Is this a product review or a fever dream? For reasons that will become abundantly clear shortly, I’m not sure. But what I do know is that this post is for rich people ONLY. Poor friends, middle-class pals: Avert your non-rich eyes! You cannot afford to read this article. As a freelancer journalist, neither can I, which is why I will be typing the rest of it with my eyes closed.
Okay, rich people, it’s just you and me now. Let’s proceed.
This story began with a simple thought exercise: If money were no object, what is the best way to get high? This question led me down a rabbit hole that was many months long and included, frankly, way more weed than I wanted in my life. I did, however, arrive at the answer, including at-home and on-the-go solutions, and it is this knowledge which I will hereby impart unto you so that you might impress and/or horrify your friends and family. Are these gadgets excessive? Friends, they most certainly are, but they also work extremely, fantastically well.
Two important caveats:
- I’m talking about getting high on marijuana/pot/weed/cannabis/wacky tobaccy/the devil’s lettuce. I’m sure you could easily drop more money on blow or something, but I’ve never had any interest in the stuff, and that’s not what we’re talking about here.
- I’ve forgotten what the second thing was. Hold on. Oh right. The point of this exercise was not to simply spend as much money as possible. There are hand-blown glass bongs that cost many thousands of dollars. That’s not what we’re doing here. We’re looking for function over form. Efficiency over fanciness. Geekery over fleekery? Let’s pretend I didn’t say that last thing and move on.
The Ultimate Home Setup: Stündenglass Kompact + G Pen Hyer — $600 + $250 - $300
Tested with Raw Garden concentrates (Prices and availability vary).
Let’s cut to the chase. The overall, bar none, best way to get stoned is by combining two high-end devices: The Stündenglass Kompact and the G Pen Hyer. They fit together seamlessly, with no hacking required. It’s a thing of beauty, really.
The Stundenglass Kompact could best be described as a sort of gravity-bong/hookah hybrid, but it’s far better than the sum of its parts. It looks a bit like an hourglass, but one globe is full of water, and it has some tubes coming off it. The way it works is pure genius. There’s a bowl-end where your weed goes (though you can also use it as a hookah, or as a smoke-infuser for fancy foods and cocktails, but let’s not get sidetracked), and once heat is applied, you simply invert the hourglass-looking part. As water bubbles down from the top chamber into the bottom, it creates a vacuum that pulls on the lit bowl and fills the top globe with smoke or vapor. When you flip it again, the smoke that collected in the bowl is now pushed out through a wand or long hookah hose and into your awaiting lungs. The formerly-downward-facing bowl fills with smoke again with each flip, so it’s a continuous process. It’s hard to explain, but when you see it in action, you’ll get it right away.
This system is extremely clever. Not only is it quite handsome, it’s very well made. The glass globes are borosilicate glass and are dishwasher safe. The stand is made of sturdy anodized metal, has very fine tolerances, and comes with a 10-year warranty. The vacuum created by the gravity pulling the water down nets very deep, thick hits, but the water cools it down very nicely. Because the next flip of the device actively forces the air (smoke) out through the exit tube, you don’t actually have to touch your lips to it, making it a way more sanitary experience if you’re sharing with friends. It even comes with a nice, fabric, padded carrying case.
It’s worth noting that Stundenglass makes two models of this device. The original Stundenglass has a whopping three cups (24 fluid ounces) of volume per globe, compared to just one cup (8 fluid ounces) on the Kompact. Trust me, you do not need the bigger version. Even if you can clear that much vapor at once (unlikely), your lungs can’t absorb it all, so you’re just wasting weed. I promise the smaller hits (which are still plenty big) will get you where you want to go, and possibly even farther.
Anyway, the Kompact is absolutely fantastic. It’s also $600. Now, because you’re rich, that probably doesn’t sound like a lot to you, but for the lowly 99-percent out there, that is a lot of money to be spending on a weed-smoking device. But we’re not done yet. You see, while some barbarians might just slap a bowl on that thing and go at it with a butane lighter, you’ve got more class than that. Combustibles? Pish-posh! We need to take this to the next level.
And that’s where the G Pen Hyer comes in. Sometimes called an e-nail, it’s more accurate to think of the Hyer as an electronic bowl (e-bowl?) that can vaporize or burn weed with jus the press of a button. This thing is slick. It comes with a 14mm male glass adapter so it can fit into most water pipe rigs, including the Stundenglass Kompact. It features a massive 6,000mAh battery with simple, three-button controls. A long, braided cable connects it to the oven-end, which fits into the Stundenglass. The cable is magnetically attached at both ends, which is good for stoners who are prone to tripping over things.
The G Pen Hyer comes with a bowl for concentrates. You just put a bit in the bowl, put the lid on, then turn on the Hyer and choose your temperature. It has five settings between 482 degrees F and a blistering 842 degrees F. For concentrates, I would recommend using the lowest or second lowest setting. You will still get a thick, smooth vapor, but you’re less likely to cough and waste smoke like you would from a hotter setting (or a traditional dab rig). Once you double-click to start heating, it only takes about 30 second to get up to temperature. The Hyer does an excellent job of preserving flavor (especially at lower temps), and once it’s filtered through the Stundenglass Kompact, the vapor is extremely cool. You might still choke a little, but it’s not going to feel like burning.
