How Has Vaping Technology Changed Over The Years?

At the time of writing, the electronic cigarette (or e-cigarette) has only existed for around ten years. But when you compare it to some of the cutting-edge pod kits that exist today, you realise just how far the vaping technology has come in a short space of time.

It’s easy to forget that, although the vaping industry is still in its relative infancy, it’s a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry. And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Victor Mullin, better known by his YouTube alias Vaping With Vic, sat down to discuss the explosion of vaping technology and what the future holds.

If we go right back to 2014, what can you remember about the earliest vaping technology, and how does it compare to now?

It wasn’t all that good. There were nowhere near as many shops or starter kits as there are now.

You basically had two choices. You could either go for a cigalike, which was a tiny, stick-style device that looked like a cigarette with an LED at the end, or a bigger, bulkier kit, like the Innokin MVP 2 with an old iClear tank stuck on top.

But one of the good things about that time was that, although there weren't as many vape shops, the people working for the vape shops that were there really knew their stuff.

You could walk in and say, ‘I'm a smoker and I want to quit’, and they would generally give you two or three options. They’d either give you the cigalike starter kit with the little cartridges that screw into the back or a bigger kit that you could fill up with your own liquid. They were there with you every single step of the way.

Having said that, it’s far easier to step into vaping now because there’s a much better range of kits out there to help you. If you take disposables as an example, you can walk into a local supermarket and get them. That's how readily available they are.

But I kind of miss the old days where you would walk into a vape shop and they would actually know what they were talking about, because you don't get that now, you really don't.

What were some of the biggest technological challenges for vapers back then?

The big questions were, ‘How does it work?’, ‘Why does it work?’, and ‘What's inside this little cartridge that turns into vapour that I then suck into my lungs?’.

Back then, most of the information was online and a lot of information came from the vape shops. The problem I had in 2014 was that there wasn’t a single vape shop in the town I was in. There weren’t even any little independent vape shops. The closest vape shop to me would have been in Glasgow, which is nearly an hour’s drive from me.

The one big advantage back then was that the devices were simpler to use than most of the products that are on the market today. The stuff that was out in 2014, aside from the starter kits and cigalikes, was mostly tank-based and easy to fill.

The biggest problem in 2014 was a lack of information. Although there's a huge array of YouTube reviewers out there today, back in 2014 I could count on one hand the number of UK-based reviewers.

Thankfully, you don’t really encounter this problem so much now because there’s so much information out there.

Can you discuss the advancements in coil technology in vaping devices and how they've impacted user experience, particularly in terms of flavour and cloud production?

When it comes to the tanks that you buy from a local vape shop or an online vape shop, the biggest innovation has got to be the mesh coil.

You can get the same kind of cloud production, vapour, and flavour from a stock coil sub-ohm tank that you can generally get from any of the mainstream single coil rebuildable tanks on the market. That never used to be the case.

It used to be the case that if someone, especially an advanced vaper, bought a kit — let’s say a dual battery mod with a stock tank — they got the stock tank and threw it in the bin because, generally speaking, the flavour wasn't all that good. They would then screw on their own rebuildable tank — their hobbyist tank if you like.

But now, because the coil technology and the stock coils have moved on so well, and they've managed to get much more surface area on the mesh coil, the flavour and vapour production from those stock coil tanks are so, so good.

Anything from the current stock coil lineup of Geekvape, Vaporesso, and Aspire is solid and high-quality. It was Aspire that kickstarted the coil technology revolution back in 2014 with the launch of the Atlantis stock coils sub-ohm tank, which was the first ever sub-ohm tank.

Before the Atlantis came out, all tanks were basically 1 ohm resistance or above. But Aspire decided to basically copy what the hobbyist vapers were doing.

These vapers were building coils that were point 0.2-0.5 ohms below the 1 ohm floor. When you go down that low, you can increase the power up, which means the coil heats up quicker and it produces more vapour.

The Atlantis from Aspire was a mainstream, off-the-shelf stock coil tank that was 0.7 ohms. That doesn't sound like much now, but when that tank was released in 2014, it was an absolute game-changer.

Because everyone decided to follow Aspire, that's when the push started for better coils that produce more vapour and better flavour.

That's where mesh coils came into the equation, and they've been huge in the vaping world. Today, you can walk into any local vape shop and buy the most basic pod kit, which includes mesh coils. That's how drastic the transformation has been.

How do you think pod vape kits have influenced the vaping market, and what do you feel are some of the most innovative kits we’ve seen so far?

