Who do you think you are?
Normally it would be thought a little bit pretentious to start bragging about a website’s age, but as we were one of the very first to embrace heat not burn technology we thought that we would take a look back at the massive growth experienced since we first started to talk about this new tech three years ago today when hardly anyone knew what it was.
First of all we explained how this newfound tech actually works as well as discussing the history of heat not burn throughout the years (spoiler alert: it was pretty crap in the early days.)
We then asked if heat not burn can actually help you quit smoking, and then we went on to do our very first product review which was a review of the PAX 2 vaporizer from Ploom. This would turn out to be the start of many reviews that this website would become famous for.
We looked at the link between heat not burn and e-cigarettes in January 2016 and then in February 2016 we asked the question how safe is heat not burn? In the summer of 2016 we also took a look at how safe tobacco vaporisers are closely followed by a post stating that the World Health Organisation had finally noticed heat not burn. As the WHO has an insane outlook towards some reduced risk products this was not a very good thing.
Summer 2017 we noticed that heat not burn was really starting to take off in South Korea, this has now spread to other Asian countries like Japan where many smokers have completely embraced it.
Late in 2017 we looked at options beyond iQOS and Glo, this is an impossible blog post to keep up-to-date because now in late 2018 there are new heat not burn devices appearing every single week, mainly from China. One thing is clear; China is getting better and better at producing quality devices, they are no longer the laughing stock that they were a couple of decades ago.
Moving into 2018 with a rare outbreak of sanity in New Zealand closely followed by some proper insanity from the USA where a faux epidemic has been manufactured in order to demonize a device called JUUL. Sadly these days JUUL are trying to appease these charlatans by demonizing certain flavours. That means that an e-cigarette company is attacking other e-cigarette companies because they think it will make them appear in a good light to regulators, some people never learn.
In June 2018 it was announced that British American Tobacco were investing a billion dollars in a heat not burn factory in Romania, showing exactly where they see their priorities lying in the future. They can see that people are moving away from traditional cigarettes, we’re not in the 1950’s any longer.
Reviews, our bread and butter.
Since that first review on 15th January 2016 we have reviewed over 20 different devices with that growing every single month, we are now getting approached all of the time by different companies keen to show off their wares. It seems like the majority of new devices are unsurprisingly coming out of China and it also looks like the de-facto tobacco stick option is the HEET.
Some highlights include reviews of the following: the original iQOS 2.4, the BAT Glo, an actual HEET, a BAT NeoStik, the Vapor 2 Pro Series 7, the PAX 3, the iBuddy i1, the XMAX Vital, the EFOS E1, the Lil from KT&G, a very handy and popular iQOS v Glo comparison, the NOS tobacco vaporizer, the VCOT from eWildfire, the follow-up to the Lil called the Lil Solid, the iQOS 2.4 Plus, the QOQ Honor, the Switch and just last week the Jouz.
All our reviews are very thorough and unlike other websites our reviews are honest. Although we do sell products from quite a few manufacturers (like PMI, Aspire and Vandy Vape) we will still give an honest appraisal of anything that comes our way.
There will be no shortage of reviews in the future because these days it seems like there is a new device coming out every week. We can’t review them all of course but we promise to review as many as we possibly can because we love doing reviews!
UPDATE August 2019: Since we posted this blog post we have reviewed the following. The Aspire Nautilus AIO pod mod, the Avbad heat not burn device, the Vandy Vape NS Pen pod mod, the AYI heat not burn device, the innovative Lil Hybrid heat not burn device that uses nicotine sticks and PG combined, the Sempo P1 heat not burn device, the oddly named TFWIH heat not burn device, the fantastic IQOS 3, the brand new IQOS 3 Multi, the JUUL-like JOYA Vapor Pen, the Lambda T3 heat not burn device and the excellent myblu starter kit pod mod device.
The reviews are coming in at a rapid rate and we are always on the lookout for more devices to review.
Pod Mods in the crib ma.
On 5th October 2018 we dipped our toes into the world of the Pod Mod (a.k.a Pod Vape) with a review of the excellent iQOS Mesh kit. We are now getting approached by other Pod Vape manufacturers and did an excellent review of the new Vype ePen 3 from British American Tobacco.
Pod Mods (Pod Vapes) are designed around convenience and in that respect are very much like heat not burn devices in that there is precious little pissing around. They are just about as easy as it gets and because of that many people love them.
We now sell a variety of pod mods right here on the website including the very popular iQOS Mesh.
We heart Fergus.
We are very lucky here at Heat Not Burn UK to have an expert like Fergus who, having spent many years in the vaping world has embraced heat not burn technology, and because of that he writes excellent knowledgeable reviews to give the reader as much info as possible about the many different devices out there in 2018, along with any heat not burn news that comes along.
We would like to say a big thank-you to Fergus because he is the best in the business. Thanks buddy!
We don’t take too kindly to your types around here.
Also we have not been shy in criticizing people and organisations that have been very hostile towards HnB. There are some proper morons out there make no mistake about that. Just like e-cigarettes heat not burn is very much a disruptive technology. What that means is that they pose a threat to the status-quo, possibly affecting peoples careers in peddling snake oil for decades.
For many years quitting options for people included cold turkey (quitting unaided), patches, gums, inhalers and tablets. The problem is most of them were next to bloody useless, but there was lots of money to be made by large pharmaceutical companies and they pretty much had the entire playing field to themselves for many many years. That was until around 2010 when e-cigarettes came along, followed a few short years later by heat not burn products.
Both e-cigarettes and heat not burn have thrown a massive spanner in the works, which is why they are almost constantly under attack, usually by the people most at risk from their popularity. A lot of the stories unfortunately are complete bullshit but whilst heat not burn continues to become a very viable alternative to smoking these stories will continue and will only get worse as desperation sets in.
Media companies could help to debunk many of the lies but we live very much in a “clickbait” world and good news stories don’t get as many clicks as a sensationalist bad news one. You only need to take a swift glance at the Mail Online for confirmation of that.
We always try and be as honest as possible but just to add to our credentials we have a regular blog writer with a PhD and an expert in the harm reduction field, Carl V Phillips. Carl has written some excellent posts for us giving his expert opinion on projected growth for heat not burn, how the FCTC will declare war on heat not burn and a very good post on the COP 8 junket that took place in October 2018. We would like to thank Carl for his work so far and look forward to more articles from him in the future.
Well there it is, a bit of a summary of three years worth of effort, there is still so much more room for growth with the heat not burn market and we are very excited to be at the forefront of this new and improving technology. Here’s to the next 3 years!
This blog post was updated in August 2019 to add more reviews.
