Ploom Vaporiser Review: Solid Concept Goes Up In Smoke

I really wanted to like the Ploom. It’s a slick little portable vaporiser, something that’s easy to toss in a bag and carry around with you. Unfortunately, having used it, I have no interest in ever using it again.

The major issue with the Ploom is that it only accepts Ploom’s proprietary pods, which are full of flavoured tobaccos. You can’t put your own tobacco or anything else in there, as the whole system requires these little canisters to work. And forgive me, but I really have no interest in smoking anything “orchard” flavoured. These things are to real tobacco/pot what Smirnoff Ice is to whiskey: something sweet to get teenagers hooked before they acquire a taste for the good stuff.

And smoking is what this thing lets you do, despite it being called a vaporiser. I know vaporisers, I love vaporisers, and this is no vaporiser – it produces harsh, thick smoke. Maybe it’s that the coil inside the Ploom just gets too hot, but this thing makes me cough almost every time I use it.

The system also seems pretty buggy. Half the time I set it to vaporise, nothing happens. And it’s also shocked me a couple of times when I tried to turn it on, which is disconcerting.

Overall, the Ploom seems like a missed opportunity. If it worked properly (which it may in the future, as I tested a “beta” unit) and you could only use your own plant materials inside, it would be a neat little device. But when the only things you can smoke are gross, overly sweet flavoured tobaccos, I’m not quite sure who it’s meant for.

Here’s a quick video review of it in action and me coughing while smoking “orchard” flavoured tobacco. Gross:

Sleek, sexy design

Only works with proprietary “pods” of gross flavoured tobacco

Heats to burn, not vaporise

Doesn’t turn on half the time, shocks you infrequently

[Ploom]