For those of you who are considering buying a Bo One, I thought I’d share my experiences with this device. Hope it helps you!
I bought my first Bo One in march 2017. I have the automatic version, along with the powerbank.
Regarding it’s features, use and first impression I suggest you check out the various review video’s on You Tube. I think they are accurate.
The things I love about the Bo One are:
- Ease of use
- Look & feel: this is a device that you can use everywhere and anywhere without looking like you’re desperate to get off cigarettes. It’s elegant and discrete.
- The Gold RX pods!
- The vapour production (not too much, not too little if you're just coming off analogues)
- The throat hit with the 16 mg pods (the others are too light for me).
- The power bank: wow does it look good and it’s so convenient to use. Like carrying around your pack of analogue cigs.
I really wanted to stick with this e-cig, but am now in the process of moving on due to the following.
Battery
I’m on my third battery since February/March 2017 now.
The first gave out after 2 or 3 months. It hardly wanted to charge. I had to shift the battery around in the charger for it to get adequate contact or some such thing. This was both the case with the standard charger as with the power bank. Unfortunately I was on holidays with no opportunity to replace it (we were constantly on the road).
The second Bo One gave out after 2 months. This time I contacted JWell. JWell suggested I might have overcharged it by using a too powerful wall adapter (they did however replace it for free and without hassle; so no quarrel there). When checking my wall adapter I noticed it was well within the power limits, so that doesn’t seem to have been the case. I never leave the battery in the charger overnight or for hours on end either.
So the battery seems to be too weak (side effect of it being so small?) or I just got really unlucky.
The pods
First of all, not all pods fit the battery. There seems to be a problem in measurement consistency. You’ll hear about this in some of the online and You Tube reviews as well. It happened to me about 1 out of 10 times. As I don’t feel like complaining each time, this basically means the pods are 10% more expensive as I was discarding an unused pod every 10 days.
The pods also have a tendency to leak. Often they come out of the package already quit wet. You need to have a napkin to wipe them off before inserting them in the battery. On a number of occasions I found myself needing to change a pod while underway in the car with no napkins on hand, wondering what to use to wipe it off (even considering my scarf ;-))
Finally the black mouthpiece on the pods sometimes comes off when pulling the e-cig from the power bank. Worse is however that the black mouthpiece also has a tendency to crack. I have been experiencing that more and more the last month. I was on holidays in the south of France and multiple pods came with a cracked mouth piece out of the strip (so even before using it). Cracks lead to a lot of extra airflow and therefore a weak draw with hardly any troat hit or flavour. I ended up taping the pods with adhesive before inserting them in the battery (and because of the size I would also have to cut the tape in half horizontally first) and finally just reverting 90% back to analogues L I’m not sure if the temperatures in France had anything to do with it, but in my opinion an e-cig and all its components should be able to withstand 30-35C’s temperature.
Conclusion
I absolutely love the concept of the Bo One. It’s elegant and discrete, travels easily and when it works properly it has a decent throat hit, good vapor, nice flavors and although maybe not the cheapest, it won’t break the bank either. However the problems with the mouthpiece cracking has made me move away from the Bo One for now. I could live with the leakage and size non-conformity (the latter because it wasn’t too frequent). But after opening two entire strips of pods in a row and finding them all (!) cracked (hence the desperate taping exercise) I have come to the conclusion that it’s not worth the hassle any more. Although this is ultimately a rather negative review, I would like to mention that I will revisit the Bo One if JWell manages to address the current issues. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for an improved version. So if you take this review into account when considering the Bo One, check the date of this review against any info on possible improvements JWell may have made to its product.
PS:
Currently I’m looking into switching to the V2 Vertx or the V2 EX. The Vertx I already received and in comparison with the Bo One the biggest difference is the tightness of the draw. The Vertx has a much tighter draw than the Bo One. The Red flavor is much less sweet than the Gold RX. I like that, although I liked the Gold RX too (the latter just not having anything to do really with a tobacco flavor).
