Puffco and Pax brought weed to CES 2019

Getting higher tech in Las Vegas.

Justin Jaffe Managing editor

Justin Jaffe is the Managing Editor for CNET Money. He has more than 20 years of experience publishing books, articles and research on finance and technology for Wired, IDC and others. He is the coauthor of Uninvested (Random House, 2015), which reveals how financial services companies take advantage of customers -- and how to protect yourself. He graduated from Skidmore College with a B.A. in English Literature, spent 10 years in San Francisco and now lives in Portland, Maine.

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Justin Jaffe

Jan. 8, 2019 11:29 a.m. PT

2 min read

Puffco's Peak base has created a standardized hardware platform for glass artists.
Justin Jaffe/CNET

After making a splash at its inaugural appearance in 2018, Puffco is back at CES this year, promoting the burgeoning community of glass artists and bong makers that's sprung up around its elegant "smart rig" for consuming cannabis concentrate. The company says that there are now more than 1,000 different compatible glass accessories available from third-party sellers.

The company's Peak base, which starts at $380 (roughly converting to £300, AU$530), offers a handful of features that you won't find in your standard glass-blown apparatus. Anxious that the temperature won't be hot enough when it's your turn to take a hit? Puffco says the Peak's intelligent temperature calibration ensures that everyone will get baked equitably.

Read: The highs and lows of weed vaporizers

CEO Roger Volodarsky told me that the company does not make any revenue from sales of the third-party attachments. He has plans to open up a glass studio and bring artists in house, however, in an effort to develop "a middle of the road solution between them and us, something more artistic than what we do and more scalable than what they do."

Pax's growing portfolio of vaping tech.
Justin Jaffe/CNET

Perhaps the most well-known vaporizer company, Pax, was also at CES, showing off its lineup of hardware and its mobile app. The app, which works on both iOS and Android devices, lets you set the temperature for every puff -- which can impact dosage, an important consideration for people using the device medicinally. In addition to giving you control over vapor and flavor output, the app can also digitally lock the device to prevent it from being used by unauthorized parties.

Though he wouldn't provide specifics about new products planned for later this year, Pax CEO Bharat Vasan affirmed that the company's forthcoming hardware and software will support its mission to bring quality, transparency and predictability to every vaping session.