Engineer turns disposable vape pen into a working web server
2 months ago by TimeNaan to c/technology
They should absolutely ban disposable but as long as they're smart about it and don't try and make it a general vape ban. Anything with a microcontroller and OLED display should need regulation to be "disposable". So fucking wasteful.
Vapes can and have always been something you can pop a battery and cartridge and custom juice in. There's zero reason to make it disposable. Make the coil/cotton/juice cartridge disposable... Like a juul was last I checked? That's reasonable.
And then next regulate how much nicotine can be in per ml. 60mg/ml is fucking insane. That is heart issue level of nicotine. I got buzzed off 12 mg/ml, used 3 or 6mg/ml regularly, and quit at 1.5mg/ml. There's no fucking reason other than harm and addiction to provide 60mg/ml.
OLED maybe but small micros are now so cheap and so small that they're negligible.
Battery is probably still the biggest environmental impact.
Ja natßrlich, die erste vape die ich geraucht hab war auch illegal und mit 50mg/ml, aber mich hat einfach ßberrascht, dass es scheinbar Länder gibt in denen so ein hoher Wert sogar legal ist
don't try and make it a general vape ban. In some EU contries 10ml liquid costs more than pack of cigarettes, so they defacto banned vaping. how much nicotine can be in per ml. 60mg/ml 20 mg/ml is EU wide limit since 2025
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/...
The regulation provides that by 2027 portable batteries incorporated into appliances should be removable and replaceable by the end-user
Coming soon...
Disposable vapes are already forbidden, at least in France, idk if it is union wide.
But yeah, those things make no sense. The only thing with a battery that should be disposable would be fire alarm. Not because of the battery, but because the main sensor has a 10 years lifespan due to its natural deterioration.
I feel the same way about earpods.
That's fine for airpods but as someone who worked retail, there's just as many $15 earbuds that break near instantly that have to be thrown away and never fixed. Those things have 3 batteries in them.
You can also have your dying AirPods replaced at the battery rate of $40 too. Still doesnât strike the overall problem, especially since Apple doesnât advertise that replacement.
yeah, no one ever loses an airpod...
oh wait
Not sure what you mean. Are you implying that because on occasion some people will lose an AirPod they are somehow worse than vape pods that are designed to be disposed of within days after first use?
Because an existing SoC at scale is cheaper than a custom ASIC.
You see this all the time, custom keyboard running ARM+Linux, SmartNICs using RISC-V cores/FPGAs instead of ASIC accelerators. Even Microsoft refuses to commit to ASICs for network processing in their DCs and use FPGAs instead.
Sure, if you weren't competing with every other vape out there that has things like variable voltage settings (at least 3), a pre-heat feature, the ability to turn on/off with 5 presses, or to turn off automatically after 5-10 minutes without use, a low battery indicator, a charging indicator, a broken coil indicator...
Hmm, seems like you need a lot more than a battery, heating coil, button, and single transistor.
With the major caveat that dispos dont offer more than 2 of those features at best. Almost all those features you specify are on reusable devices. There are going to be some that do have those additional features, but at a price point that makes them nearly as or more costly than a reusable device.
The only IC you need for a disposable really, is a BMS, and a temp sensor (technically a timer so it also doesnt over draw, but timer ICs are built into everything) so it doesn't willfully light itself on fire in unusual circumstances.
All that to say: there is effectively 0 difference between most disposables released today and reusables, with the sole exception that you cant refill or recharge them. There should be no device with a battery deliberately intended to be thrown away, for anything, save for medical uses.
Youâre sooooo right, check my response to that guy. I was into vaping years ago and loved mechanical vaoes, which were legit just a battery, heating coil mounted to a platform, button, and conductive tube. Super simple devices, so easy!
Except theyâre INSANELY DANGEROUS! I loved them but Iâve had friends treat them carelessly and they WILL start on fire or even explode if not vented. You need a thorough understanding of Ohmâs law, batteriesâ amperage limits, how to rewrap batteries with nicks in the wrap, and to never leave them unattended even with manual locking rings.
The person you replied to mentions adding a transistor which would do nothing. Add some more bits and just like you said, youâre competing with fully functional vapes with all those features and theyâre cheap as hell. The chips cost nearly nothing, so thatâs the route they go. Those vapes arenât impervious to blowing up, but theyâre much safer than simple mechanical vapes.
There is also a battery management system as well.
M0 processors are dirt cheap, especially in bulk.
They probably have a BMS library that takes a few Kb of flash.
The time it would take to make the design cost effective wouldn't be worth it.
Slap a less than a dollar mcu and be done with it.
I used to be into vaping and a big mechanical vape fan. I still have all of my old mech vapes! Those were what youâre thinking ofâa button, a conducive body, and a coil or two mounted to a post. You pop an 18650 in, no transistor or resistors needed. You adjust your wattage by changing the way you wrap your coils, and your wire gauge. Generally Iâd like to run around .2 ohms, which pushes about 18-20 amps out of the 18650s.
