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globular-toasttoday at 7:12 AM1 replyview on HN

Is this actually disposable if it has the rechargeable battery and display? Or is it maybe like a lighter that technically can be refilled but nobody ever does?

It's so curious why these things are addictive. Before I tried a vape (it was called an e-cigarette back then) I thought the addictive thing about cigarettes is the nicotine. That's part of it, but a huge part (possibly even bigger) is just the sensation of sucking in smoke/vapour from a little stick and exhaling it. Is it similar to sucking on a mother's teat or something? It really seems to satisfy in a way nothing else does.

In the UK truly disposable vapes are banned, thankfully, but I do wonder if it's now just "technically refillable" ones that people use one time. They should be taxed to the eyeballs to encourage reuse if so.


Replies

dduvnjaktoday at 10:11 AM

It's both disposable and rechargeable. It has to be rechargeable as the battery doesn't contain enough capacity for the total amount of juice that's stored in them. E.g. a vape could have 10k puffs of juice, but the battery only lasts for ~2k of puffs so you have to recharge it about 5 times until the juice runs out. But once it runs out, there's no way to refill the juice so they get discarded. I remember when these USB-C vapes originally came out, we were joking that vapes got USB-C before the iPhone did.