When it comes to transitioning from smoking to vaping, heavy smokers have special needs that may make the switch a little more difficult than it would be for the average pack-a-day smoker. If you’re a heavy smoker, it doesn’t just mean that you consume more nicotine than other smokers; it also means that you spend more time with a cigarette in your mouth than an average smoker would. You may also find it difficult to derive any satisfaction from vaping unless your device is capable of producing the same powerful throat hit that you’d get from smoking a full-flavored cigarette.
The fact that you’re a heavy smoker may create certain challenges that could potentially impede your ability to switch from smoking to vaping, but it doesn’t make the switch impossible. Heavy smokers switch to vaping every day, and the fact that your nicotine needs are greater than most simply means that you might need to spend a bit of extra time thinking about which type of vaping device will be right for your needs.
When you go to a local vape shop like The Vape Bar to look for your first vaping device, it’s a good idea to mention the fact that you’re a heavy smoker. The people who work at the shop will have experience helping customers with high nicotine needs, and they’ll be very valuable to you in the product selection process. Before you visit a vape shop near you, though, this overview of the best vaping devices for heavy smokers will help you understand your choices.
Disposable vapes are probably the most popular products on the market today for people who are new to vaping. They’re filled with e-liquid, fully charged and ready to use right out of the package, which will be a great thing for you if you dislike gadgets and really need vaping to be as convenient as smoking. You can carry a disposable vape in your pocket, and it’s always ready to use – just pull it out and puff on it when you need to. A disposable vape typically uses high-strength e-liquid and will deliver about as much nicotine per puff as a tobacco cigarette.
If you’re a heavy smoker, though, disposable vapes do have one potential drawback in that they can be somewhat expensive if you vape so often that you have to replace your devices constantly. An average disposable vape typically delivers around 400-800 puffs before it requires replacement. If you smoke two packs of cigarettes or more per day, you could end up needing to buy a new disposable vape almost every day. That could get expensive very quickly.
The next step up from disposable vapes in terms of device longevity and cost of operation is a pre-filled pod-based device such as JUUL or Vuse. With a pre-filled pod system, you don’t need to buy an entirely new device every time you run out of e-liquid. Instead, you’ll recharge your device and simply replace the e-liquid pod. A pre-filled vape pod costs less than a disposable vape, so using a pre-filled pod system could help you keep your costs down.
Pre-filled pod systems, however, do have a drawback in the United States in that the pods are only available in tobacco and menthol flavors due to legal restrictions. That may not be a problem for you if you know that you’re not interested in fruity or sweet flavors, but it’ll be a significant problem if you want your vaping experience to offer more variety than that.
Compared to disposable vapes, pre-filled pod systems offer about the same level of satisfaction from a nicotine delivery standpoint. If you need even more nicotine than that, you’ll want to look at the next item on this list.
A refillable pod system is a pod-based vaping device with a pod that you can refill yourself using the e-liquid of your choice. Instead of having just two flavors to choose from as you would with a pre-filled pod system – or perhaps a dozen, as would be the case with disposable vapes – using a refillable pod system means that you can use any bottled e-liquid on the market. There are hundreds of flavors available, and you’ll never have enough time to try them all. Flavor variety is a big part of what makes vaping fun and enjoyable, so that’s a major benefit of using a refillable pod system.
Another benefit that refillable pod systems have for heavy smokers is that they usually produce bigger vapor clouds than disposable vapes. You can fill a pod system with the same high-strength e-liquid that you’d get in a disposable vape – but since your device will produce bigger clouds than a disposable e-cigarette would, you’ll find the experience even more satisfying.
Compared to the previous two types of devices on this list, using a refillable pod system does have one drawback in that you’ll need to maintain the device by recharging the battery, refilling the device and occasionally replacing the pod or atomizer coil. For many heavy smokers, though, the need to do a little extra maintenance is a small price to pay for the added satisfaction and flavor variety.
The biggest and most powerful type of vaping device is the vape mod. A vape mod usually has a box-like shape and is around the same size as a pack of cigarettes. Out of all the different types of vaping devices, vape mods produce the biggest clouds. That, however, doesn’t necessarily make them the best vaping devices for heavy smokers. That’s because the tank included with a vape mod is almost always one that’s optimized for low-nicotine e-liquids. When you use a vape mod, you’ll enjoy excellent nicotine delivery thanks to the device’s vapor production. However, you won’t experience the same assertive throat hit that you’d enjoy with a device optimized for high-strength e-liquids. For that reason, vape mods often aren’t the best vaping devices for heavy smokers despite their impressive cloud production.