Arizer Solo 2

Almost everything the Solo 2 collects ends up in one place: the glass aroma tube. Your material never touches the device itself, so resin builds on the inside walls of the 90mm and 110mm stems and around the glass screen moulded into the loading end, slowly choking an airpath our review already found on the restrictive side. The heater well below only picks up crumbs that fall past the rim of the tube.

1. Clear the tube before it cools. Knock the spent load out of the stem at the end of a session and blow the tube through. Resin that has set grips the glass far harder, and the smell carries into your next bowl.

2. Soak the glass in isopropyl. Arizer's manual calls for roughly two hours in isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, then a hot water rinse, repeated if the tubes are still not clear. Both aroma tubes, the glass aroma dish and the silicone stem caps go in together. Wait for hot glass to come down to room temperature before it meets water, because the manual is explicit that abrupt temperature swings crack borosilicate. Dry the tubes fully before loading them again.

3. Leave the metal screens out. Each Solo 2 tube has its own glass screen at the loading end, and Arizer's position is that the four stainless steel filter screens in the box are optional and make vapor harsher. If you do use one, soak it alongside the glass or simply fit a fresh one.

4. Wipe the heater well, never flood it. Hold the unit upside down and run a barely damp alcohol swab around the inside of the well and its recessed heat jets. Lift stubborn specks with a wooden pick rather than anything abrasive. Nothing liquid should be poured into the well or the body: the ceramic element and the sealed battery sit directly underneath.

5. Burn off before the next session. With the well dry, run the Solo 2 at a high setting until the auto shut-off timer ends the cycle, and repeat until no alcohol smell remains.

6. Watch the fit and the battery. A clean tube that suddenly will not seat usually means a cold unit rather than a dirty one, so set the display to 200°C, let it warm through, then try the tube again. Wash the PVC travel tubes as well, since they hold preloaded stems. The battery is not user replaceable, takes about three hours on the barrel charger, and Arizer asks that you avoid storing it full or flat for more than a month.

The Solo 2 excels as a session vaporizer with its extended battery life and precise temperature control. Its all-glass vapor path makes it one of the easiest vaporizers to clean and ranks it among the best vaporizers for flavor chasers, while the convection-dominant heating preserves flavor exceptionally well. The Solo 2 is also compatible with water pipes via adapters.

With a long-running internal battery and pass-through charging, the Solo 2 is built for long sessions and makes an excellent choice for outdoor adventures. It's been succeeded by the Solo 3 and refreshed as the Solo 2 Max, but remains a great value. Learn about optimal temperatures and explore our beginner's guide.