What pod kits did — and this is before the disposable craze started — is make vaping accessible to everyone.

There were two massive problems with the beginner kits, or common cig-a-likes that existed pre-pod kits. One, the battery didn't last long enough, and two, the flavour was horrible!

This was partly down to the liquid they were using, but a little tiny coil and a little tiny cartomiser just doesn't compare to a pod from the likes of SMOK, Aspire, or Geekvape.

If we use SMOK as an example, what they did with their line of pod kits is split it into two.

So you've got essentially your common pod kit, which is the thin, long, rectangular device with a pod that clips in. There's no buttons or screens and it's auto draw.

And then you've got the bigger kits like the SMOK Nord that's got screens on it, variable wattage to a certain extent, and a much bigger pod with a much bigger coil.

Pod kits have made it easy for people to walk into a vape shop and pick up something that would actually work to help themgive up smoking.

And number two, because of the larger pod styles, like the Nord for instance, the pod kits entered into the mainstream vaping market.

Instead of buying the separate mod and separate tank or the box kit for usually £70 or £80, vapers could now get a similar experience from the larger pod mods, as they were called back then. They could do 35W on a 0.9 ohm pod coil.

You would get a similar experience to a £70 or £80 boxed kit whilst only spending £15 or £20 on something like the Nord. That’s why pod kits became extremely popular and still are today.

You have to consider the cumulative effect of these savings, too.

Absolutely. Here’s a classic example of that.

If you go to my channel and select Videos, then Oldest, you’ll go all the way back to 2014 and you can see me looking like a crazed lunatic with my long, hippie-like hair.

The VIP cig-a-like kit that I bought from a Scottish-based company came with two tiny little batteries, a pack of cartridges, and some other bits and bobs — and that cost £45!

Picture that. I spent £45 on a kit that is so outclassed today by a kit that you can buy for £9.99.

It’s scary how quickly the industry progressed, especially from 2015 with the launch of the Juul pod mod e-cigarettes, which used disposable pods to deliver e liquid.

On that point, what do you remember about the Juul e-cigarette?

The problem with the Juul pod was that it was sealed and locked. You couldn't fill it with your own liquid, and that put a lot of people off.

But what UWELL did — and I think they were the first manufacturer to do this — was launch their own line of pod kits with a pod tank that was unsealed and unlocked. This feature allowed users to put their own liquid in.

If Juul had launched another line of pods under the Juul name, they would have cornered the market instantly. But they didn’t, and UWELL, Innokin, and Geekvape flooded the market with pod kits that you could pop your own liquid in. This innovation was massive.

What would you say about variable wattage and its impact on the vaping experience through the years?

Variable voltage first came out with the Innokin and SMOK kits of 2013, which was a year before I started vaping. It was an absolute game-changer at the time, because it enabled the end user to dial the voltage up or voltage down to get a hot or cooler vape. Let’s face it — some people don't like hot vapes, including me.

But variable voltage was like trying to fix a problem with a sledgehammer. It worked, but it was really over the top. The problem with it was it didn’t offer the same fine adjustment you get with the variable wattage line mods now.

Variable wattage was therealgame-changer, as you could dial in what you liked a lot quicker as opposed to constantly going up and down the voltage.

Once you set the wattage, the chip inside the board regulates the voltage itself up and down to suit the wattage requirement. So it’s like vaping on autopilot, basically.

For a stock coil sub-ohm tank, whether it be a general tank from SMOK or Vaporesso or any of the other companies, I generally tend to peg the mod at 80W, which is a warm vape, but it's not super hot.

I know no matter what the tank is, as long as it's round about 0.7 ohms or 0.5 ohms, I can get it tight, fill it with liquid, set the mod to 80W, and I'm happy.

I love variable wattage. It's phenomenal.

What do you think has been the single most important example of technological innovation in vaping over the last ten years?

I would go for the pod kit.

Before the pod kit, you could give up smoking, but it was a bit of a minefield deciding which road you went down.

You either went down the road of a cigalike or you went for one of the much more advanced kits from SMOK, Innokin, or Aspire.

The cigalikes felt like a dead end as they weren’t improving, were prone to not working properly, and were just pen devices with a little light at the end. As for the advanced mouth-to-lung kits, you had to really know what you were doing with them to get the best results.

But when Juul launched the original line of pods, loads of companies basically started up based on Juul’s success.