For this review, I tested with a variety of concentrates from Raw Garden, which is generally regarded as having some of the highest-quality stuff on the market. It uses a process of rapidly freezing the cannabis plants while they’re still alive to preserve all of the flavors and terpenes, and then the oils are extracted while the plant is still frozen. The products come in different forms, some of which I’d never even heard of before. These include live resin, live sauce, diamonds, and crushed diamonds. They’re pungent and smell/taste amazing, and they are staggeringly pure—some more than 98-percent cannabinoids. In other words, be careful, because a tiny bit goes a loooong way. I tried all of these different types (and others, including shatter) with the Hyer, and they all vaporized cleanly.
One of the coolest things about the G Pen Hyer, though, is that it isn’t limited to concentrates. For an additional 50 bucks, you can get a Dry Herb Tank. You just unscrew the bowl for concentrates and screw in the Dry Herb Tank, load some ground bud into it, and you’re ready to go. The Dry Herb Tank can vaporize as cool as 356 degrees F and as high as 428 degrees F. For most people, I’d recommend the middle temperature of 392F, which is hot enough to vaporize most active cannabinoids, but cool enough that it doesn’t burn most of the carcinogens. Here, again, the Hyer did its job nicely. It heats evenly, and preserves flavor well.
Really, the only piece of criticism I have for the G Pen Hyer is that, at this price, it should have an LCD screen that displays actual numbers, and you should be able to dial in whatever temperature you want. Currently, it uses five colors to indicate which temperature you have selected (blue, turquoise, green, yellow, and red), but if you don’t remember what the temperatures those colors represent, then you’re kind of just guessing. I’ve also found that, for some concentrates the blue setting was too cool, but the turquoise setting was too hot. Would have been nice to be able to find just the right temperature in the middle
So, that is the ultimate at-home setup. All together, it will set you back $900, before tax and such, and that’s before you buy any actual weed for it. That being said, it’s by far the best (and coolest) method for getting stoned I’ve ever seen. It looks good and it works well. Arguably too well.
Ultimate Portable Setup: DaVinci IC2 Carbon Vaporizer — $500
Last year, I reviewed the DaVinci IQC for Gizmodo. It was so good and so sleek. It fits easily in any pocket, it produces delicious vapor, and it can be adjusted one degree at a time. The new IQ2 Carbon is basically the same vaporizer, but better, and more expensive. The first, obvious, difference is that, instead of an aluminum body, this one is made of a dark carbon fiber. Mostly, it just looks cool, but it actually distributes heat better, so the device doesn’t get as hot in your hand.
The IQ2 also has a built-in dosage estimator. You can just punch in the cannabinoid percentage of the weed you’re putting in there (most dispensaries print this on the label now), the IQ2 measures how deeply you’re inhaling, and then it will tell you how much THC (or CBD) you just inhaled. This is really great for people who don’t want to over (or under) do it, or who might just want to microdose. Unlike the IQC, the IQ2 has a dial at the bottom that lets you control the airflow, which is a nice feature.
Like the IQC, it charges quickly via USB-C and it even has swappable batteries, should you be going off the grid for a while. The plate around the bowl slopes in nicely, so it’s easy to load, and it features a built-in tool for stirring and scraping. Because the IQ2 Carbon is a special limited edition, it comes with some really nice extras, including six stainless steel dosage pods (and a carrying case) that allow you to pre-grind some weed at home and then swap them in and out when you’re on the go (great for concerts). It also comes with a tiny bubbler attachment, if you want it to be even smoother, and a grinder that fits the dosage pods, which makes filling them even easier. You can even use it to vaporize concentrates with this $12 Extract Refill Kit.
Because you have millions and millions of dollars, this is the portable vaporizer you should get, because it’s the best I’ve ever used. At $500, it’s a delight. That said, if you just lost most of your money in a crypto scheme, then the IQC is basically almost as good; just don’t let any of your real rich friends know that it only cost $200.
Conclusions
In my testing, to do all due diligence and make sure I’m speaking from a place of authority, I smoked (okay, vaporized) more weed than I would have, or really should have, normally. These devices work well. Arguably, too well. Several times, when testing the at-home rig with concentrates, I accidentally launched myself into an orbit that took a couple of days to fully come back from. In doing so, I realized that there really can be too much of a good thing. Always smoke responsibly.
Regardless, I have now climbed to the summit of weed mountain. I have found what I believe to be the ultimate setup, and now that I have, I am officially retiring from reviewing weed products, and I’m taking a good, long (permanent?) break from smoking, too.
I have no doubt that things will continue to progress, and that new technologies will find even better ways to motivate people to eat all of the cereal in their cabinets, dry, and by the fistful. While I had a good time, life is too short to be as braindead as I have been during this test period. So, congrats to the Stundenglass Kompact, the G Pen Hyer, Raw Garden, and the DaVinci IQ2 Carbon. Your products are so good that I decided I needed to walk away.