These are NOT devices you want in the hands of regular people lawl. Iâve had friends in years past love how my setup was and get similar vapes for themselves. Iâve seen a burned-down backpack (RIP, all of his adderall XR), a table almost catch fire, and burnt carpet. No explosions because I told people âdonât get one of these, but if youâre not going to listen to me, for the love of glob make sure itâs vented.â
Anyway, yeah no way anyone should have these except electronics enthusiasts. Even with locking rings, they can just start firing if the person using it isnât super careful. Nice batteries rated for 30a pulse are 2USD more than the garbage batteries that love to vent or explode.
You add in a transistor, thatâs not gonna do anything. You add in a couple more things for protection and your cost is higher than it would have been by getting one of the chips in OPâs article, and you donât have a nice interface for adjusting wattage and checking battery level and charging via USB and all that fun shit.
Disclaimer: I don't smoke anything, so I don't know any details.
Wouldn't a button connected to a heating coil be a fire hazard? Is there no automatic shut-off based on temperature? If you add enough safety features, it might end up costing about the same as an embedded SoC.
All it would need is a thermal fuse/cutoff, like those in portable heating appliances (air fryers, grills etc.). I wonder what's needed to include a 10 second on & 30 seconds disabled timer, maybe it's cheaper
Youâre 100% correct. I have mechanical vapesâno safety cutoff, just an 18650 in a conductive tube with wire coils attached to posts. Theyâre amazing, and theyâre extremely dangerous. Turning one into a protected vape with basic features like wattage adjustment? Way cheaper and easier to go SoC!
i disagree with the single transistor. overcharge prevention requires something more (i am not a batteriologist don't ask me what. i'd do it with a tesla coil because that'd look cooler)
There is a little more to it, pressing the button 5 times turns it on and off. Three times often lets one cycle through power settings. But yeah, anything more than a very minimal programming is frankly suspicious.
It could be a lot is used to get the charge right idk.
Well the PY32F002B (costing a few cents) even though it has a 32-bit (entry level) ARM core @ 24MHz is literally cheaper than older and less powerful microcontrollers.
Granted, if you don't do anything else than react to a push button it's still cheaper to use discrete electronic components than a microcontroller, but given that this device has a LiPo battery (meaning there's battery control involved) and judging by the picture a USB-C connector, there's probably a bit more digital logic in it, by which point a 3 cent microcontroller plus a cheap SMD crystal and some caps is cheaper than using discrete components.
The domain of embedded systems has evolved to the point that it's the best option for almost everything in consumer electronics, mainly because at the lower end there are so many stupidly cheap and easy to use choices were you don't run an OS in it but instead just a single block of single-threaded code directly on the bare metal accessing registers directly.
Temperature control, likely something to keep track of how much is left in the device, and Iâm betting Iâm forgetting something.
I doubt discreet electronics can cut it at that point.
Yeah, as per the analysis I did in another post, even a 555 and a couple of transistors to just blink an LED is more expensive than putting a microcontroller like this one there.
It's crazy to think that this is basically more powerful than the Apollo Guidance Computer that got people onto the moon. It costs 3 cents, and we use it for shit like this and then throw it away. What spectacular waste.
It's so you can have a spinny animation when you hit the button.
that's more powerful than my first computer
can it play Grover Teaches Typing?
Yeah, ZX81, 1k RAM lol
Yes, where "process" means measuring instantaneous changes in airflow as the user inhales (or doesn't), and regulating a heating coil accordingly by running actual program code - which requires a controller to run it and memory to store it in. I mean when you click "Reply" on this page all it has to do is process one button, but that involves a lot.
All that logic is still a choice though. You could also just instruct the user to not press the button unless they're inhaling and just actually have it be an on and of button. That's how vapes used to work. Worst thing that could happen there is that you burn the wick, which is only a problem because it's not serviceable.
There were couple series of: full lcd screen, bt connected to smartphone for notifications and a speaker versions. Plus the rechargeable battery and usb c charging port (obviously).
It was selling about 35 bucks.
Forgot the game one: had controller buttons and 3 games: pacman, tetris and a lying shooter inbuilt. With full lcd and speaker. (Thus wasnt bt connected tho) Price was similar.
outright bans just allow black markets to flourish. harm reduction and public safety campaigns would go much further
As someone who vapes quite a bit, I would genuinely love to see this. Disposables are an absolute shitshow and never should have existed in the first place.
Seriously. I struggle to fathom how running out for disposables is even slightly more convenient than refilling a proper tank every so often and replacing the coil. It tastes better, lasts longer and makes much less waste.
Vapes should never have existed? Smoking rates and nicotine addiction were finally going down... Then the good old invention of the vape brings it rocketing back again.
