Smok.io’s connected electronic cigarette tracks your habit puff by puff | Hacker News Reader

Smok.io’s connected electronic cigarette tracks your habit puff by puff

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30 pointsliam_boogar25 comments

Electronic cigarettes are not a dirty habit. They don't smell and nicotine addiction is not particularly harmful.

The problem is inhaling smoke, and forcing others around you to inhale smoke against their will.

Being a nicotine junkie is acceptable. Inhaling and exhaling combustion byproducts is not.

I think that the problem is that ecigs still produce vapor, and the anti-smoking industry has spend nearly a generation convincing people that second-hand smoke is the devil. Having long ago quit smoking indoors to keep from subjecting others to second-hand smoke, I understand the stigma, but there are those who will simply refuse to be convinced that vapor is not the same as second-hand smoke, which is why so many places are rushing to ban indoor ecigs, regardless of how non-sensical those policies might be.

This is @Borogravia, who seems to have been hellbanned.

1) You've been hellbanned.

2) I wasn't referring to the grass-roots effort, but specifically, the anti-smoking lobby, specifically Michael Bloomberg, who has spent $600 million of his own money in anti-smoking campaigns, and who seems immune to facts.

He has done a world of good, and I'm glad that the world smokes less, and I applaud his anti-smoking efforts...

so hopefully that will diffuse the ad hominem that he is also an ignorant boor who seems utterly and completely immune to facts.

It's hard to take you seriously when you refer to a single individual giving away a huge chunk of wealth with no hope of earning a return as being an "industry".

I actually pared that down from what I originally wrote, to the detriment of clarity. Please accept my upvote along with my apologies.

Regardless, the man's $600 billion went to found a number of charities for the purpose of putting out anti-smoking ads in states across the nation. He is also rumored to have been a major contributor to "thetruth" (apparently, it's a big secret) who, despite the good that they do, were also filthy with misinformation.

You're not entirely wrong that one man doesn't make an industry, but if one man started 20 companies that all shared the same purpose, would that not constitute an industry? Maybe it wouldn't. Maybe I'm using industry wrong. Either way, I agree that I misspoke, so hopefully this at least clarifies my position somewhat.

Giving $600MM away with no hope of earning a return is not an industry. Full stop.

It's not conclusive that e-cigs are not hazardous to your health. And I'm not talking about the nicotine in them. Search around there are studies showing there are other chemicals in these, but its hard to know for sure still.

*Note, I'm using an e-cig right now as a quitting aid. So this isn't some anti e-cig post.

In my experience, it's not very effective as a quitting aid. My knowledge could be very inconclusive, as there are specifically "quit smoking" flavors that I have not tried, but at least anecdotally, I've found myself smoking far more often with e-cigarettes than I did with tobacco.

The flip side of that is that I'm in far better health than I was, and my respiratory system has rebounded to the point where I no longer wheeze going up a long flight of stairs, and it's of course far less expensive than cigarettes were.

There may prove to be downsides, but the recipes themselves aren't exactly complicated. If you pay attention to what you're getting, and buy from reputable vendors, you shouldn't have to worry about secret ingredients, or whether or not it's being cut with arsenic or anything.

If you're very worried about it, you can make your own liquid too.

I hardest part I've noticed is judging the nicotine level you should start with. I started to high and ended up getting more addicted to nic then I had to begin with. After mixing the solution with 0% nic and slowly lowering the level I've successfully cut down my amount quite a bit.

I'm definitely in the 'more addicted' stage at this point, to the degree that I've rationalized away any need to quit. I'm actually entertaining something more like this[1], y'know, to have fun with it.

[1] - https://www.thevaporgirl.com/Images/products/batteries/TGBat...

I think the main problem with e-cigs is that you're still taking in the addictive Nicotine. When you "cut down" and delay smoking, that next puff seems even more "pleasurable" because you're now relieving yourself of the physical withdrawal. That sort of "pleasure" messes with your mind because you think it feels good when in fact you're simply getting back to what non-smokers normally feel like (by removing the withdrawal symptoms). And then, only having delayed the inevitable, you're able to go another hour or two, before you withdraw again, and need another fix, re-addicting yourself again and again. I really don't understand the point of trying to quit using a drug while continuing to use said drug.

IMHO the problem of quitting smoking is mostly a psychological one. If you can get your head on straight, the physical withdrawal symptoms are actually quite minimal.

