Category: electronic cigarettes

Smokers of Blu Cigs electronic cigarettes already use technology to update an ancient practice. Rather than inhaling the smoke of burning tobacco, they breathe in water vapor that delivers the same dose of nicotine provided by a traditional cigarette. But there is a social aspect to using the company’s e-cigarettes. Every time that a Blu pack is opened to retrieve or put away an e-cigarette, a blue LED light on the pack’s front is illuminated. According to the company, a blue light shining on the pack is a conversation starter that pleases users. With that in mind, Blu Cigs is adding a new component—RFID—to help its customers connect with each other, as well as start conversations between them. With an active RFID tag in each pack, one pack of Blu Cigs can detect the presence of another from the same manufacturer, and the packs will then light up and vibrate to indicate that someone in the vicinity also uses that brand. The system, expected to be made commercially available in August 2011, is known as BluBand.
A Blu pack holds five cartridges (also known as e-cigarettes), which look much like traditional cigarettes, powered by small batteries charged by a rechargeable battery in the pack itself, causing the blue light to pulsate. About the size of a traditional pack of cigarettes, the Blu pack can be plugged into a wall outlet or a computer to recharge its own battery. Each e-cigarette contains a sensor, a heater and a water-based mixture containing nicotine and other flavoring products (the company also offers a non-nicotine version of the mix), says Ramon Alarcon, Blu Cigs’ principal product-development engineer. When an individual sucks on the end of one of the e-cigarettes, its sensor detects that action and activates its heater. As heat is applied to the mix, the e-cigarette produces a mist that provides the physical sensation, appearance and flavor of smoke inhaled from a traditional cigarette.
The Blu pack has a light that illuminates each time it is opened.
The company has sold 500,000 packs to date, and based on feedback from its customers, it found that the electronic pack with its glowing blue light was a conversation starter. Smokers reported that in public places, such as restaurants, nightclubs or bars, other people often asked them about the packs. Blu Cigs has since developed technology that it hopes will further encourage conversations. The solution includes a transceiver that both sends and receives RFID transmissions. The transceiver, embedded in the center of the pack, includes a battery, a chip and an antenna. The chip stores the transceiver’s unique ID number, which can be transmitted several times per second, Alarcon says. He declines to provide the specific RF frequency or air-interface protocol that the system will employ, but notes that it will transmit within an industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) RF band that can operate in both Europe and North America.
As the transceiver beacons, in the event that another RFID-enabled Blu pack comes within range (approximately 10 meters, or 33 feet) the second pack’s transceiver responds to the transmission by sending its own unique ID—which, in turn, is captured by the first Blu pack. At that time, both packs illuminate their own blue LED screens, and also vibrate. The users must then look around the room to determine with whom they have connected. The company envisions a user holding up a pack in order to try to catch the attention of another user in the room or immediate area. When BluBand is launched commercially in August, it will provide only the light and vibration alert, but future versions are expected to also include software options that could help smokers link up with each other after heading home.
Once the software option becomes available, a user would first sign into the system via Blu Cigs’ Web site, where he would be invited to provide such personal data as a name and contact information, that could include an e-mail address or Facebook page. The pack can be plugged into a PC via a USB cord, allowing access to Blu Cigs’ server software, and enabling a user to charge the pack’s battery. Once the pack is plugged in, and if the user opts to input personal details, the pack’s ID is linked to that person’s name and contact information. As the smoker then uses the pack in public places, if another pack captures the ID number of that individual’s pack, it will store that information, and the pack user can then go back to his own account by plugging his pack into his PC, and then determine whether the other Blu pack user provided his or her name and contact information. When this functionality will be available has yet to be determined, Alarcon says.
“We began developing the RFID function a little under a year ago,” Alarcon states, “The pack and its features, including the social-networking feature, was all user-driven.” He adds that users claimed they enjoyed the social aspect of meeting people because of their unique cigarette brand. “It’s designed to be both informative and entertaining in social situations one might encounter in places such as restaurants, night clubs and parties.”
The cost of the RFID-enabled Blu pack will be slightly higher than the price for the standard version, Alarcon says, though he declines to reveal the exact amount of increase. The cartridges themselves are not expected to be higher priced than those used in the standard packs.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – In this THV Extra, we are taking a closer look into E-Cigs. Are they really healthier than an average cigarette?
Some are calling it the everyday smoker’s savior: e- cigarettes. The smokeless, odorless and tobacco free alternative to your average square.
But how do they even work? Can someone actually kick the habit and how healthy, if at all are they?
