viVape 2 Vaporizer Review

What’s up boys and girls…

Yea I’m wearin the hat again, big whoop, wanna fight about it?

What I’m gonna show you in this video is this here viVape 2 vaporizer made by Vaporfection. First I’ll show you a little bit about the vape and then I’ll tell you what I personally think about it.

Many people who buy this vape are intrigued by its looks, most saying it resembles a product Apple would produce. The unit itself is actually pretty sleek, it comes in black or white, and it does have this touchscreen control pad here. The manufacturer also describes it as having an updated glass-on-glass heating element and says it can be used in any country of the world because of its dual voltage filtering and operation.

This is the power cord that plugs in the back and since the viVape is a dual mode vaporizer it includes parts to use it both as a whip-style vape and a balloon vape.
This is the main herb chamber and this is the whip or tubing. You connect the chamber piece to one end, and on the other end you attach either the mouthpiece for whip mode or the valve piece for bag mode.

To get started you would first hit the power button and then select your desired temperature setting. Since it defaults to whip mode I’ll show you that first – So once the unit reaches the set temp the light inside will glow blue, indicating it’s ready to start vaping from it. In my testing the unit has been heating up pretty quickly, usually in under 2 minutes depending on the heat setting.

In the chamber piece there’s a screen located right here, and it’s recommended to fill it between 1/3 and 1/2 of the way full – full being right where the ground glass portion of the connector piece starts up here. You can either add your material in manually or you can vacuum it up inside the chamber by drawing through the mouthpiece, but either way they recommend not to pack it down too tight.

So once the unit is heated up and you have your chamber packed just insert the connector piece here to start vaping. The fan or blower is always engaged with the viVape so within a few seconds you should start to see vapor coming out of the mouthpiece. One benefit of this feature is that it provides draw assistance for those who normally have trouble drawing from regular non-assisted whip vapes. Since the blower doesn’t stop after your draw it is recommended to disconnect the chamber piece between pulls to minimize sidestream vapor and conserve your material. The ground glass connection can stick a little sometimes and not disconnect right away when you pull on it, but I found that if you give it a slight side-to-side jiggle it usually comes loose quickly.

To use the viVape in balloon mode just tap this button and the fan or blower speed will increase a little bit. Whip mode and bag mode have independent temperature settings and the unit will remember the last temp you set so that when you turn it on again it’s already where you like it.

When you first open the package this vape comes in the actual balloon material and the valve piece are not connected. To attach the bag just gather up the end and wrap it around this end of the valve, then take one of the zip ties they include and secure it over the balloon. Once it’s attached push the green side of the valve in to open the air passage and connect this end of the valve piece to the whip.

Pack the chamber just like you would in whip mode and then connect it to the unit to start the airflow into the balloon. Once the bag is filled you can shut the valve, disconnect the chamber from the unit, then separate the valve from the whip. To release vapor from the bag and take a draw you push in the green side of the valve, and to seal it up push in the red side.

After you’re all done vaping you can hit the OFF button on the screen and when you do this the vape will go into cool-down mode and turn the blower speed to high. In my testing it cools down for about 4 to 5 minutes and then the unit will completely power off.

So that’s basically how the viVape works in a nutshell.

Now what do I personally think about it? I think it has its ups and downs, but overall I’m not a big fan.

I think the PROS are that it has a nice look to it, it produces comfortable/tasty vapor, and it heats up quickly, especially for a desktop unit.

It’s a real shame because I think the quality of the vapor it produces is pretty good, but the negative qualities of this vape kinda ruin the experience for me and make me not excited to use it.
Let me explain…

Once you turn the unit on the built-in fan or blower immediately kicks on and does not shut off the entire time you’re vaping. You can actually feel the hot air blowing out of the front the whole time the vape is on. For those of you who are familiar with the Extreme-Q, it’s the equivalent of that vape being forever stuck with the fan on low or medium speed. Normally with the EQ you turn the fan off between draws, and most people would think you’re silly if you left the fan on constantly. The viVape blower is not super loud but it’s certainly not silent, and I personally find the constant background noise kinda irritating. It’s loud enough that you’ll have to turn up the volume on the TV to drown it out. Then when you’re done vaping and you go to turn it off it enters cool down mode for literally 4 to 5 minutes, I timed it, with the blower on high speed the entire time, meaning it’s even louder than during normal whip mode when the blower is on low speed. This issue alone is a deal breaker for me and will be one of the main reasons I’ll rarely be using this vape. Other similar vaporizers on the market only make noise when actively filling balloons and they don’t need to noisily cool down for 5 minutes when you’re done with your session.