I bought my first Bo One in march 2017. I have the automatic version, along with the powerbank.
Regarding it’s features, use and first impression I suggest you check out the various review video’s on You Tube. I think they are accurate.
The things I love about the Bo One are:
- Ease of use
- Look & feel: this is a device that you can use everywhere and anywhere without looking like you’re desperate to get off cigarettes. It’s elegant and discrete.
- The Gold RX pods!
- The vapour production (not too much, not too little if you're just coming off analogues)
- The throat hit with the 16 mg pods (the others are too light for me).
- The power bank: wow does it look good and it’s so convenient to use. Like carrying around your pack of analogue cigs.
I really wanted to stick with this e-cig, but am now in the process of moving on due to the following.
Battery
I’m on my third battery since February/March 2017 now.
The first gave out after 2 or 3 months. It hardly wanted to charge. I had to shift the battery around in the charger for it to get adequate contact or some such thing. This was both the case with the standard charger as with the power bank. Unfortunately I was on holidays with no opportunity to replace it (we were constantly on the road).
The second Bo One gave out after 2 months. This time I contacted JWell. JWell suggested I might have overcharged it by using a too powerful wall adapter (they did however replace it for free and without hassle; so no quarrel there). When checking my wall adapter I noticed it was well within the power limits, so that doesn’t seem to have been the case. I never leave the battery in the charger overnight or for hours on end either.
So the battery seems to be too weak (side effect of it being so small?) or I just got really unlucky.
The pods
First of all, not all pods fit the battery. There seems to be a problem in measurement consistency. You’ll hear about this in some of the online and You Tube reviews as well. It happened to me about 1 out of 10 times. As I don’t feel like complaining each time, this basically means the pods are 10% more expensive as I was discarding an unused pod every 10 days.
The pods also have a tendency to leak. Often they come out of the package already quit wet. You need to have a napkin to wipe them off before inserting them in the battery. On a number of occasions I found myself needing to change a pod while underway in the car with no napkins on hand, wondering what to use to wipe it off (even considering my scarf ;-))
Finally the black mouthpiece on the pods sometimes comes off when pulling the e-cig from the power bank. Worse is however that the black mouthpiece also has a tendency to crack. I have been experiencing that more and more the last month. I was on holidays in the south of France and multiple pods came with a cracked mouth piece out of the strip (so even before using it). Cracks lead to a lot of extra airflow and therefore a weak draw with hardly any troat hit or flavour. I ended up taping the pods with adhesive before inserting them in the battery (and because of the size I would also have to cut the tape in half horizontally first) and finally just reverting 90% back to analogues L I’m not sure if the temperatures in France had anything to do with it, but in my opinion an e-cig and all its components should be able to withstand 30-35C’s temperature.
Conclusion
I absolutely love the concept of the Bo One. It’s elegant and discrete, travels easily and when it works properly it has a decent throat hit, good vapor, nice flavors and although maybe not the cheapest, it won’t break the bank either. However the problems with the mouthpiece cracking has made me move away from the Bo One for now. I could live with the leakage and size non-conformity (the latter because it wasn’t too frequent). But after opening two entire strips of pods in a row and finding them all (!) cracked (hence the desperate taping exercise) I have come to the conclusion that it’s not worth the hassle any more. Although this is ultimately a rather negative review, I would like to mention that I will revisit the Bo One if JWell manages to address the current issues. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for an improved version. So if you take this review into account when considering the Bo One, check the date of this review against any info on possible improvements JWell may have made to its product.
PS:
Currently I’m looking into switching to the V2 Vertx or the V2 EX. The Vertx I already received and in comparison with the Bo One the biggest difference is the tightness of the draw. The Vertx has a much tighter draw than the Bo One. The Red flavor is much less sweet than the Gold RX. I like that, although I liked the Gold RX too (the latter just not having anything to do really with a tobacco flavor).
