The WISPR (or IOLITE WISPR) is the latest butane-powered vaporizer to enter the market. But what makes the WISPR different from the IOLITE ORIGINAL? Apart from the completely new design, manufacturer Oglesby & Butler claims to have made quite a few improvements under the hood.
Besides the design and somewhat vague claim of a ‘complete re-working of the technology from the iolite original’, the WISPR also features the following significant changes:
- Larger butane reservoir
- See-through butane indicator window
- Flexible, foldable mouthpiece
After what seemed like endless waiting, the WISPR vaporizer finally arrived in the mail. I anxiously opened the box and much like the IOLITE ORIGINAL (yep, they’ve changed the name once again) the packaging is very Apple-like, clean and sleek.
Looks
I must admit that the unit itself isn’t very elegant or ergonomically shaped; in fact it’s rather bulky. However, I still think it looks cool, in its own retro-like way. What I also like is that, unlike the ‘old’ IOLITE, the WISPR can stand upright, or on any of it’s 6 surfaces.
Function
The filling chamber is also easier to access: no more clicking plastic parts, one simply has to lift the silicon mouthpiece. We found that filling the chamber for about 1/2 to 1/3 seems to deliver the best results in terms of efficiency and airflow.
Pushing the handle on the side all the way down releases the gas and sparks the ignition to start heating up. When the unit is cool it takes about 45 seconds to heat-up. During heat-up, a hissing sound can be heard (more on that later). Once the fixed temperature is reached the WISPR’s built-in thermostat cycles to maintain a constant temperature.
This is pretty much how the IOLITE ORIGINAL worked, so those improvements must be invisible to us. However, it is clear that the WISPR produces thicker vapour than its predecessor, so this must be where the improvements are. I was pleasantly surprised by the thickness of the vapour, which requires minimal drawing to achieve. It feels like the WISPR operates at a somewhat higher temperature than the IOLITE, but still in the right range to avoid combustion. Good job on that one, O&B.
What I also like about the WISPR is that there’s virtually no learning curve. Drawing harder or softer will of course make a difference (draw too hard and you’ll inhale hot vapour), but there’s not really a certain ‘technique’ that one needs to learn first.
So this vape is pretty good at what it it should do, but there’s also some things that I wasn’t too happy about. For one is the noise it produces during heating up. The hissing sound makes it pretty much impossible to use in public places, it’s just too loud. It is possible to muffle the sound by covering the side of the unit with your hand or a piece of cloth, but I doubt this is any good.
Another dissapointment lies in the taste of the vapour. I’m not sure what it is, but there is a faint taste of chemical or plastic that just doesn’t seem to go away. Maybe it’s because I’m used to theArizer Solo, which uses a glass mouthpiece instead of silicon. In any case, this is something that I was hoping wouldn’t be the case since I feel vaporizing is all about clean taste.