So not only is the constant blower noise kinda annoying but this also means that once you connect your whip to the unit vapor will just start coming out of the mouthpiece, and it won’t stop until you pull the chamber out or disconnect it, and you can’t really put your finger over the end to stop it because that’ll cause backwards pressure into the unit. Another annoyance is that it’s a ground-glass connection, which has a tendency to stick a little bit sometimes and not always separate easily on the first try. I’ve found that slightly jiggling the chamber side-to-side will usually loosen it quickly, but if you don’t disconnect it right away you’ll be watching precious vapor shoot out of the mouthpiece. This also means that if you want to just keep the chamber connected and pass the whip to someone next to you, you’ll have to pass it super fast or else you’re just wasting vapor. It’s not a very relaxing experience.

As for the touchscreen, I find it to be pretty pointless and gimmicky. The responsiveness of the screen is not that good, meaning sometimes I’ll tap it and nothing will happen, or I’ll tap the + button for instance to increase the temperature and it’ll instead think I hit the Celsius button. Also just to throw it out there, all “whip mode” and “bag mode” really means on the screen is low fan speed or high fan speed. I’d assume the touchscreen feature adds at least a little bit to the price, and not only do I find it unnecessary but I think it’s actually less user-friendly than just having knobs and buttons to control each function.

Moving on to the horizontal herb chamber… one of the keys to great vaporization is maximizing the surface area of material that is heated by ensuring even coverage of the heat over the entire load. This means that generally wide, shallow chambers will outperform narrower, deeper chambers. It also means that when you connect your chamber to the unit and your herbs fall a little bit on the side you’re not evenly vaping all the material. It’s not a huge deal because you do have to disconnect the whip anyway during use, so you can stir your material each time to ensure even coverage. Even though the horizontal chamber design is not a big issue with the viVape, it’s certainly nothing revolutionary or even much different than cheaper alternatives.

One thing you do need to be careful of with this vape is that you don’t accidentally laugh or blow into the mouthpiece while taking a draw, as this could send your material flying into the inside of your unit. In the manual it says that you can cause permanent damage doing this, which is disconcerting. A few weeks ago someone using my SSV laughed while taking a draw and shot material up the chamber, so it’s not that farfetched of a thing to happen. Luckily you can’t cause permanent damage to most other vapes if that happens, I’m not sure why a vape at this price point would have such a vulnerability.

Lastly I’ll talk about the balloon system, which again is on par with something I would expect from a much cheaper vape. You’ll notice when you open up your box that all the pieces come separated. To connect the balloon to the valve piece you are supposed to use one of these zip ties to secure it in place. Seriously guys, I bought a $450 vape to connect my own bags with zip ties? Don’t forget to keep a scissor handy to cut off the excess plastic! It’s kinda lame… The valve piece is OK but nothing special – it’s cool that it has it because not many balloon vapes do, but they could have put a little more thought into making it feel cooler, or be more visually appealing. In my opinion the Volcano valve systems are in another league, much better quality than what comes with this thing and much more enjoyable to use. The last thing about the bags that kinda topped it all off is that I can’t get a bag to completely fill in under two and a half minutes. They’re supposed to fill in 90 seconds, and I think that’s accurate for some people, but I have also definitely seen a few people complain about balloons taking forever to fill, so I know my issue isn’t isolated to just me. So who knows, maybe a piece of my unit is defective or something, in which case I’ll post an update, but I have a feeling this is just what I can expect from it. In case you didn’t know the Volcano fills balloons in 30 seconds, and even the Extreme-Q can do it in 90. And I know some people think it doesn’t matter how long it takes, but believe me when you’re sitting there waiting for a bag to fill it matters.

I’m not just saying that to push you to get a Volcano either, I actually enjoy using a bunch of the vapes I have more than this one, even ones that are less than half the price. I know that the viVape has won a couple of best vaporizer awards this past year but after using it myself I am very skeptical about how these events are judged.

If you want to see what overall rating I give to the viVape, and see where it falls among the other vaporizers I’ve reviewed so far, check out my homepage at VapeCritic.com.

Thanks for takin the time to watch, if you have any questions let me know, and stay up!