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Comment by f311a

11 hours ago

I think you overestimate how much vape companies care about safety. When there is no liquid left, you just vape smoke from burning cotton (it tastes like burned plastic) on half of these devices. There are checks for this, but they are not that good.

I'm sure most don't care more than regulations require them to care (including making tradeoffs in terms of risks of getting caught, and the chance of actual enforcement). But that doesn't change the fact that it is a safety-critical device. It produces something that interfaces directly with sensitive tissues.

I talked to someone who worked on developing vapes and they spent much, if not most, of their engineering on safety-related issues. They may be an outlier. The reason I remember is because I was surprised how dangerous these devices really are if you get things wrong.

As a software engineer with some hardware experience, I would never use a vape. It strikes me as way too risky. Much for the reason you point out: the companies probably don't care more than they are forced to by regulations.