapes, however, had a problem: They didn’t produce much vapor, so many people found that they weren’t very satisfying to use. That’s why vape mods were invented. You probably think of a vape mod as a vaping device with a color screen, a huge wattage range and buttons for making adjustments, but that’s not how mods started out. In fact, a mod was originally just any object that was modified to become a vaping device.
The original mods were created by members of the vaping community who also happened to be electronics hobbyists, and they were made from a variety of items ranging from flashlight tubes to wooden boxes. Some of those people even formed companies to market their creations, but there are virtually no vaping devices produced domestically today because overseas manufacturers were eventually able to produce better devices at lower costs. That brings us to our next vaping fact.
5: Almost All Vapes Are Made in One City
The Shenzhen city skyline. Wikimedia Commons.
Did you know that almost all of the vapes in the world come from just one city? Shenzhen, China is the enormous city – having grown from about 30,000 people to a population of over 17.5 million in just a few decades – that produces an estimated 90 percent of the world’s electronics. There are literally tens of thousands of factories in Shenzhen producing everything from vapes to iPhones. Vape kits, pods, coils and disposable vapes are all produced in Shenzhen, comprising virtually all of the vaping hardware that you can buy. Many e-liquids, however, are made in the United States.
6: Some Vapes Are Counterfeit
One of the great stories of the once-small city of Shenzhen is how it grew into a production empire unlike anything the world has ever seen. A not-so-good aspect of that story, though, is the fact that many of the world’s counterfeit goods come from there as well. Vapes might not seem like a good target for counterfeiting when factories could be producing expensive fake phones instead – but when you think about it, it makes perfect sense to make fake vapes because people only use them for a few days before disposing of them and generally don’t scrutinize them closely. The companies that manufacture counterfeit vapes always target the most popular brands, so fake Geek Bars are particularly common.
How can you make sure that you won’t end up with a fake vape?
- Buy from a reliable vape shop like VapeJuice.com. We guarantee that you’ll never receive a fake vape from us.
- Before you open the box, check to see if it has an authenticity code. Go to the manufacturer’s website and type the code to confirm that the device is authentic.
- Check the quality of the packaging. An authentic vape won’t be packaged in a mushy, low-quality box with blurry printing and washed-out colors.
- Check the quality of the device itself. The fit and finish should be excellent, and the device should have no mismatched colors.
- If you’ve bought that brand and flavor before, pay attention to the way the device tastes. A company that makes fake vapes won’t have access to the e-liquid used by the real brand, so they’ll have to try to clone it. A fake vape probably won’t taste right.
7: You Can Build Your Own Coils
Not all of the world’s vape coils are pre-built in factories for screwing into vape tanks or pushing into pods. In fact, it’s actually possible to make your own coils by buying an attachment for your vape called a rebuildable atomizer (RBA). You build the coil by twisting a length of wire into a coil shape, attaching it to posts on the RBA and threading cotton through the center of the coil to make a wick. Mesh strips are also available for people who want to build mesh coils.
RBAs were once very popular within the hobbyist segment of the vaping community, but most people have switched to tanks with pre-built coils these days. That’s partly because building a coil from scratch is a lot of work; it can take upwards of 30 minutes even if you’re very experienced. Also, vape tanks with pre-built coils have greatly improved over the last several years and are now more powerful and satisfying than RBAs could ever be.
8: Disposable Vapes Can and Should Be Recycled
Disposable vapes aren’t intended to be discarded in regular household trash, but that’s where many of them end up for a variety of reasons. It’s estimated that over 800 million vapes are thrown away around the world each year, and those vapes contain enough lithium to provide the batteries for as many as 5,000 electric cars. If you didn’t know that you could be recycling your vapes instead of throwing them away, now you do – it’s just a matter of finding a recycling service that takes them. Start by looking for e-waste companies in your area. If you don’t have any luck there, ask your city’s waste management service about the correct procedure for disposing of used vapes.