This, cartridges make me feel dirty, let alone wasting a entire li-ion cell too.
There are some shops that will actually collect the vapes and send them back to the manufacturer for recycling. But it's less common than it used to be, which frustrates me to no end, it should be the reverse if anything.
It makes you feel dirty, but the question is do you still do it anyway - and if the answer is yes, that's the problem. because that's what drives the whole industry.
we should ban all forms of smoking
why does a glorified heater connected to a battery need any silicon attached to it?
Wait til you hear about all the different technologies we use to generate electricity
yep, thatâs right - it goes in the square hole weâre boiling water!
it's not all steam
It's just turning water into steam again, isn't it
A lot of them have selectable voltage/power levels as a "feature", which is easier to do via a mcu PWM controll than discrete electronics.
yeah it's more efficient this way but all you need is ne555 + mosfet tho? still no need for it to be turing complete
then you have to interface with charger anyway so ig this makes some more sophisticated chip make sense
ok fine i'd put there a current limiter which you can make with 2 transistors and a diode. no need for an entire microcontroller. it's often included with batteries these days anyway
i think you can get away with resistors when you can work with 5V, up to 1.5A. lithium batteries need current limiter in series with voltage limiter, and this alone can be made in a very simple way, unless you want to know when battery is charged, or if you want extra efficiency that smps gives you, but this only makes sense for larger batteries (phone-sized and up) or when you want to handle everything to charger and connect battery to charger directly. then i think you need controller
It's probably cheaper and simpler to modify (say you suddenly want it to turn on when you click 3 times) to use a 0.1⏠chip than to figure out how to do it and build it with discrete components.
20 years ago I was all "computer (chips) can do everything! We can use them everywhere! Replaceable, reprogrammable, fantastic!"
And no one cared.
Now they are everywhere and it's just a fucking mess đ
Maybe 20 years from now the EU will have forced standards onto everything and you can (again) fix your dishwasher (and start it from work!!1!).
probably more expensive to make different mechanical components when a simple chip does it all for cheaper. how ev are cheaper than ice cars,
In my mind, nothing with a circuit board is disposable. Pains me to see it.
There also has already been someone that made a home battery from batteries harvested from disposable vapes.
It is absolutely insane that these "disposable" vapes are legal.
But can it run DOOM?
You can run Doom on a literal potato
But not on a Neo Geo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f1-7c6WX10
TL;DW - the Neo Geo has a uniquely bad architecture for FPS games making them nearly impossible to get working on the console.
That's being changed, however, as a bunch of determined devs are using raycasting to go around the console's limitations, being heavily optimized to run SNK's arcade titles.
I have seen people run Doom on a pregnancy test, and you are telling me that the Neo Geo can't run it!?
That video is a hoax. It's a small screen inserted into a pregnancy test, cables run out the side which is never brought into frame.
It seems since I have made this post that a huge amount of progress has been made in getting FPS games running on the neogeo.
I'm curious who your sole downvoter was. Was it a potato producer that dislikes gaming ? Perhaps a lemon farmer who feels their fruit could run doom on 4k. Was it someone who purchased a $5000 dollar rig only to find out they could have bought a singular potato? I guess we'll never know
I don't get those pieces of crap. There were these fancy electric cigarettes years ago, using those 3.7V rechargeable batteries. Custom designs (saw lightsaber designs), custom liquids, repairable, no e-waste. What is wrong with people to use those crapsticks? And why do those dumbnuts don't get that these things are e-waste not residual waste?
Instead of asking why people are buying disposables, ask why nobody is buying those reusable vapes. These disposable companies must be doing quite a few things better if people are willing to throw away money and tech.
Price.
That is what they do better.
Many many MANY people would sooner buy something for 5 dollars 20 times then something for $100 once whether financial necessity or not feeling guilty for buying the super expensive thing.
Not to mention people being too lazy to want to do even basic maintenance. Also companies that prefer to sell something people need to keep buying over and over might not offer a longer term version.
Not vaping or even disposable, but my manscaped face trimmer, which is supposedly a higher end one, was the first electric trimmer I've gotten that didn't come with a little bottle of lube and the instructions even said "you don't need to lube this!" Knowing that they hadn't changed the laws of physics, I lubed it anyways and I'm convinced that's the only reason it hasn't permanently seized up by now because even with the lube and a full charge, there have been times where it didn't want to start going without a good tap after turning it on.
IMO it's quality for the price more than just price, I've bought and used so many brands of refillable pods/tank mods and they always have quality problems that just don't happen with the disposables. For anyone that's experienced them, all I have to say is e-juice leakage.
They are too lazy to refill a pod, and replace a pod - not even a coil.
They dont want to bother, and that's too complicated and they would just loose it anyway - better to buy those throwaway ones.
These are the most common excuses.
