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Crafty Vaporizer Review

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Crafty is one of the latest portable vaporizers by the makers of the Volcano — and aims to be the second strongest. Should you get Crafty or upgrade to the Mighty?


Crafty is a small portable vape with an industrial look — people might mistake it for a small car or motorcycle part, not unlike the odd looking Volcano. (Throughout this Crafty vaporizer review you’ll see many references Storz & Bickel, the famous makers of the legendary Volcano vaporizer.)

The Volcano has long been the king of vaporizers, ever since Storz & Bickel started making them in 2001. These Germans obviously know quality, and they had set my expectations high going into this. They make straight-forward design that’s useful, not just attractive. The knobs and switches on the Volcano and Digit are impressively built and easy to use.

Holding Crafty in your hand feels fairly solid — its industrial-grade plastic is a good shape and feels like a well-made electronic device.

An App for That

Crafty allows you to control its temperature from an app installed on any Bluetooth-enabled smartphone. You can also customize the pre-set temps and boost temperature for certain strains and situations.

Tweak custom settings via the Crafty smartphone app (iOS and Android) but only if you want to. I find at least 370°F for most Indica cannabis strains seem to reduce inflammation more than lower temps.

How to Use Crafty

  1. Twist mouth piece

    Twist mouth piece and pull up.

  2. Pull the mouth piece off

    Pull the mouth piece off to reveal the convection bowl.

  3. Spend the time on a fine grind. The finer the grind the better the vape session.

  4. Fill the bowl using the special orange plastic loader that comes with Crafty. I was sceptical at first, but quickly found it useful for loading without spilling into the cracks. It’s a decent storage container for ground herb, too.

  5. Perfect every time. I like when tools are useful. Nice touch by the Germans, per usual.

  6. Press the power button. Crafty vibrates when it turns on. It also vibrates when turning off and reaching a set temperature. In my timed experiments, warm-up time (to 370°F temp) took 1 minute 45 seconds; that’s almost 40 seconds slower than Mighty. Boost (set to +27°F) took 20 seconds.

  7. Inhale slowly but you’ll notice right away the air flow is nice and open compared to most other portables. Some portables require suction like a thick smoothie or milkshake—not this.

  8. My session is over after 2 minutes and the bowl looks mostly toasted. I didn’t even stir! That’s the sign of a good quality heating element that evenly distributes the bowl temperature.

  9. Well-vaporized my friends.

How it Rated: 96%

If you’re a regular smoker looking for a medical-grade portable in the smallest package, meet your pocket’s new best friend.

You could waste a lot of money on sub $200 vaporizers that break after a year of regular use, especially portables. Granted, $280 is a lot for a portable, but this is also the most powerful portable in the smallest package. So you pay a little extra for the smaller size at the cost of battery life.

One-button for on/off/boost feels simple and intuitive after a short time. Micro-USB charging is convenient and easy to find cables for. The default temp is 356°F (boost +27°F) but you can easily change them both with the smartphone app using Bluetooth.

The design is industrial and bold, not exactly something that flies under the radar, but you can hold this in one hand and conceal it pretty well inside a long-sleeved sweat shirt. The mouth piece fits snug in the base. And unlike Mighty, Crafty will stand upright on a flat surface.

I wouldn’t recommend dropping it, since it has some electronics inside, but overall the durability of this is something I come to expect with all of Storz & Bickel’s products.

1) Unscrew the mouthpiece and load the bowl. 2) Push the on button on Crafty and wait about 90 seconds for warm up. 3) Medicate.

The twist-off top makes it super fast and easy to load the bowl. The included herb loader helps a lot, but you could also use a small tube to quickly load your herbs without much fuss.

Unmatched for a portable. Pax and Arizer Solo have long held the top spots for hardest hitting portable but Crafty and Mighty are setting a new high bar for vapor quality in portables.

Turn upside-down and the bowl empties with a light tap. Sometimes you’ll need to use the brush that’s included. It’s a nice wooden brush with soft bristles, another small but thoughtful detail of quality.

You could argue some small amount of vapor is lost waiting for warm-up, but I won’t. Some vaporizers work better with a smaller load, but that’s easily fixed by adding the oil pad to fill the space.

Regular use requires regular cleaning. Spend time cleaning the mouth piece parts in ISO alcohol according to the manual.

Clean-Up

  1. Clean-up is light duty. Quickly brush mouthpiece screen and bowl to dust any crumbs off. And don’t forget routine maintenance inside the mouthpiece with alcohol.

The Downsides

Like many of the high-end vaporizers, if you’re not a regular user, save your money and get a Pax, Solo or Magic Flight Launch Box instead. Customizing Crafty requires a smartphone app, but using it does not. And like just about any portable electronic device, the battery life could be better.

What’s in the Box?

The Stats

The Bottom Line

Crafty is a solid choice if you want power in a small package. Only Mighty is more powerful while not nearly as portable. Crafty is also the easiest portable to use of any we’ve tested. The airflow is great and inhaling requires minimal effort, so you can relax and concentrate on medicating. At $280, Crafty isn’t for the novice smoker, but if you want desktop-grade power in your pocket, then you get what you pay for.

You made it to the end—I appreciate that! I worked hard to make my Crafty vaporizer review the best on the internet by making it useful through careful research, taking helpful photos and lots of personal hands-on testing over months of regular medical marijuana use. If you like my work, consider buying from my referral link so I can keep this site going. VapeWorld has top-notch online customer service and I’ve recommended shopping with them for years. Plus they are an authorized dealer for Storz & Bickel so you get a legit warranty.


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