If you’re a smoker today, you can walk into any vape shop, supermarket, or chemist, or you can visit an online vaping retailer, and you’ll find a good range of everyday pod kits to choose from.

I can almost guarantee that if a new vaper gets the right liquid with the right nicotine strength, they can give up smoking just like that.

The advent of new technologies will inevitably confuse a lot of people. What are the biggest challenges you can foresee new vapers facing?

I think there’s been a 180-degree turn from how it used to be. In 2014, there wasn't enough choice. In 2024, there's too much choice.

Off the top of my head, I can count seven different pod kits that have been released by seven different companies just over the past two weeks. That's the continuation of a trend that we’ve seen since the end of COVID.

Before COVID, there were companies like Vandy Vape and SMOK that made pod kits on the one hand, but made the big stock coil tank kits for people like me on the other hand.

But during and after COVID, the market shifted drastically.

A classic example of this within the UK vaping market was when Vaporesso produced a mod called the Gen Max. It consisted of two 18650 batteries and a stock coil tank. It was a classic cloud chaser’s kit.

Vaporesso sent it to me for review, and then they said, ‘Wait a minute, don't do the review. That's no longer for the UK market because the UK market is all pods.’ And they're kind of right. The UK market's essentially been overtaken by the pod kit.

Having choice is good, especially when you compare the vaping market to 2014. But if you end up with too much choice, you end up confusing the smoker.

The smoker is thinking, ‘Ok, here’s the Nord from SMOK, and here's half a dozen other pod kits that have all been released at the same time as the Nord from many different manufacturers.’ And then they’re probably thinking, ‘How do I figure out the difference?!’. You end up confusing them.

This is probably why, on the one hand, it's bad that there's too much choice, but on the other hand, it's kind of good because the wide array of choices out there has basically made it easier for vape shops to suddenly open up.

There is something like four or five times the number of vape shops in the UK today compared to 2014. A friend of mine recently opened her third vape shop in Northern Ireland, and it's because a vape shop owner can pick and choose what they want to offer to their customer due to the vast array of choices.

But if you're talking about some Joe Bloggs in his mid-40s, sitting at his computer looking for vape kits, he's not going to have a bloody clue. There's just too much stuff out there.

What up and coming vaping brands can you see being at the forefront of technological innovation in the years to come?

VapeFly is the first name that pops into my head. It’s a tiny company compared to the likes of SMOK and Aspire, but it produces some lovely high-tech mods and pod kits.

Another brand to keep an eye out for is SX Mini. I may be slightly biased there, as I produce social media content for the brand! But their latest pod kit, the PureMax, is a perfect example of technological innovation. They crammed so much technology into that pod that other companies have started following their lead.

I would also add Uwell, to a certain extent. If you look at the history of pod kits, Uwell have always been in the conversation, pushing the boundaries further and further. They haven't really done it as much lately because I think they're just kind of going through the motions and releasing versions four, five, or six of the same product.

I think we're going to reach a stage where the brainy people working at Uwell are going to be looking at what the brainy people working at VapeFly and SX Mini are doing, and they're going to think,’ Hold on a minute. They're ahead of us. We need to catch up.’

But those are the three companies I tend to look at with respect to starter kits for people who want to give up smoking — not so much because I want to see what they're releasing, but what they'regoing torelease.

If trend-setting companies like these release something new, they take the entire vaping technology industry by the scruff of the neck and force it to go down that road. Other companies in the industry don't have a choice. If they don't go down the same road, then they're going to be left behind.

What do you think the future holds for vaping technology? What advancements do you think we could see next?

The industry can’t push the lithium-ion technology cell further than it already has. It’s already squeezing as much milliampere power and capacity as it possibly can from that technology. Everything rests on the shoulders of solid-state batteries.

Some labs and some universities have made test samples of an 18650, structured solid-state battery, and the power capacity is double that of the current lithium-ion batteries.

So, when it comes to power deli, there won’t be much of a change until solid-state batteries come to market.

The only innovation that’s still feasible, if we consider how vapour is produced, is some kind of big innovation relating to coils.

The whole mesh coil thing has been going on for the best part of nine years now, andsomething is going to break the predominance of mesh coils. What that something is, I don't have a clue. It’s up to the brainy people over in Shenzhen to come up with that!

I’ve just got a feeling that in 2025, we might start to see some better innovation for the coils that you get inside pod kits and stock coil tanks.

All of the big names in vaping technology are on a level playing field right now, and these companies hate level playing fields!