One pipe guy's wish list for a Janty pipe... (Coming from the perspective of someone who has been smoking and collecting pipes for 20 years, and has never smoked cigs)
The biggest problem I see with all the epipes so far on the market is that they're marketed and designed like cigs, and designed to appeal to the low cost, "throw away" mentality of cigarette smokers. Pipe smokers are a completely different bunch. We want different things, and no epipe on the market now seems to have a handle on the fundamental differences between pipes and cigarettes, and what pipe smokers want. Crucially, it isn't something "just like an ecig, but with a different form factor". FWIW, here's a list of what I want from an epipe:
** LONG smoking time. Pipe smokers don't sit and have a quick cig break, or stand outside under the awning burning through a 5 minute cig. We smoke for hours. I want an epipe that I can charge, then sit and read a book for two solid hours, puffing all the while, without any perceptible performance drop off. The 601 epipe I have now will just about manage this, but from what I hear, the eGo and others can do much better (I've got an eGo on the way, as it happens!). The form factor has a large mass of pipe bowl as part of the equation, so cram all the battery in there that you can.
** Permanence. buy a quality pipe, and if you take care of it, it will last the rest of your life. I realize that atomizers are disposable and need replacing by nature, but make the body and stem of the pipe such that it's something you can buy once and keep. I'm really appalled at the fact that the entire bowl of my 601 has to be tossed out to replace the atomizer - That's horrible design, and never should have made it past the initial concept stage. Make the atomizer so it's easy to get out and easy (and cheap!) to replace. I also tend to favor some sort of standardized battery, like AA, instead of these custom batteries that we might not be able to replace in future if the company goes out of business or stops production of the custom battery. If I buy a briar pipe, even if the company that made it goes bankrupt tomorrow, the pipe will still be working fine for me ten years from now. I realize that isn't possible when working with purpose-designed atomizers, but this is a big selling point/problem for making epipes appeal to traditional pipe smokers.
** Beauty and uniqueness. A handmade briar pipe is one of the few bits of personal "jewelry" that is still largely made by human hands. Form and attractiveness are the reasons many briar pipes sell for thousand dollar price tags. Whatever you do, make it handsome! The mini-pipe/ladies' pipe out now is horribly ugly, as is the G500. The 601 is tolerable but looks like what it is, a $50 smacked-together cheapo job. While a cigarette smoker may burn through a cig without a second's thought, pipe smokers like our pipes - We like to look at them, admire them, appreciate the grain of the wood, and choose pipes to smoke for different occasions based on what they look like. Briar is a natural material and that's a HUGE part of the appeal of the pipe, because even if two pipe guys buy the same shape from the same maker, each of their pipes will be unique, because each will have distinct grain that makes it the only pipe in the world to look like it does. While I can see the knock-around appeal of a metal or carbon bowl, that misses out on a huge part of the appeal of a pipe, in selling to pipe smokers. That's the kind of look that a pipe guy will buy one of, as a toy or traveling tool, rather than buying a dozen of for the sake of admiring the grain or having an interesting collection. I realize that wood cracking has been a problem with the cheapo epipes so far, but that's because they're cheapo, not because it's wood. Properly dried, stabilized, and drilled wood can last decades without cracks.
** A range of shapes. A collector will buy one of every shape you make. Pipe guys like a variety, depending on our mood - Straights, bents, deep bents, traditional shapes, freehand shapes, exotic shapes... Again, it's not like an ecig or cig, where one buys it, smokes it, and throws it away, or doesn't care about the look. Pipes are moods, and the more variety you offer, the more you will sell.
** Capacity. This goes along with battery life. Again, we buy large pipes so we can sit and smoke one for an hour or more without having to refill it. If we wanted something we had to refill every 5-10 minutes, we'd smoke cigs. I don't know how you could practically manage this, but in my ideal epipe, I'd be able to fill it with juice and sit back and smoke it and not think about fiddling with it for at least an hour, preferably more.
So! I have no idea if any of this will be the slightest bit useful or not, but I thought I would at least take the time to write out what I see as the basic differences between pipes and cigs, and why designing an marketing an epipe to pipe smokers is a very different challenge than marketing to ecig smokers. Whole different audience with different desires and prefs. So far, all the epipes I see are designed as if they were bigger, disposable ecigs, which is like saying, "Horror films and comedies are just alike, because they're both films, so horror fans should be perfectly happy if we make a comedy that uses horror movie title fonts, and call it a horror movie." For my part, I am really hoping the Janty epipe will be the first epipe I will love, and have my wallet at the ready, if it looks like it will be a good, long lasting PIPE, instead of something cheap that I'm expected to throw the bowl away every month or two.
I hope this will help, or at least give a little insight into what traditional pipe smokers are looking for from epipes.