24 MHz Arm Cortex M0+ processor. The chip also carried 24KB of flash storage and 3KB of static RAM.
... a 10y old phone can barely load Google, and this is about 100x slower.
Wild that you can serve anything with that hardware. Granted, static websites are basically just sending files over the wire.
The webpage he hosted was a copy of his own blog post explaining the hack. It just about fit into the 20KB of available flash storage.
We can infer that on every request, the whole static page needs to be spooled out of flash onto RAM (in chunks no larger than 3k), then sent out over Ethernet.
That's an awful lot of work for the chip. I'm not surprised at all that it errors out under heavy load. The request queue probably grows until it collides with the buffer that bucket brigades the web page to the network.
I'm afraid to look up what optimizations were necessary to get that level of performance. It's damned impressive work.
The overall hardware package is in the same ballpark as an Arduino (25% less storage, but better processor and RAM), and people put servers on those . . . well, I won't say "all the time", but it isn't an uncommon project, either.
I wonder if anyone's ever bootstrapped Forth on one of these vapesâgiven that there are implementations <512b for other arches, it should fitâand then you could program on it directly rather than flashing machine code compiled elsewhere.
(The issue with 10-year-old phones on Google is that Google isn't designed for low-end hardware anymore. It's overloaded with scripts, styles, and other things that aren't necessary for doing its job. Present a ten-year-old phone with a page with no client-side script and restrained styling, and I'd bet it would do fine.)
Skyrim port for it when?
As a manufacturer/seller of disposable vapes, literally everyone wants refillable tanks.
Obviously the customer does too but we're vertically integrated. We grow, extract, flavor, fill, and sell. Managing the logistics from China sucks and requires a decent amount of overbuying to ensure we have a steady stream. You never know when some orange retard will close up the border to x country that makes your stuff.
I'd love to just have a CoA of the distillate, flavor mixer like a coke machine, and a fill nozzle for the customer to hand to the cashier to fill.
What happened to vaping?
I specifically remember refillable vaping was exactly what you had when you vaped. You had the battery unit or a "mod" as it was called, on top of that you screwed a tank that had the coils, cotton and liquid, all that shit could be individually replaced and everybody had their own frankensteins combination of mod tank and other peripherals they liked to use.
Why did that stop being a thing in favor of these absurdly wasteful disposable pens?
Not sure what they're implying about being forced to sell non refillable vapes. I bought a Centaurus kit (refillable) two years ago and they're still selling. Though the same brand also has lines of disposables...
In reality the people buying disposables don't want to deal with the hassle that is e-juice (and changing coils). But the modern refillables are pretty good at not leaking every time you look at them wrong, though in my experience the big ones still don't like being upside down.
Yeah I've still got some of mine somewhere. I think the main reason the disposables took the market was partly that they are much cheaper, and partly that many people think they taste better. In my country the government has mandated that they be rechargable and have the flavour thingies replaceable, so they are, but they still seem to get thrown away a lot.
OK, but can it run Doom?
When I was a kid we had a 386-33MHz with 4MB RAM, it ran Doom at about 1-2FPS. Upgraded to a 486 DX (66MHz I think?) and 8MB RAM and it ran great on that. It's possible that the 386 would have been fine if we put more RAM in though, I think the biggest issue was swapping.
To clarify, it wasn't running on the pregnancy test, it was just outputting to one.
Ok here's my billion dollar idea: vapes that already are web servers!
Ok here's my trillion dollar idea:
SmartVape CloudBar. A range of premium smart home vaping devices that connect to (and depend on) the cloud so you can smartvape remotely (e.g. in the bed, on the job, or even when travelling).
Vaping, even locally, always works, unless your subscription has expired, there's no internet connection available, or any of the necessary cloud service are down.
Will it run OG Doom?
This is the new, "Will it blend?" question.
Hardware isn't the limitation, its willingness to fight locked down hardware and the power management of android. You might be able use ADB to control it, install termux and then with that, SSH server and then a server of some sort.
In my experience, most phones don't seem to boot sans battery, so its just a matter of time until the battery goes poof and your system goes down. Some manage it though - you do get a decent amount of hardware for the power consumption.
If it's an OLED and it's cracked you have only a couple hours to get your shit off of it before it goes completely blank. LCDs are usually somewhat fine depending on how they're broken. They don't get worse
It took a day to go from partially fucked to unusable, the entire screen is like seizuring. There was no actual crack though, must have hit a rock or something getting lobbed onto the ground.
Depending on how security is, you can plug a USB-c hub and connect it to a KBM and run it that way...
Interesting video about it
But does it run DOOM?
Interesting stuff
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This further illustrates how absolutely crazy it is to produce these devices for a single use and then just throw them away, not even making sure they can be recycled properly. It's complete madness. I hope they'll be banned soon, I think the EU is working on it.
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