Unlike smoking a joint or using a bong, marijuana vaping does not use a flame. Instead vaping technology uses convection and conduction to heat marijuana at a lower temperature than smoking and turn it into a vapor for consumers to inhale.

Conduction heating requires that a substance, like marijuana, gets heated through direct contact with a heat source. Think of conduction heat the same way you’d make scrambled eggs in the morning. You heat your favorite frying pan and the eggs in the pan are cooked.

When using a conduction vaporizer to consume marijuana, the heat source is usually made of ceramic material or some time of metal. The material is usually heated using some kind of electricity. The majority of marijuana vaporizers use conduction technology, but there are some that also use convection heat.

In differentiation to conduction marijuana vaporizers, convection vaporizers don’t use direct heat. In other words, with convection, the heated material (the ceramic material or metal showcased above) would never make contact with the marijuana flower or concentrate. Instead, the convection vaporizer heats air inside a chamber with marijuana, producing a vapor that a consumer can inhale. Instead of making scrambled eggs in a frying pan using direct heat, you’re roasting a chicken in an oven with hot air. While they take longer to heat up, convection vaporizers present less risk of burning the marijuana while someone is consuming it.