Your vape wants to know how old you are

Based on tests, the companies behind Ike Tech claim that this process has a 100 percent success rate in age verification, which somewhat suggests that the technology is infallible. “The FDA told us this was the holy grail technology they were looking for,” Wang says. “That’s literally what they said when we met them.” The FDA did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

But Glantz is not at all convinced that these protections will work.

“The FDA is just showing its pro-industry bias,” Glantz says. “If I were running the FDA, I would prevent these devices from having any Bluetooth capability at all. There are so many ways it could go south. Every technology fix has a workaround.”

The verification features will be tied to just one person, so when the vape is on, that person can share a puff with anyone nearby without verifying their age. At this point, Wang says it’s a matter of personal responsibility.

“You really have to rely on that person’s responsibility,” Wang says. “If it’s someone 21 or older, that’s fine of course, but if you really want to hand it over to someone who’s underage, you’re really irresponsible.”

Wang says the goal is to implement additional features into the verification process, such as geofencing, that would force an e-cigarette to stop while it is near a school or on a plane. In the future, the plan is to license this biometric verification technology to other e-cigarette companies. The technology may also grow to include fingerprint readers and expand to other product categories; Wang suggests that weapons with a long history of age verification features don’t work well.

Steam ware

The time frame for when Ike Tech might actually be in the world — and how much it will cost when added to vape cartridges — remains murky. Wang says there are already partnerships with two nicotine companies, but he did not say what partnerships would be established or when they would be established. “In 2026, there will be a clear indication of when our solution will be approved and how many more brands will license our technology.”

He posits that Wang’s ideal version of e-cigarettes would be a safe and clean way to inhale nicotine.

“In the industry, we have a saying: ‘Nicotine has never killed a single person,’” Wang says. “By and large, e-cigarettes are a safer way to consume nicotine.”

Glantz rejects this idea by bringing up practices like “smoking terrain,” where nicotine companies track how smokers puff the product differently, then control the amount of nicotine dispensed at one time to maximize the potential for addiction.

It also addresses the fundamental problem that e-cigarettes and vaping are absolutely cleaner than traditional cigarettes. While the problem with cheap cigarettes and vapors may be due to other chemicals, nicotine itself is not a harmless substance.

“You can’t make a healthy e-cigarette; it’s impossible,” Glantz says. “It’s true that nicotine is not a carcinogen, but it has all kinds of harmful effects on your heart and blood vessels. Nicotine damages your nervous system.”

In order for nicotine to be absorbed as vapor, it must be reduced into ultrafine particles. That’s what heat does, and these particles can have all kinds of harmful health effects.

“There are all these other very serious effects that no one really thinks about,” Glantz says. “Even if the age verification thing works, it’s still not worth it.”