The biggest problem I see with all the epipes so far on the market is that they're marketed and designed like cigs, and designed to appeal to the low cost, "throw away" mentality of cigarette smokers. Pipe smokers are a completely different bunch. We want different things, and no epipe on the market now seems to have a handle on the fundamental differences between pipes and cigarettes, and what pipe smokers want. Crucially, it isn't something "just like an ecig, but with a different form factor". FWIW, here's a list of what I want from an epipe:
** LONG smoking time. Pipe smokers don't sit and have a quick cig break, or stand outside under the awning burning through a 5 minute cig. We smoke for hours. I want an epipe that I can charge, then sit and read a book for two solid hours, puffing all the while, without any perceptible performance drop off. The 601 epipe I have now will just about manage this, but from what I hear, the eGo and others can do much better (I've got an eGo on the way, as it happens!). The form factor has a large mass of pipe bowl as part of the equation, so cram all the battery in there that you can.
** Permanence. buy a quality pipe, and if you take care of it, it will last the rest of your life. I realize that atomizers are disposable and need replacing by nature, but make the body and stem of the pipe such that it's something you can buy once and keep. I'm really appalled at the fact that the entire bowl of my 601 has to be tossed out to replace the atomizer - That's horrible design, and never should have made it past the initial concept stage. Make the atomizer so it's easy to get out and easy (and cheap!) to replace. I also tend to favor some sort of standardized battery, like AA, instead of these custom batteries that we might not be able to replace in future if the company goes out of business or stops production of the custom battery. If I buy a briar pipe, even if the company that made it goes bankrupt tomorrow, the pipe will still be working fine for me ten years from now. I realize that isn't possible when working with purpose-designed atomizers, but this is a big selling point/problem for making epipes appeal to traditional pipe smokers.
** Beauty and uniqueness. A handmade briar pipe is one of the few bits of personal "jewelry" that is still largely made by human hands. Form and attractiveness are the reasons many briar pipes sell for thousand dollar price tags. Whatever you do, make it handsome! The mini-pipe/ladies' pipe out now is horribly ugly, as is the G500. The 601 is tolerable but looks like what it is, a $50 smacked-together cheapo job. While a cigarette smoker may burn through a cig without a second's thought, pipe smokers like our pipes - We like to look at them, admire them, appreciate the grain of the wood, and choose pipes to smoke for different occasions based on what they look like. Briar is a natural material and that's a HUGE part of the appeal of the pipe, because even if two pipe guys buy the same shape from the same maker, each of their pipes will be unique, because each will have distinct grain that makes it the only pipe in the world to look like it does. While I can see the knock-around appeal of a metal or carbon bowl, that misses out on a huge part of the appeal of a pipe, in selling to pipe smokers. That's the kind of look that a pipe guy will buy one of, as a toy or traveling tool, rather than buying a dozen of for the sake of admiring the grain or having an interesting collection. I realize that wood cracking has been a problem with the cheapo epipes so far, but that's because they're cheapo, not because it's wood. Properly dried, stabilized, and drilled wood can last decades without cracks.
** A range of shapes. A collector will buy one of every shape you make. Pipe guys like a variety, depending on our mood - Straights, bents, deep bents, traditional shapes, freehand shapes, exotic shapes... Again, it's not like an ecig or cig, where one buys it, smokes it, and throws it away, or doesn't care about the look. Pipes are moods, and the more variety you offer, the more you will sell.
** Capacity. This goes along with battery life. Again, we buy large pipes so we can sit and smoke one for an hour or more without having to refill it. If we wanted something we had to refill every 5-10 minutes, we'd smoke cigs. I don't know how you could practically manage this, but in my ideal epipe, I'd be able to fill it with juice and sit back and smoke it and not think about fiddling with it for at least an hour, preferably more.
So! I have no idea if any of this will be the slightest bit useful or not, but I thought I would at least take the time to write out what I see as the basic differences between pipes and cigs, and why designing an marketing an epipe to pipe smokers is a very different challenge than marketing to ecig smokers. Whole different audience with different desires and prefs. So far, all the epipes I see are designed as if they were bigger, disposable ecigs, which is like saying, "Horror films and comedies are just alike, because they're both films, so horror fans should be perfectly happy if we make a comedy that uses horror movie title fonts, and call it a horror movie." For my part, I am really hoping the Janty epipe will be the first epipe I will love, and have my wallet at the ready, if it looks like it will be a good, long lasting PIPE, instead of something cheap that I'm expected to throw the bowl away every month or two.
I hope this will help, or at least give a little insight into what traditional pipe smokers are looking for from epipes.
And that's really all I can say about it at the moment. FWIW, though, a 9mm filter is a good bit larger than my eGo cart, and would have a lot of liquid capacity, probably close to the carts on my 601.
