HANU LABS
Rarely does a vaporizer please both in function and aesthetics. Some try and some succeed at achieving this (Beboe is a great example) but more often than not, vaporizers end up as JUUL-esque, long and cylindrical devices. In this brave new world of health and wellness combining with the cannabis industry, the image of a cigarette-style device in one’s mouth can be a bit gauche.
With that in mind, Hanu Labs, a new vaporizer and material pod creator out of San Francisco, has just released the Stone ($70 USD), one of the most elegant vaporizers a person can get.
THE HANU STONE
With a case made of a gorgeous zinc alloy and a blue ring light that glows softly with each pull, the Stone makes the beautiful moment of inhaling that much more special and relaxing. The Stone uses a larger than average battery for ample smoking time (our test unit lasted many days on one charge), and uses the absolute latest ceramic heating tech — no fiddling with heat settings as the Stone is pre-set to its optimum, lower smoking temperature, providing an exemplary flavor profile and smooth as silk inhale/exhale. The Stone has a lovely weight to it as well, which adds to the plush experience. Its oblong shape, which takes a couple of minutes to get used to, eventually feels totally natural in your hand. Its magnetic topper, which hides the Stone’s proprietary pods (which at the moment are not appropriate for third-party modification) work exceedingly well and fit seamlessly onto the device — you would never even know it was there. The pods are only ever filled with primo extracts and are made of majority recyclable materials; Hanu Labs is working with some of the best and brightest THC and CBD producers of the moment to fill their pods, like Butter Brand, Rosette Wellness and Eel River Organics.
“Most consumption tools are long and skinny, mimicking the form factor of a cigarette,” says Hanu Labs CEO Seibo Shen, best known in the cannabis world for inventing the highly lauded VapeXhale Cloud EVO desktop vaporizer. “So we wanted to shift the paradigm of how people viewed these devices. We consider ourselves in the health and wellness space too, so we understood many people’s hesitation when it comes to the optics of vaping. The Stone is great for people who are open to vaping and cannabis use, but are wary of what vaping looks like in public.”
Expansion plans are in the works for Hanu Labs, but for now, the Stone is “paramount” says Shen. As for the inspiration behind the Stone’s intriguing shape? “We designed the Stone to look like a smooth, asymmetrical, riverbed rock as a response to tech being so symmetrical these days,” says Shen. “It feels like most modern technology is highly symmetrical, from TVs and phones to speakers and tablets, everything is always uniform. So we designed something that pays homage to the natural aspects of the cannabis plant, something that is perfect in its imperfection.”
After spending some time with the Hanu Labs Stone as an East Coast user, I can safely say that it is a fantastic conversation starter that pulls looks from everyone in Brooklyn — it truly looks like an otherworldly pebble pulled from a fantasy brook. The CBD pod which was included with my tester unit was also delicious and refreshing, and the Stone has become my go-to vape during work and after-work hours.