The e-cigarette, it looks almost like a real cigarette. Maybe a little larger, but the LED lighted tip, the vapor and the filter serving milligrams of nicotine into the user may have some looking or puffing twice.
Setting it even farther apart from the real thing is the absence of nearly 4000 carcinogens.
“These are an electronic device that you put a cartridge inside that contains nicotine and heaven knows what else,” says Dr. Carolyn Dresler.
Dresler with the Arkansas Department of Health says a lack of data and studies from e-cig companies themselves has raised red flags with many health officials.
“These products have been out too new to really know the science. The tobacco industry that makes them they’re not doing any science on it, so who knows what’s really in it,” says Dresler.
In 2009 an FDA preliminary study revealed traces of diethylene glycol, an ingredient commonly used in antifreeze.
Late last month, the FDA agreed to take action in attempts to regulate the product.
Harmful or not- full time college student Kari Ellis has used the device for six months and claims the effects have been monumental in her everyday life.
“It’s almost like put a piece of spearmint candy in your mouth and inhale,” says Ellis.
Having smoked on and off for years, Ellis says stress just keeps bringing her back. “Right now is just not the time in my life where I can quit.”
Liam Hill, who isn’t looking to quit smoking anytime soon tried it out.
A little tough at first, but a second drag had him asking questions. “I don’t know how much these things cost.”
Each changeable filter on the cigarette is the equivalent of one pack of cigarettes.
A one time purchase price of $140 for an e-cig, plus a weeks worth of filters for no more than $30, would bring it’s yearly cost to around $1,400.
A pack a day smoker buying cigarettes at six dollars could expect to spend around 2,200.
“In the six weeks I’ve been using. I’ve saved about $230.”
But still the electronic choice may not be for everyone. Take Joseph Burgess for instance, who tried it for his first time alongside his friend Justin Kroger.
“You have to really pull on it to feel it,” says Burgess, who says he would not pay $140 for one.
Kroger, though goes back to it being a mind thing. “It’s kind of like the oral fixation thing. It’s kind of like having something there, and if it’s better for you, you might as well do it.”

RICHMOND — The Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that it plans to regulate smokeless electronic cigarettes as tobacco products and won’t try to regulate them under stricter rules for drug-delivery devices.
The federal agency said in a letter to stakeholders that it intends to propose rule changes to treat e-cigarettes the same as traditional cigarettes and other tobacco products.
The news is considered a victory for makers and distributors of the devices, which continue to gain popularity worldwide.
E-cigarettes are plastic and metal devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution in a disposable cartridge, creating vapor that the “smoker’’ inhales. A tiny light on the tip even glows like a tobacco cigarette.
Users and distributors say e-cigarettes address both the nicotine addiction and the behavioral aspects of smoking — the holding of the cigarette, the puffing, seeing the smoke come out, and the hand motion — without the more than 4,000 chemicals found in cigarettes.
First marketed overseas in 2002, e-cigarettes didn’t become easily available in the United States until late 2006. Now, the industry has grown from the thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide, with tens of thousands new e-smokers every week.
No timeline has been set on the proposed rule changes.
The FDA said e-cigarettes could still be regulated as drugs or drug-delivery devices if they are “marketed for therapeutic purposes,’’ — for example, as a stop-smoking aid.
Craig Weiss, president of Sottera Inc., the Arizona-based company involved in the lawsuit that led to the FDA’s decision, said he was “very happy’’ with the agency’s decision.
Jason Healy, president of e-cigarette maker Blu Cigs, also praised the decision. Once the FDA’s rules covering e-cigarettes are in place, he said, they will help in “weeding out the shady companies.’’
Some e-cigarette makers have claimed that the products will help smokers quit using traditional cigarettes, while other manufacturers have tried to steer clear of the issue.
Nearly 46 million Americans smoke cigarettes. About 40 percent try to quit each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But unlike nicotine patches or gums, e-smokes have operated in a legal gray area.
The FDA lost a court case last year after trying to treat e-cigarettes as drug-delivery devices, rather than tobacco products. A federal appeals court ruled that electronic cigarettes should be regulated as tobacco products rather than as drug-delivery devices, which must satisfy more stringent requirements such as expensive clinical trials to prove they are safe and effective. The FDA had until yesterday to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The agency issued warning letters last year to several makers of e-cigarettes and their components, saying the companies’ health claims and manufacturing practices broke the law.
The FDA has said its tests found that the liquid in some electronic cigarettes contained toxins besides nicotine — which is toxic in large doses — as well as carcinogens that occur naturally in tobacco.
By Michael Felberbaum, Boston.com