And therein lies the rub -- I don't mind being addicted to nicotine any more than I mind being addicted to caffeine. To my current knowledge, they both seem relatively harmless, aside from the addiction, until and unless one tries to quit them, which causes withdrawals, and the cost is effectively negligible.

The main reason for quitting smoking had less to do with health concerns than cost, and not because the costs were unbearable, so much as that those costs were ridiculous. Ecigs have changed the equation, and so long as my nicotine budget stays lower than my caffeine budget, it's effectively negligible, however ignorant it might be.

As for the rest, you're completely right. It is a psychological problem. I'd need to see a good reason for quitting nicotine before my head can agree that there is one. I was worried about the costs rising, but they seem to be going the other way. I was worried about the health risks of nicotine, but indicators seem to be trending towards 'ecigs' are safe... and while I'm aware that the science could be wrong, incomplete, or even manipulated, I've gone from 'trying to quit' to 'meh, it's a harmless vice' mentally.

Well, now I know what I'm getting myself for christmas.

I don't have a link right now, but I recall there was a study done in Italy that indicated that e-cigs are quite effective as cessation aids. In particular the ability to slowly decrease the nicotine level, so that the smoker eventually only has to 'quit' the habitual side of things.

That's fair. To clarify further, "In my experience" means "in my personal, anecdotal experience".

That's actually quite emboldening to hear. If you find the link, feel free to email me (contact info in profile) or post it here. I'd love to see it, but no pressure.

Of course there are "other chemicals" in them. Everything is a "chemical", and it's obviously unsafe to work with and vaporize pure nicotine.

it's also not conclusive that they harm you at all. this logical fallacy needs to quit being parroted by the willfully ignorant.

Isn't this what I said? Or should I take up two sentences saying the same thing...

I've looked into this, and from what I can tell the amount of study is too limited to say anything conclusive, and there are no inherent reasons to assume e-cigs are particularly hazardous.

Most of the risk seems to relate to lack of testing by the FDA (or similar institutions), or questions over the effects of inhaling particular chemicals that are otherwise harmless.

That said, of course the right approach is to say 'we need to test more; can't prove it's harmless'. But I would be quite surprised if e-cigs do turn out to be harmful (enough to ban them). And it seems pretty much impossible to me that e-cigs would get even close to being as hazardous as tobacco.

With that in mind, I generally advise smokers to consider e-cigs, and I advise non-smokers to stay away.

I would love to hear more arguments against e-cigs though. I don't feel a strong need to defend them, as I'm currently a heavy smoker and ideally I want to quit entirely at some point.

Janty has had something similar for a while, their Mid series. Hook it up to USB and you can program it in all sorts of ways, save/load profiles, change the puff LED colour to any RGB value, etc. It even has a joystick(!). http://www.janty.com/en/mid-series

E-cigs are not supposed to help people quit. They are a smoking alternative.

I started using e-cigs about a month ago and I have no interest in quitting. I enjoyed smoking cigarettes previously but felt guilty about what I was putting in my lungs, now I use an e-cig and it brings me more pleasure than smoking with none of the guilt. However, let's get one thing straight, this is not cheaper. If you let it, it quickly turns into a hobby and you want to spend all of your money on new equipment and flavors.

Yeah there is a lot of cool e-cig stuff out there. But I would think it's still cheaper in the long run.

There is a lot of studies that still need to be done. My personal theory is that since 1/3 of smoking related deaths are due to nicotine, e-cigs are about 66% "safer" than analog cigs.

Interesting. I was under the assumption that nicotine is no more dangerous than caffeïne, and that the primary danger of smoking is inhalation of burning tobacco particles (and some other chemicals).

A cursory glance at the wikipedia article also doesn't mention that nicotine is that dangerous.

Could you elaborate? I'm honestly curious.

Well, consuming straight nicotine is a brand new phenom, and science is racing to catch up. Give it 10 years for any definitive science to be peer reviewed, confirmed, and then generally accepted. Take a look at things like this: http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20060720/nicotine-speeds-lu...

I can't find my original sources, so please, take my personal theories with a grain of salt... Many years ago I was studying the types of cancer smokers are more likely to get other than lung cancer. After my uncontrollable urge to crunch numbers, I came up with 2/3 lung cancer, 1/3 other cancer and made an unscientific guess that nicotine plays a big part in the non-lung cancer related illness.

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